Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, including Friend of My Youth, as well as three books of essays, two of poems, and a collection of short stories. He has been awarded the Commonwealth Literature Prize, the Betty Trask award, the Encore Prize, the LA Times Book Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the English Association, and was a judge of the Man Booker International Prize.