• Vikram Seth's "Two Lives"
  U.S. Book Tour, 2005

Remaining dates:

Nov. 17 Boston Harvard Bookstore 6:30 pm

Nov. 19 Miami Miami Book Fair

Already done:

Nov. 7:
Worldwide web-based event -
SAJA Webinar - Vikram takes your questions via e-mail.
Nov. 7: Seattle
Nov. 8: San Francisco
Nov. 9:
San Francisco
Nov. 9:
San Francisco
Nov. 10:
Denver
Nov. 11: Madison, WI
Nov. 13: Chicago
Nov. 14: Washington, D.C.
Nov. 15:
New York
Nov. 16:
SAJA & Asia Society

Info for those seeking to review Seth's new book or to interview him

Publicist contact: Jane Beirn
Jane.Beirn [at] HarperCollins.com

Two Lives by Vikram Seth
Amazon link

“Wonderfully composed And unutterably tender... I cannot remember ever being quite so moved by a memoir... Vikram Seth’s achievement has exceeded all possible expecations.” —Simon Winchester

Vikram Seth's epic family novel, A Suitable Boy, was an international publishing sensation that won him millions of readers and favorable comparisons with Tolstoy (Washington Post Book World). In TWO LIVES (HarperCollins; October 25, 2005; $27.95), this gifted writer returns to matters of family, this time with an eloquent dual biography of a beloved uncle and aunt, whose extraordinary, intertwined stories of cultural diaspora traverse some of the most tumultuous events of the twentieth century — from India at the end of the Raj to Germany before and during the war, to Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, and Britain in the 1970s.

Seth first met this interracial couple when he came to London as a prep school student. Young Vikram knew little about his proper yet affectionate Indian uncle and his more reserved German aunt, but they welcomed him into their home and, in time, almost adopted him as their own. Years later, after Henny died, Vikram decided to write this book about their unconventional lives, and he conducted interviews with the elderly Shanti. But much remained shadowy about the circumspect Henny until an invaluable cache of letters, unknown even to Shanti, was found in a forgotten trunk in their attic. This secret correspondence, much of it written to friends in Berlin after the war, allowed Vikram to flesh out the details of this singular story.

Shanti Behari Seth, Vikram's maternal great uncle, left India in his early twenties to study dentistry in Berlin. With little knowledge of German, and knowing no one, he arrived in the city at the time when Hitler was rising power. Eventually, he boarded with the Caros, a cultured Jewish family, and he became a part of the intimate circle of the two daughters, Lola and Henny — though it had been Henny who initially told her mother not to rent to the “black man .” He qualified as a dentist, but Nazi restrictions against foreigners prevented Shanti from practicing his profession, so he moved to Britain to continue his education and find work. Later, as Nazi storm clouds gathered, Henny was able to obtain an exit visa, and it was Shanti—the one person she knew in England-- who met her at London's Victoria Station.

Once the war began, Shanti enlisted and was sent with the medical corps to the Sudan, Syria, and Italy. He lost his right arm during an enemy mortar attack, a potentially disastrous occurrence that threatened his future as a dentist. Henny, who had left her mother and sister in Berlin, lost all communication with them in 1943. Unbeknownst to her, they had been transported to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, where they met their deaths. Only after the war, as detailed in her correspondence, would she learn the dark truth about their final days.

When he returned to England, Shanti was fitted with an artificial arm. Later, despite his handicap, he set up a practice as a dentist. He and Henny became inseparable friends, though they did not marry until 1951, when they were in their forties. They remained childless.

For Seth, the exploration of Shanti and Henny's lives opens up into a wider story of life in Europe during and after the Second World War. It is a story of hardship, deprivation, sacrifice and sadness, but also of friendship and hope. Seth's discoveries, most notably Henny's long hidden letters, provide a vivid, emotional portrait of the horrors and betrayals in Germany under the Nazis and after. By reconstructing his uncle and aunt's life stories, together and apart, this eloquent writer underscores, too, the essential power of friendship and family in helping ordinary people navigate the vicissitudes of history.

Told with an unusual structure that combines historical narrative with letters, interviews, and fragments of Seth's own memoirs, TWO LIVES is a heartfelt and truly original work. This emotionally arresting memorial to these two previously uncelebrated and extraordinary lives is another literary tour de force from one of the most innovative writers of our time.

# # #

TWO LIVES
By Vikram Seth
Publication Date: October 25, 2005
HarperCollinsPublishers
ISBN: 0060599669
Hardcover/$27.95/512 pages

[Go back to SAJA's Vikram Seth page.]

Report on SAJA Webinar: A Conversation with Vikram Seth
By Sindya Narayanaswamy

Sindya Narayanaswamy is a freelance reporter currently living in
Bangalore, India. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie
Mellon University. Her e-mail: sindya [at] gmail.com
Website: www.bhanoo.com

[ Listen to the archived conversation - when you go to that link, please register and then choose the Real Audio of Windows Media Player on the following page ]

Nov. 7, 2005: Renowned author Vikram Seth was interviewed today by SAJA on a world-wide live webcast. Sreenath Sreenivasan, co-founder of SAJA and Aseem Chabbra, SAJA board member, interviewed Seth from New York City; Seth spoke from his hotel room in Seattle, Washington, where he is kicking
off the US tour of his latest book, "Two Lives."

"Two Lives," Seth explained, is a double biography of sorts about his
great-uncle Shanti and his German-Jewish wife, great-aunt Henny. The
fascinating lives of each of these characters Seth said, "form the
twin cores" of the book. In the story, Seth himself plays a central
character. As a 17-year-old, Seth moved to London to study and lived
with Shanti and Henny for several years.

Seth also read a short excerpt from the beginning of the book, which
details his journey as a teenager to his aunt and uncle's London home,
where his uncle was a dentist. After reading the excerpt, he said, "I
was smiling when I was reading it. In some particular niche of one's
mind, one is always sort of 18 or 19."

A flurry of questions came through e-mail from listeners who were
tuned in. One listener asked whether Seth, who has lived in England,
the US, and China, "considers himself Indian." Seth replied without
hesitation that he will always be Indian, despite his globetrotting.
"I do think of Delhi as my home," he said.

"Two Lives" was first launched in India on October 20, 2005, his mother's
75th birthday. Seth will be visiting 10 US cities this month to
promote the book.

Other highlights from the webinar:

• If there was an English word for "dhai jeevan" which means two and a
half lives in Hindi, Seth said he may have titled his new book so,
since in addition to Shanti and Henny, he himself plays an important
role in the story.
• Seth discussed one of his role models, the author Pushkin, whom he
admires for his courage to write in "many different genres."
• One listener inquired how and where Seth works. The author replied
that he prefers to work in quiet, clean spaces but admitted that he is
very untidy.
• Seth confessed that while he is "tolerably computer savvy on the
programming side," but as far as e-mail is concerned, he only checks it
"once in six months or so."
• Seth says that the "Two Lives" tour is progressing well but that it
is taking its toll on him. He joked that fortunately, he was able to
do the SAJA webinar interview, "lying on my bed with a stack of
pillows behind me and a cup of coffee to my side.