| RICHARD CRASTA -
An Author Bio
[A short biography of the author of
The Revised Kama Sutra, Beauty Queens, Children and the Death of
Sex, Impressing the Whites, The Unauthorized India,
One Little Indian, What We All Need,
The Killing of an Author, co-author of Fathers, Rebels and Dreamers and contributor to
Eaten By the Japanese]
Richard Crasta's life, which began
in Bangalore, India, was shaped by the Catholic nuns and
priests of Mangalore, and currently hovers around New
York, Bangalore, and various Southeast Asian cities (where
he has been working on two novels and two nonfiction
books), is an unusual chapter in the cockeyed,
multicultural saga that is Indian history.
Even though he was first thrown off
a bit by the New York Times writer who described his
widely published novel The Revised Kama Sutra as "ultimately an American novel, both in birth and scope," the subversive Indian-born novelist admits that
American novels (especially Saul Bellow's "Herzog"), shaped
his understanding of the modern novel, and that America,
where he has spent over twenty years of his adult life, and
was introduced to social satirists like Kurt Vonnegut and
Joseph Heller, must accept some of the blame (or credit, as the case may be) for making him what he is today.
HarperCollins India republished
his first novel in July 2010, and he recalls the dreamy and in retrospect, innocently
naive, dedication
of his 1998 American edition: "To America: the locus of most of the world's dreams, and the place where I began to call myself a writer: for allowing me to do so."
In this dedication, America finds itself in the exalted company of Mahatma Gandhi, Kurt Vonnegut, and
(perhaps to Bill Clinton's delight) the Yoni Goddess . . . (Bill
Clinton was sent a copy of the book, by the way.) |
Son of a World War II veteran and prisoner-of-war who survived a Japanese prison camp against great odds, Crasta had a strict, middleclass Catholic upbringing in Southwestern India (India being home to more Christians than
either Australia or Canada), often hungry and barefoot during one four-month period, spending much of his time in church praying for deliverance. (At various readings in America, readers have told him how much his Catholic childhood reminded him of theirs! )
Reading Time and Reader's Digest as a child, he daydreamed of America and of its exotic foods such as Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup and Swanson's TV dinners. A chance encounter with the books of Saul Bellow and
Somerset Maugham (and much later, Henry Miller), and a teenage observation that the heroines of Western movies took off more of their clothes more often and far more quickly than Indian heroines clinched his decision to escape his prudish homeland for the idealized freedom of America.
After obtaining a degree in Literature and Journalism at American University in Washington D.C., he worked for a New York literary agency and taught English at a New York college. He began his novel while taking courses at Columbia University. Provocatively and ironically titled
The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel of Colonialism and
Desire, it was first published by Viking Penguin India, and was
critically acclaimed and was even briefly a controversial sensation in the land of his birth. It was
then published by a prestigious British literary publisher,
Fourth Estate, and ended up being published in ten countries in
seven languages.
Having published five more books, Beauty Queens, Children and the Death of Sex, Impressing the Whites,
One Little Indian (since withdrawn),
What We All Need, and The Killing of an Author, and having co-authored
Fathers Rebels and Dreamers besides contributing a son's perspective to his father's memoir of being a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II,
Eaten By the Japanese, Richard Crasta is presently working on two novels and two nonfiction projects.
Richard Crasta is the father of three boys. Fatherhood is a theme that recurs in many
of his books, including The Killing of an
Author.
For a fuller view of Richard Crasta, please read the Composite Interview with the Author. |
