Samit Basu

Samit Basu (Bengali: সমিত বসু; born 14 December 1979) is an Indian novelist, graphic novelist and screenwriter whose body of work includes fantasy and superhero novels, children's books, graphic novels and short stories.

Basu is the author of The Simoqin Prophecies, The Manticore's Secret and The Unwaba Revelations, the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy, a fantasy trilogy published by Penguin Books, India, He gained worldwide presence with Turbulence, a superhero novel set in India, Pakistan and England, published by Titan Books internationally, and its sequel "Resistance". He is also the author of the "Adventures of Stoob" series of children's books set in Delhi, and Terror on the Titanic a YA novel.i. He currently lives and works in Delhi and Mumbai, India.

Biography

Born 14 December 1979 in a Bengali family, Basu grew up in Calcutta, where he studied at Don Bosco School, and later Presidency College, Kolkata, where he obtained a degree in Economics. He dropped out of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to write The Simoqin Prophecies and then went on to complete a course in broadcasting and documentary filmmaking at the University of Westminster, London.

Writing career

Basu had been well known in India since 2003, when he was in Outlook magazine's list of 16 Indian achievers under 25 along with such personalities as Konkona Sen Sharma and Shreya Ghoshal. In 2007, Basu was declared, along with other prominent young Indians such as Vidya Balan, one of India's most promising 'Emerging Indians' by a survey conducted by IMRB and The Week magazine, India.

The Simoqin Prophecies, Basu's first novel, was written when he was 22 and published when he was 23. The Simoqin Prophecies, written in English, has been published in Swedish by Ordbilder, and German (from Piper Verlag). The subsequent volumes in the trilogy, The Manticore's Secret and The Unwaba Revelations were released in 2005 and 2007 respectively. The GameWorld trilogy has been widely well reviewed and all three books have reached Indian best-seller lists. In 2010, Basu wrote a YA novel called Terror on the Titanic and the book that would eventually lead to his international breakthrough, Turbulence.

The UK publication of Turbulence in 2012 introduced Samit Basu to the West. Turbulence opened to a series of rave reviews. Wired said "Turbulence has it all… Solid writing, great character development, humor, personal loss, and excellent points to ponder in every chapter." IGN that started a campaign for a Hollywood adaptation of this superhero novel. It also won a Wired Geekdad Goldenbot Award^[1] and appeared at no.2 on the list of hot new Amazon Science Fiction titles on the week of its release. Superheronovels.com called it a contender for best superhero novel of all time. "Resistance", the sequel, was published in the UK and the US in 2013.

Since 2013, Basu has also written a series of children's books titled The Adventures of Stoob, whose protagonist is a middle-schooler in Delhi. Three books have been published so far in the series - Testing Times, A Difficult Stage and Mismatch Mayhem. All three have been illustrated by graphic artist Sunaina Coelho.

Basu is also a comics writer. His initial projects with Virgin Comics were Devi (#3-#10) and The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma based on the Panchatantra. Basu also co-wrote Untouchable, a graphic novel with X-Men and Lucifer writer Mike Carey and went on to write UnHoli, an episodic zombie comedy set in and around New Delhi. Virgin Comic's closure prevented the publication of other projects with filmmaker Terry Gilliam and pop group Duran Duran In 2013, Basu published Local Monsters, a comic/fantasy take about six immigrant monsters living in a house in Delhi, and contributed to 18 days, a Grant Morrison take on the Mahabharata. Basu is a columnist, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing on travel, film, books and pop culture. He also runs a blog and was one of the first wave of popular Indian bloggers.

Bibliography

Sources

• Samit Basu's website
• Samit Basu on Twitter
• Collected reviews of Basu's work
• Collected Samit Basu interviews and profiles
• Week-IMRB survey profile on Basu from the Emerging Indians award story.
• Profile in Outlook magazine, India from a list of 16 Indian achievers under 25 (2003)
• Story Behind Turbulence – Essay in Upcoming4.me (2013)

References

1. ↑ "New Superhero Novel Lets You Experience Turbulence". Wired.com. 25 September 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2014.