Makarand R. Paranjape (born 31 August 1960) is an Indian novelist, poet, author of Body Offering, a former director at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, and former professor of English at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

Early life and education

Makarand R. Paranjape was born in 1960 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He was educated at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bangalore followed by a B.A. (Hons.) in English at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, in 1980. Thereafter, he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from where he received his M.A. in English Literature and, subsequently, a PhD, in 1985, on the topic Mysticism in Indian English Poetry.

Career

Makarand Paranjape had started his career in 1980 as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and returned to India in 1986 to join the University of Hyderabad, first as lecturer and then reader. In 1994, he joined the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi as an associate professor, and between 1999 and 2018, he served as professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

IIAS

Paranjape was appointed as Director of IIAS in August 2018. In August 2020, charges of irregularities filed against him by another office-bearer, leading to a spat with the chairman and the vice-chairman at the institution. Paranjape offered a rebuttal to his critics through an interview with The Wire in April 2021. However, it was later reported that he had violated the MoA (memorandum of association) of the institute as its Director and that it was not any clash with other specific individual heads at the institution.

Works and reception

In his coffee-table book of poems published in January 2022 as Identity's Last Secret, Paranjape discussed how he "came out of a difficult relationship." In 2013, Makarand R. Paranjape published a novel called Body Offering. The novel is a tale of a middle-aged man's extra-marital affair with a woman 25 years younger than him. The Sunday Guardian dubbed the book as one "that walked in the long shadow cast" by Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabakov's 1955 novel Lolita.

Personal life

In 1987, Paranjape married Sarina, a graduate student at UIUC. In 2006, he married Devaki Singh, daughter of Arun Singh. They divorced in 2014. He is now married to Gayatri Iyer.

Honours