Published in Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Vol. 53 1-2, special issue « The Worlds of Bombay Poetry », eds. Anjali Nerlekar & Laetitia Zecchini, 2017. For the final published version of the interview in the journal see: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2017.1294648 Download citation Pages 255-263 “I had to construct lineages for myself”: An interview with Amit Chaudhuri Laetitia Zecchini Abstract In this interview, which took place on July 6, 2016, the distinguished novelist, poet and critic Amit Chaudhuri traces his early years in both Calcutta and Bombay/Mumbai and the influence upon his development of the two cities. He also traces his literary forebears, who include several “Bombay poets”, such as Nissim Ezekiel, Adil Jussawalla, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Arun Kolatkar. He discusses the creative interconnections between east and west – in particular the presence of American popular culture that was very much part of Bombay/Mumbai in the 1960s and 1970s. Amit Chaudhuri also reflects on the nature of the modern and on the respective achievements of Indian English-language poetry and fiction, although he also expresses his misgivings about commonly accepted “boundaries” between the two forms, and suggests how they, together with the visual arts, might be more closely intertwined than many critics imagine. The interview closes with reflections on the past and present of Bombay/Mumbai, which he sees as “now the most interesting Indian city”. Keywords: Bombay/Mumbai, Indian literature in English, Calcutta, Bengal, modernity, cosmopolitanism