The Penguin Book of Indian Poets

About Jeet Thayil

Jeet Thayil was born into a Syrian Christian family in Kerala. As a boy he travelled through much of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia with his father TJS George a writer and editor. He worked as a journalist for twenty-one years in Bombay Bangalore Hong Kong and New York City. In 2005 he began to write fiction. The first instalment of his Bombay Trilogy Narcopolis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and became an unlikely bestseller. His book of poems These Errors Are Correct won the Sahitya Akademi Award (India's National Academy of Letters) and his musical collaborations include the opera Babur in London.