->Nguyeningpulitzers at 04:19, 19 October 2021

2021-10-19T04:19:34Z

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{{short description|Indian writer and journalist (born 1963)}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2019}}
{{Infobox person
|name = Amitava Kumar
|image = Amitava Kumar.png
|caption = Kumar speaking at the Asian American Writers Workshop in 2011.
|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1963|3|17}}
|birth_place = [[Arrah]], [[Bihar]], India
|alma_mater = [[Delhi University]]<br />[[Syracuse University]]<br />[[University of Minnesota]]
|occupation = Writer, journalist, and Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at [[Vassar College]]
}}
'''Amitava Kumar''' (born 17 March 1963) is an [[India]]n writer and journalist who is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at [[Vassar College]].<ref name="Vassar College Department of English Web site"/>

==Early life==
Kumar was born in the city of [[Arrah]] in the Indian state of [[Bihar]] on 17 March 1963. He grew up close to his birthplace in [[Patna]], also in Bihar.<ref name="amitavakumar1"/> There he spent his formative years at [[St. Michael's High School, Patna|St Michael's High School]]. In India, Kumar earned a bachelor's degree in [[political science]] from [[Hindu College, University of Delhi|Hindu College]], [[Delhi University]] in 1984. He holds two master's degrees in [[Linguistics]] and Literature from [[Delhi University]] (1986) and [[Syracuse University]] (1988) respectively. In 1993, he received his doctoral degree from the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the [[University of Minnesota]]. He lives with his family in [[Poughkeepsie, New York|Poughkeepsie]], New York.

==Work==

===Overview===
Kumar is the author of ''Husband of a Fanatic'' (The New Press, 2005 and Penguin-India, 2004), ''Bombay-London-New York'' (Routledge and Penguin-India, 2002), ''Passport Photos'' (University of California Press and Penguin-India, 2000), the book of poems ''No Tears for the N.R.I.'' (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1996), the novel ''Home Products'' (Picador-India, 2007 and as ''Nobody Does the Right Thing'' in 2009).

His [https://www.awpwriter.org/community_calendar/user_view/7107/kumar_amitava prize-winning] book is ''A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb: A Writer’s Report on the Global War on Terror'' (Duke University Press, 2010; and as ''Evidence of Suspicion'', 2009<ref>{{cite news|last=Pandita|first=Rahul|title=Innocence Lost|url=http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/books/innocence-lost|accessdate=27 January 2012|newspaper=Open|date=30 January 2010}}</ref>). In his review, [[Dwight Garner (critic)]] at the ''New York Times'' called it a "perceptive and soulful – if at times academic – meditation on the global war on terror and its cultural and human repercussions."<ref name="Dwight Garner on Kumar"/> It was also awarded the Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the Asian American Literary Awards.

''Husband of a Fanatic'' was an "Editors' Choice" book at the ''New York Times'';<ref name="amitavakumar1"/> ''Bombay-London-New York'' was on the list of "Books of the Year" in ''New Statesman'' (UK);<ref name="New Statesman Web Site"/> and ''Passport Photos'' won an "Outstanding Book of the Year" award from the Myers Program for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. His novel ''Home Products'' was short-listed for India's premier literary prize, the [[Vodafone Crossword Book Award]].<ref name="Business Standard Article"/>

Kumar was the scriptwriter for two documentary films: ''Dirty Laundry'' – about the national-racial politics of Indian South Africans – and [[IMDbTitle:0326026|''Pure Chutney'']] – about the descendants of indentured Indian labourers in Trinidad.

His academic writing and literary criticism has appeared in several journals, including ''[[Critical Inquiry]]'', ''[[Critical Quarterly]]'', ''[[College Literature]]'', ''[[Race and Class]]'', ''[[American Quarterly]]'', ''[[Rethinking Marxism]]'', ''[[Minnesota Review]]'', ''[[Journal of Advanced Composition]]'', ''[[Amerasia Journal]]'' and ''[[Modern Fiction Studies]]''.<ref name="Amitava Kumar – About"/>

