Bøker av Amitava Kumar

&b>A non-fiction novel about lies and violence, ranging across Trump and Modi, the narrators childhood experience of communal violence in India and his wifes work as a psychologist.&/b>

Drawing as a way of keeping a diary, writing down thoughts in a journal as a way of maintaining a historical record - in watercolours and also in words. These were resources that Amitava Kumar had been using even before the pandemic arrived. But the task gained urgency just when he felt most isolated and afraid. The Blue Book is a writer's artistic response to our present world: one that has bestowed upon us countless deaths from a virus, a flood of fake news, but also love in the face of loss, travels through diverse landscapes, and - if we care to notice - visions of blazing beauty. From one of the acclaimed and accomplished authors of our time, this writer's journal is a panoramic portrait of the experience, both individual and collective, of the pandemic.

It is not only the past that lies in ruins in Patna, it is also the present. But that is not the only truth about the city that the author explores in this vivid, entertaining account of his hometown. We accompany him on journeys and memories through many Patnas, the myriad cities within the city the shabby reality of the present-day capital of Bihar, Pataliputra, the storied city of emperors, the dreamlike embodiment of the city in the minds and hearts of those who have escaped its confines. Full of fascinating observations and perspective, A Matter of Rats reveals a challenging and entertaining city which exerts a lasting pull on all those who drift into its orbit.

A writing manual as well as a manifesto, Every Day I Write the Book combines Amitava Kumar's practical writing advice with interviews with prominent writers, offering guidance and inspiration for academic writers at all levels.

Each heady affair brings new learning: about himself, and about his relationship to a country founded on immigration - a country that is now unsure of the migrant's place in the nation's fabric.

The twenty-six essays in Lunch With a Bigot are examples of how Amitava Kumar turns his observations of the world into words. A mix of memoir, reportage, thoughts on the craft of writing, and criticism, these essays tell broad stories of immigration, change, and a shift to a more globalized existence.

Part reportage and part protest, an inquiry into the cultural logic and global repercussions of the war on terror, with particular focus on the United States and India.

With tales of life in India and London and meditations on the form Indian fiction gives to the lives of those who read about it, this is a sweeping, passionate search to find one's own story.

A novel packed with telling details and anecdotes about life in contemporary India, set in the rural villages of Bihar and the metropolises of Bombay and Delhi.

Part memoir, part travelogue, A Matter of Rats is the acclaimed writer Amitava Kumar's account of Patna, one of the world's oldest cities, the capital of India's poorest province, and the author and Vassar professor's home town.

The Lovers is about a man in search of a love story. This man, our narrator, is Kailash-a new immigrant, eager to shine. His friends teasingly call him Kalashnikov and sometimes AK-47, even AK. In his account of his years at a university in New York, AK takes us through the bittersweet arc of youth and love. There is discovery and disappointment. There are the brilliant women, Jennifer and Nina and Cai Yan. There is the political texture of campus life and the charismatic professor overseeing these young men and women, Ehsaan Ali (modelled on the real-life Eqbal Ahmad). Manifest in AK's first years and first loves is the wild enthusiasm of youth, its idealism, chaotic desires and confusions.A decidedly modern novel that melds story and reportage, anecdote and annotation, picture and text, fragment and essay, The Lovers reminds us of the works of John Berger and Teju Cole. Funny, meditative and shot through with waves of longing, the book explores feelings of discomfort about cultural misunderstandings and the lack of clarity between men and women. At heart though, it is an investigation of love-'love despite, or in spite of; love beyond and across dividing lines'.

This volume, organized as a passport, combines theory, poetry, cultural criticism and photography to explore the complexities of the immigration experience, intervening in the impersonal language of the state.