Amitava Kumar is the author of several works of nonfiction and four novels. His new novel is My Beloved Life. Kumar’s novel Immigrant, Montana was on the best of the year lists at The New Yorker, The New York Times, and President Obama’s list of favorite books of 2018. His last novel A Time Outside This Time was described by the New Yorker magazine as “a shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist.” Kumar’s nonfiction books include The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal; Every Day I Write the Book; A Matter of Rats; Lunch With a Bigot; A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm A Tiny Bomb; and, Husband of a Fanatic. Kumar’s work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, Harper’s, Guernica, The Nation, and several other publications. A collection of drawings and diary entries about the pandemic was recently published by HarperCollins India. Kumar has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and residencies from Yaddo, MacDowell, and the Lannan Foundation. Kumar is an English professor at Vassar College where he teaches classes that mainly deal with reportage; the essay-form, both in prose and film; cities; literature describing the global movement of goods and people; war; and memory-work. More at www.amitavakumar.com
SESSION INFO:
Saturday, October 5, 2:00pm at City Center Room 2A: Fiction: What Makes a Life? A conversation with Amitava Kumar
Books
About My Beloved Life
An absorbing, exceptionally moving novel that traces the arc of a man’s life, an ordinary life made exceptional by the fact that he has loved and has been loved in turn
Jadunath Kunwar’s beginnings are humble, even inauspicious. In 1935 in a village near George Orwell’s birthplace, Jadu’s mother, while pregnant with him, nearly dies from a cobra bite. When we see Jadu again, he is in college, meeting the Sherpa who first summited Everest and wondering what it means to be modern. As his life skates between the mythical and the mundane, and as changes big and small sweep across India, Jadu finds meaning in the most unexpected places. He befriends poets and politicians. He becomes a historian. And he has a daughter, Jugnu, a television journalist with a career in the United States—whose own story recasts the past in a new light. Piercing, fleet-footed, and undeniably resonant, here is a novel from a singularly gifted writer about how we tell stories and write history, how individuals play a counterpoint to big movements, how no single life is without consequence.
Praise for My Beloved Life
“An immersive, moving portrait that steadily gathers intensity, vividness, and surprise.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Kumar unfurls a majestic Indian family saga in successive bildungsroman narratives of a father and daughter . . . A stunning final chapter sheds new light on their stories . . . Kumar excels at blending mysticism and a refined cosmopolitan perspective . . . Readers will find much to savor.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“In “My Beloved Life,” a father is resurrected by his children, and an ordinary life transcends its station.--The New Yorker, book review by James Wood
About Every Day I Write the Book
Amitava Kumar's Every Day I Write the Book is for academic writers what Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Stephen King's On Writing are for creative writers. Alongside Kumar's interviews with an array of scholars whose distinct writing offers inspiring examples for students and academics alike, the book's pages are full of practical advice about everything from how to write criticism to making use of a kitchen timer. Communication, engagement, honesty: these are the aims and sources of good writing. Storytelling, attention to organization, solid work habits: these are its tools. Kumar's own voice is present in his essays about the writing process and in his perceptive and witty observations on the academic world. A writing manual as well as a manifesto, Every Day I Write the Book will interest and guide aspiring writers everywhere.
https://www.amazon.com/Every-Day-Write-Book-Notes/dp/1478006277