As a journalist, Kumar has regularly authored articles for newspapers and magazines across the world such as ''[[New Statesman]]'', ''[[The Nation]]'', ''[[The Caravan]]'', ''[[The Indian Express]]'' and ''[[The Hindu]]''. In 2008, on [[Al Jazeera]]'s ''Riz Khan Show'', Kumar was interviewed on the use of terror threats by governments to advance their own political agendas; the interview aired on the [[Al Jazeera English]] Network.<ref>{{cite news|last=Khan|first=Rizwan|title=Politics of terror threats|url=http://aljazeera.co.uk/programmes/rizkhan/2010/11/2010118143136946959.html|accessdate=27 January 2012|newspaper=Al Jazeera|date=9 November 2010}}</ref> In February 2011, Kumar interviewed Indian novelist [[Arundhati Roy]] for ''[[Guernica Magazine]]''.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kumar|first=Amitava|title=The Un-Victim|url=http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/2356/roy_2_15_11/|accessdate=27 January 2012|newspaper=Guernica|date=February 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111228040910/http://guernicamag.com/interviews/2356/roy_2_15_11/|archive-date=28 December 2011|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Kumar, [[Ruchir Joshi]], [[Jeet Thayil]] and [[Hari Kunzru]], were threatened with arrest for reading excerpts from [[Salman Rushdie]]'s ''[[The Satanic Verses]]'', which is [[The Satanic Verses controversy|banned in India]], at the 2012 [[Jaipur Literature Festival]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Salman-Rushdie-shadow-on-Jaipur-Literature-Festival-4-authors-who-read-from-The-Satanic-Verses-sent-packing/articleshow/11595228.cms|title= Salman Rushdie shadow on Jaipur Literature Festival: 4 authors who read from 'The Satanic Verses' sent packing|author1=Singh, Akhilesh Kumar |author2=Chowdhury, Shreya Roy |date= 23 January 2012|work=The Times of India |accessdate=23 January 2012}}</ref> In March 2013, Kumar collaborated with [[Teju Cole]] on a text-with-photographs entitled [http://www.guernicamag.com/art/whos-got-the-address/ "Who's Got the Address?"]

===Published works===

====Books====
* ''No Tears for the N.R.I.'', Writers Workshop, 1996, {{ISBN|978-8171898930}}, a book of poems
* ''Passport Photos'', University of California Press, 2000, {{ISBN|978-0520218161}}, multi-genre book on immigration and postcoloniality
* ''Bombay–London–New York'', Routledge, 2002, {{ISBN|978-0415942102}}, literary memoir cum critical report on Indian fiction
* ''Husband of a Fanatic: A Personal Journey Through India, Pakistan, Love, and Hate'', The New Press, 2005, {{ISBN|978-1565849266}}, book on writing and religious violence
* ''Home Products'' (published in the U.S. under the title ''Nobody Does the Right Thing'' by [https://www.dukeupress.edu/Nobody-Does-the-Right-Thing/ Duke University Press], 2010, {{ISBN|978-0822346708}})
* ''A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm A Tiny Bomb'', Duke University Press Books, 2010, {{ISBN| 978-0822345626}}, a non-fiction book about the war on terror, and the literary as well as artistic responses to it.
* ''A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna'', Duke University Press Books, 2014, {{ISBN|978-0822357049}}
* ''Lunch with a Bigot: The Writer in the World'', Duke University Press Books, 2015, {{ISBN|978-0822359111}}
*''Immigrant, Montana'', Knopf, 2018, {{ISBN|978-0525520757}}, first published in India as ''The Lovers'', Aleph, 2017, {{ISBN|978-9386021007}}
*''Every Day I Write the Book: Notes on Style'', Duke University Press Books, 2020, {{ISBN|978-1478006275}}
*''A Time Outside This Time'', Penguin Random House, 2021, ISBN 9780593319017

====Edited works====
* ''Away: The Indian Writer as an Expatriate'', edited volume of essays.
* ''World Bank Literature'', edited volume of essays on global economies and literature.
* ''The Humour and the Pity'', edited volume of essays on [[V.S. Naipaul]].
* ''Poetics/Politics: Radical Aesthetics for the Classroom'', edited volume of essays on radical aesthetics and pedagogy.
* ''Class Issues: Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and the Public Sphere'', edited volume of essays on radical teaching.

