Nirad C. Chaudhuri was born in Kishoreganj, then in the Mymensingh district of East Bengal (now in Bangladesh). He was educated in Kishorganj and Calcutta, where he attended Scottish Church College, Calcutta with honours in History. He topped the University of Calcutta merit list standing First Class First. However in his M.A. exams, at the same university, he did not appear for all of his exam papers, and thus did not get his M.A. degree. He was a productive and prolific writer till the very end; publishing his last work at the age of 99. His masterpiece, 'The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian', published in 1951, put him on the short list of great Indian English writers. He lived by his genteel squirearchical standards till he breathed his last. In 1992, he was honoured by the Queen of England with the title of Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE). He published a sequel to his autobiography, entitled 'Thy Hand, Great Anarch!', in 1988. He died in Oxford, England two months short of his 102nd birthday in 1999.

He wrote the following books:

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
A Passage to England
Clive of India (biography)
To Live or Not to Live
Max Muller (biography)
The Continent of Circe
The East is East and West is West
From the Archives of a Centenarian
Thy Hand, Great Anarch!
Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse