Sarnath Banerjee

Biography

Banerjee was born in Calcutta and lives and works in Delhi, India. He studied image and communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

His first novel, Corridor (2004), published by Penguin Books, India, was commissioned as a part of a fellowship awarded by the MacArthur Foundation, Chicago and widely marketed as India's first graphic novel. However, River of Stories, a graphic novel by Orijit Sen published in 1994, actually holds this honor. His second novel, The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers, was published in 2007.

Sarnath has also provided illustrations for novels by other authors. He designed the cover for Upamanyu Chatterjee's novel, Weight Loss.

He co-founded the comics publishing house Phantomville along with his friend Anindya Roy.

Gallery of Losers

Sarnath's project, the Gallery of losers, was on display on billboards across the six Olympic Host Boroughs in East London. According to him, he came across the idea in São Paulo, Brazil, where he met 1984 Olympics silver medalist Douglas Vierra who almost won the judo gold that year. During the meeting, he says Vierra threw him several times on the mat, an experience he recounted as being 'strangely liberating.'

The Frieze Foundation has said that the body of work "taps into a collective consciousness of sporting near misses - the people who almost made it - and aims to resonate with both local communities and visitors to the London games".

Themes

Sarnath's graphic works often center on everyday Indian experiences. Often anecdotal and autobiographical in nature, they are imbued with a rich, distinctive sense of humor. Banerjee describes himself as a recorder of a rapidly changing India. A theme that runs strongly in his work is the loss of architecture and history that comes with a developing country's reach for modernisation.