Dr. Gautam Choubey is an academic, writer and the host of Sansad TV’s talk show on Indian literature—Likhawat. Born in 1986 in a Railway Colony in a village named Bhojudih (Jharkhand), Gautam earned his primary education from the local village school before moving to Bokaro Chinmaya Vidyalay for senior years. He completed his higher education from from the University of Delhi, earning his PhD from the English Department in 2018.
He inherited his love for books from his Nanaji Chandradhar Pandey ‘Kamal,’ a renowned Bhojpuri writer, and his mother Kanti Choubey, a voracious reader.
Gautam has translated prose fiction of Suryakant Tripathi Nirala (A Portrait of Love, Penguin), Andre Beitelle “लोकतंत्र और उसकी संस्थाएं, OUP” and has also co–translated Hindi bestseller Twelfth Fail (Harper Collins). His critically acclaimed translation of Pandey Kapil’s historical romance Phoolsunghi (Penguin) is the first ever translation of a Bhojpuri novel into English.
He is a bilingual columnist with bylines in TOI, Deccan Herald, Pioneer and Rashtriya Sahara, among others.
His Hindi debut Chakka Jaam, set against the JP Movement and the 1974 Railways Strike, moves from Rangoon to Bihar via Bengal, testing the tenacity of Devanand, whose worldview is framed by Bombay cinema, pulp fiction, and family history.