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Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar

Articles by Amitava Kumar

Essay: Shiva Naipaul’s notebook

Author Shiva Naipaul photographed in Australia on May 25, 1984. (Stuart William MacGladrie/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)

Updated on May 23, 2022 11:33 IST

Excerpt: The Lovers by Amitava Kumar

Screen print of a couple, 1928.

Updated on Jul 1, 2017 02:53 IST

I testify that

Updated on May 14, 2016 14:47 IST

What is the charm of novels about ordinary life – where nothing happens?

Lives less ordinary: Vivek Shanbhag’s Ghachar Ghochar belongs to the genre described as “books in which nothing happens”. Stoner by John Williams, about an unremarkable life, is one of the most moving stories I have read

Updated on Apr 2, 2016 13:39 IST

The anti-national

A shared humanity: Stories like We Have Arrived in Amritsar show that violence doesn’t discriminate. But that is a problem. Because our humanity isn’t as universal as we often assume it is. Which explains why I like Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. It presents a starker picture.

Updated on Mar 5, 2016 15:28 IST

Found in translation

The writer as rebel: One cannot conceive of the existence of Subimal Misra’s writing without the Naxalbari uprising. In Misra’s stories, translated from Bengali, images of poverty and protest jostle for space with piquant critiques of middle-class pretensions and sexual hypocrisy.

Updated on Feb 13, 2016 16:27 IST

RK Narayan and more: The flavour of small towns in our novels

The frontrunners : Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August challenged the staidness of colonial English; a few years later, Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy spoke in a voice that had all the transparency of a Hindustani novel.

Updated on Jan 3, 2016 04:24 IST

Write what you know: tell someone else’s story

Updated on Dec 12, 2015 18:41 IST

Literature transcends time. Here’s looking at old writing in new contexts

Updated on Nov 29, 2015 06:14 IST

A few good tales of cities

Updated on Oct 3, 2015 15:11 IST

Love in the time of bigotry

Updated on Apr 14, 2017 02:59 IST

August and us

Updated on Aug 8, 2015 13:12 IST

What is it, dear heart?

Updated on Jul 11, 2015 14:12 IST

A prose man ponders over poetry

Updated on Jun 29, 2015 12:39 IST

Introducing The Bookist, Amitava Kumar's new column

Updated on May 3, 2015 06:27 IST

Sea of poppycock

HT Image

Updated on Feb 16, 2012 16:31 IST

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