Rajat Chaudhuri has published
six books in two languages including fiction and translation. He selected and
edited The Best Asian Speculative Fiction
(2018) collection of stories and is an editor of a forthcoming Asia-Pacific
solar-punk anthology to be co-published by RIHN, Japan and World Weaver Press,
US. Chaudhuri’s climate change novel, The
Butterfly Effect (2018) is listed as one of `Fifty Must-Read Eco-disasters
in Fiction’ by Book Riot (US) and has been widely mentioned in national media
for its parallels with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rajat has won
a number of writing fellowships and international residency awards including
British Council administered Charles Wallace Fellowship (UK), Hawthornden
Fellowship (Scotland, UK), Ministry of Culture, Korea (ARKO)-INKO residency
award (South Korea), Villa Sarkia residency award (Finland, invited 2020) and
Sangam House (India) residency.
He has done
book readings, offered workshops, presented keynotes, panel talks,
presentations and other speaking assignments about climate change, better
futures, storytelling, climate change fiction (cli-fi), environmental science
fiction, pandemics health and environment among other issues in a variety of
venues including Museum of Science Fiction, Washington D.C., US, George
Washington University, US, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong
Kong, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, National Library of India, Osmania University,
Dongguk University, Seoul, Chichester university, UK and several other places.
He has published book reviews, essays, articles for The Telegraph, New Indian
Express, Outlook, American Book Review, Asian Review of Books, The Statesman,
Anandabazar Patrika (Bengali) and elsewhere.
As an environment activist
Chaudhuri has contributed to the UNDP Human Development Report besides writing
monographs and articles and he has been a climate advocate at the United
Nations, New York. He recently finished translating an anthology of Bengali
poetry and is currently putting finishing touches to a slipstream novel on
madness.