Neel Mukherjee has made it to the short list of the Man Booker prize for his novel The Lives of Others. I haven't read this, but his first novel Past Continuous, which was a joint winner of the Crossword award in 2008 with Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, had a central character who was gay.
Mukherjee is gay himself and while, understandably, he's wary of the gay novelist tag - as he explains in an interview with the Times of India which I'll link to below - this doesn't mean he doesn't support gay activism. As he explains in the same interview, he dedicated his Crossword prize to the Naaz Foundation, and the lawyers who were fighting the battle for equality. Two links and an extract: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/i-wanted-a-gay-protagonist-in-my-novel-neel-mukherjee/97962-40.html http://ibnlive.in.com/news/i-wanted-a-gay-protagonist-in-my-novel-neel-mukherjee/97962-40.html Soon 'gay novelist' will sound backward - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Soon-gay-novelist-will-sound-backward/articleshow/4820680.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Soon-gay-novelist-will-sound-backward/articleshow/4820680.cms Soon 'gay novelist' will sound backward - The Ti... http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Soon-gay-novelist-will-sound-backward/articleshow/4820680.cms It is a debut novel that is being described as "searing, savage and gut-wrenching''. View on timesofindia.indiatim... http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Soon-gay-novelist-will-sound-backward/articleshow/4820680.cms Preview by Yahoo Q. This is the first openly gay novel coming out of India. Also, you dedicated your award to the Naaz Foundation and its fight for gay rights. Please talk about that space. A. Is this really the first openly gay novel in India? Surely not! If you follow historians such as Saleem Kidwai, you'll find out that gay writing has been there for a very long time. As for the term `gay novel', while I don't dispute it at all, I find Ritwik's homosexuality of decidedly less importance than the book's other themes: mothers and sons, alienation, loneliness, outsiders, home and homelessness, exile. Yes, I dedicated my award to the Naaz Foundation and the nameless lawyers who have carried on the long, exhausting battle for equality. In that sense, it is not so much about `gay rights' as about equality. My position is that of Amartya Sen's, as outlined in that astonishing open letter he wrote in 2006 (or was it 2007?). And as a novelist who also happens to be gay, I think it's time for us to stand up and be counted. Besides, we don't use the terms `woman novelist' or `female novel' any more; hopefully, in the not too distant future the term `gay novel' or `gay novelist' will seem equally antiquated and backward.
