US lit honour for Amit Chaudhuri

Kolkata: Writer Amit Chaudhuri has been elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Members of the association ratified the election after his name was proposed by a number of scholars and professors from various universities in North America.

Honorary fellows are defined by the MLA’s constitution as “distinguished men and women of letters”. Chaudhuri joins the likes of Claudia Rankine, Milan Kundera, Adrienne Kennedy, Peter Handke, Amitav Ghosh, Louise Erdich and JM Coetzee in the honour roll of writers and poets.

Founded in 1883, the MLA provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and discuss trends in the academy.

Chaudhuri, who is professor of contemporary

literature

at the University of East Anglia and also teaches at Ashoka University as professor of creative writing, said he was pleasantly surprised by the honour. “I have relatively little connection with American academia, and so the news was a great surprise. It’s also a surprise to join such a distinguished list of past and present fellows, many of whom I greatly admire,” he said.