====Forewords and introductory notes====
* ''[https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Terror-Daisy-Rockwell/dp/098474861X The Little Book of Terror]'', by [http://www.daisyrockwell.com Daisy Rockwell]
* ''Where the Wild Frontiers Are'', by [[Manan Ahmed]].
* "Duty-Free Indians", a Foreword to ''Suburban Sahibs: Three Immigrant Families and their Passage from India'' to America by [[S. Mitra Kalita]].
* "In Class", a Foreword to ''Class and Its Others'', edited by [[J.K. Gibson-Graham]].

===Awards and fellowships===
Most recently, Kumar has been awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] (2016). He has also been awarded the Lannan Foundation Marfa Residency, residency at [[Yaddo]], a Fiction Fellowship at the [[Norman Mailer Writers Colony]], a Barach Fellowship at the [[Wesleyan Writers Festival]], and has received awards from the [[South Asian Journalists Association]] for three consecutive years. In addition, he has been awarded research fellowships from the [[NEH]], [[Yale University]], [[Stony Brook University]], [[Dartmouth College]], and [[University of California-Riverside]].<ref name="Amitava Kumar – About1"/> ''A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb'' was also judged the Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the Asian American Literary Awards.

==External links==
* [http://www.amitavakumar.com/ Official website]
* [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/books/review/020DEBELL.html?ex=1141189200&en=9481d3246a81ef17&ei=5070/ ''New York Times'' review of ''Husband of a Fanatic'']
* [http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=23885 Interview for the Wisconsin Book Festival, 2008]
* [http://jkneilson.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/amitava-kumar/ Interview on blogsite "Between the Lines"]
* [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113030874 Amitava Kumar's short story "Postmortem" on NPR]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100828202922/http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2010/aug/04/foreigner-carrying-crook-his-arm-tiny-bomb/ WYNC interview on ''The Leonard Lopate Show'', 2010]
* [http://www.wnyc.org/story/observations-amitava-kumar/ WNYC interview on the ''Brian Lehrer Show'', 2015]
* [http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/debate-over-pens-decision-honor-charlie-hebdo/ Amitava Kumar on the PEN-''Charlie Hebdo'' controversy]
* [http://www.full-stop.net/2014/10/21/interviews/bensandman/amitava-kumar/ Interview on Full Stop]

==References==
{{reflist|refs=

<ref name="Amitava Kumar – About">{{cite web|title=Amitava Kumar – About|url=http://www.amitavakumar.com/?page_id=159|accessdate=11 July 2011|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110527000316/http://www.amitavakumar.com/?page_id=159|archivedate=27 May 2011|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref>

<ref name="Amitava Kumar – About1">{{cite web|title=Amitava Kumar – About|url=http://www.amitavakumar.com/?page_id=159|accessdate=13 July 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="Business Standard Article">{{cite news|title=Business Standard Article|url=http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/the-crossword-shortlists/325602/|accessdate=9 July 2011|newspaper=Business Standard|date=10 June 2008}}</ref>

<ref name="Dwight Garner on Kumar">{{cite news|title=Dwight Garner on Kumar|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/books/06book.html|accessdate=9 July 2011|newspaper=The New York Times|date=5 August 2010}}</ref>

<ref name="New Statesman Web Site">{{cite web|title=New Statesman Web Site|url=http://www.newstatesman.com/200312010037|accessdate=9 July 2011}}</ref>

<ref name="Vassar College Department of English Web site">{{cite web|title=Vassar College Department of English Web site|url=http://english.vassar.edu/bios/amkumar.html|publisher=Vassar College|accessdate=9 July 2011| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110720110216/http://english.vassar.edu/bios/amkumar.html| archivedate= 20 July 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>

<ref name="amitavakumar1">{{cite web|title=Kumar's Official Web Site|url=http://www.amitavakumar.com/?page_id=159|accessdate=9 July 2011| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110527000316/http://www.amitavakumar.com/?page_id=159| archivedate= 27 May 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>
}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kumar, Amitava}}
[[Category:1963 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Hindu College, Delhi alumni]]
[[Category:Syracuse University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Vassar College faculty]]
[[Category:American male writers of Indian descent]]
[[Category:Modern School (New Delhi) alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Patna]]
[[Category:Indian social sciences writers]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian non-fiction writers]]

Amitava Kumar - Revision history

->Nguyeningpulitzers at 04:19, 19 October 2021