MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies MIT, Room 14E-303 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Telephone: 617-253-7894 FAX: 617-253-6910

Stephen Alter

Writer-in-Residence. Fiction Writing. 

Stephen Alter is the author of four novels and four books of narrative nonfiction, all of which are set in India, where he was born and raised. Educated at Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India and at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, he received a BA degree in history (1977) and an honorary MA in literature (1982). At present he is a Writer-in-Residence in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been teaching since 1995. Prior to this Stephen Alter worked for seven years at the American University in Cairo as Director of the Writing Program. During 1986-87 he was Writer-in-Residence at the East-West Center in Hawaii, where he participated in an inter-disciplinary study on "The Concept of Self in India, China and Japan." He returned to the East-West Center on a summer fellowship in 1989. His most recent public lectures and readings have been given at MIT, The Foreign Service Institute in Washington D.C., The Banff Centre for Mountain Culture in Banff, Canada, the South Asian Journalists Association in New York, and at the World Wildlife Fund for Nature in New Delhi. Though most of his work is fiction and narrative nonfiction, Stephen Alter has also written screenplays, feature articles and book reviews. In collaboration with Wimal Dissanayake, he edited The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories. His most recent book is Elephas Maximus: A Portrait of the Indian Elephant (Harcourt 2004). In support of this project he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 2002/2003.

Publications:

Narrative Nonfiction:

• Elephas Maximus: A Portrait of the Indian Elephant
  (Harcourt, 2004)
• Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage up the Ganges River to the Source of Hindu Culture (Harcourt, 2000, Penguin/India, 2001)
• Amritsar to Lahore: A Journey Across the India-Pakistan Border (UPenn Press, 1999, Penguin/India, 2000)
• All the Way to Heaven: An American Boyhood in the Himalayas (Henry Holt, 1997, Penguin/India 1998)

Novels:

• Neglected Lives (Farrar Straus & Giroux, Andre Deutsch, 1978)
• Silk and Steel (Farrar Straus & Giroux, Andre Deutsch, 1980)
• The Godchild (David & Charles, Andre Deutsch, 1987)
• Renuka (David & Charles, Andre Deutsch, 1989)

Edited Volumes:

• The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories ed. with Wimal Dissanayake (Penguin, 2nd ed. 2000)
• Post Colonial Discourse in South Asia guest editor (Alif: AUC, Cairo Egypt, 1998)
• Great Indian Hunting Stories (Penguin, 1988)

Critical Responses:

Elephas Maximus: A Portrait of the Indian Elephant

"A history more splendid than any maharaja's golden howdah."
Kirkus Reviews

"An elegant paean to the Indian elephant and a wake-up call for its protection."
Publisher's Weekly

"Alter has a light writing touch, aided and abetted by his obvious admiration for elephants and the Indian subcontinent. In his book, he spends almost as much time among people as among elephants, deftly blending Indian history and culture with current debates about animal conservation..."
Scott LaFee San Diego Union-Tribune

"Magical and fascinating..."
David Mehegan Boston Globe

"Stephen Alter's Elephas Maximum stands out...for its elegant prose, sensitive descriptions of landscape and its extensive research."
D.K. Lahiri-Choudhury The Telegraph, Calcutta

Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage up the Ganges River to the Source of Hindu Culture

"The sacred waters of Stephen Alter's travelogue flow through the gorges of northern India's Himalayan country where the Ganges River begins...Alter's prose is lucid and even paced... (his) erudition is a considerable draw, extending as it does beyond the region's mythology to its botany, geology and zoology as well as to the impact of road building damming and tourism."
Naomi Wax The New York Times Book Review.

"Sacred Waters is a lovely, tranquil account of a spiritual journey...Alter's fellow pilgrims are as diverse as those in The Canterbury Tales..."
Anita Mathias, Commonweal.

"Written in an endearing voice, Alter's account of his journeys to the four dhams, the principal sources of the Ganga, brings alive the texture of the rugged Garhwal terrain...The natural history of the Ganga watershed, the geology are described as spontaneously as the sharp sociological observation of the culture-in-transition...At another level, the book is an empathetic inner journey, a reversal of the conventional wisdom of treating the mountainscape as an adversary... Alter's book is a milestone in adventure writing and will lighten the path of many an armchair traveller." Namita Gokhale, India Today.

Amritsar to Lahore: A Journey Across The India-Pakistan Border

"Amritsar to Lahore weaves between acute description, historical and political analysis and Alter's personal memories, which have arisen from two generations of his family involvement with India... While not all readers will agree with his view that Partition was a "mistake", they will warm to a work which combines evocative detail with compelling reflection."
Ian Talbot, Times Literary Supplement.

"Interspersed in the delightfully readable travelogue are excerpts from books relevant to the theme of Partition, and dialogues with Indians and Pakistanis concerned with Indo-Pakistan relations... this book deserves to be on the must read list of Indians and Pakistanis."
Khushwant Singh, The Hindustan Times.

All The Way To Heaven: An American Boyhood in the Himalayas

"This is a beautifully written book about growing up between two cultures... Alter's attention to the nuances of adolescence of both his American and Indian schoolmates, along with his fine descriptions of the physical setting, make this book remarkably engaging and smooth reading."
Harold M. Otness Library Journal.

"One experiences a king of empathetic nostalgia in reading of Mr. Alter's memories. It does something to one's sense of the breadth of human experience to have his introduction to the last bands of missionaries to dwell within sight of his beloved mountains."
Richard Bernstein, The New York Times.

Renuka 

"In Renuka, Alter has drawn a remarkable portrait of a totally credible woman... This is his fourth novel set in India, and he captures exactly the love-hate attitudes of Westerners who spend time in the subcontinent... A rare achievement to use a simple framework so effectively."
Sarah Curtis, The Times Literary Supplement.

"Renuka is a most accomplished, utterly convincing study of two women of different backgrounds and contrasting temperaments... The book rises to a moving climax, followed by an adagio of 'lingering sadness' like the aftermath of a 'disturbing dream.' Renuka is by far (Alter's) best."
John Mellors, London magazine.

The Godchild

"Stephen Alter, an American who has spent almost all his life in India, is at his best when evoking the mystery and complexity of that country... (His) vision is both unsparingly realistic and compassionate. He is a sensitive observer with an unusual ability to see (a) foreign culture from the inside out, making its people alive and compelling to Western readers."
Edward Hower The New York Times Book Review.

Silk and Steel 

"Silk and Steel, like its predecessor, is beautifully composed and extremely entertaining... His ability to evoke locations stands out as the most visible, if not the most formidable aspect of his burgeoning talent... Alter's sense of place and his language take quiet but certain command over all." Alan Cheuse, Saturday Review.

Neglected Lives

"Neglected Lives is a short novel of unusual and exquisite quality... Mr. Alter has a rare narrative zest, a surging feeling for the physcial world, a strongly individual grasp of character, and an agreeable bite of wit."
The New Yorker.

"Paul Scott... Ruth Jhabvala... M.M. Kay.... Stephen Alter is by no means out of place in this company."
Daily Telegraph.