Neel Mukherjee
(India, 1970) grew up and was educated in Calcutta, Oxford and Cambridge. His book The Lives of Others, about life in Calcutta, was nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize and highly praised in the international press. The novel, which will be released in Dutch translation during the festival, portrays a bourgeois Calcutta family. When one of the sons joins a radical political group, its already complicated relationships come into sharp focus. The ruling hierarchy of the family, three generations of which live under one roof, reflects the complex Indian caste sytem. Mukherjee's first novel, A Life Apart, is about an Indian man who moves from Calcutta to London to build a new life. Mukherjee is a critic for The Times and The Sunday Telegraph, and has written for The Daily Telegraph, The Observer, The New York Times and other papers.
Past events
Seven Deadly Sins
Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth: the festival asked seven authors to each choose one and write a fresh text about it. Tonight you’ll hear sinful stories with music by Dick van der Harst.
The Limits of Empathy
Does evil lurk in every relationship? Neel Mukherjee wrote The Lives of Others, a tale of missing bonds within a large family. Connie Palmen in Jij zegt het (Whatever You Say) gives a voice to poet Ted Hughes, whose wife, poetess Sylvia Plath, committed suicide after the limits of their love had been reached.
Past Evils, Present Problems. Winternachten lecture by Susan Neiman
How do nations deal with their problematic pasts? Susan Neiman finds links between processing the past and the attitude of European states toward current challenges, such as the refugee crisis. After the lecture, a debate on this subject will take place.
