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Biography (World Poets and Poetry)

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Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta, India, in 1952, the oldest of three
children. His father, Prem Seth, was a shoe company executive and his
mother, Laila Seth, served as a judge. Seth left India to study at Oxford
University in England, earning degrees in philosophy, economics, and
politics. He enrolled at Stanford University in California, intending to
complete a Ph.D. in economics. While at Stanford, Seth was a Wallace
Stegner Fellow in creative writing. He wrote the poems collected
in Mappings during this time. From 1980 to 1982, Seth was in China for two
years of travel and economic research. While there, he studied classical
Chinese poetry and language at Nanjing University. He wrote an account of
a hitchhiking journey to India during this time, published as From Heaven
Lake.