India, March 20 -- When Bengali poet and novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay was writing his first novel, Atmaprakash (Self Revelation, 1964), he used a narrative technique he had learned from American Beat writer Jack Kerouac. "I don't have to go looking around for plots," Gangopadhyay recalls Kerouac telling him, in his autobiography Ardhek Jibon (Half a Life, 2000). "Before starting a novel, I try to recollect some of my experiences. What was I doing that month of that year? When I remember, I start writing from there. The writing progresses on its own."

Much of Kerouac's own writing was autobiographical. A few of Gangopadhyay's early novels also recounted his adventures with his poet and writer friends. This unexpected influence of avant-gar...