Amitava Kumar

NEW!

Both from Duke University Press, 2010.

A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb: A Writer’s Report on the War on Terror

Nobody Does the Right Thing: A Novel (Also published as Home Products by Picador India)

A Foreigner... is reviewed by the New York Times. Read more

“A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb” carries in the crook of its own arm Mr. Kumar’s plaintive appeal. If we’re to bridge the perilous divide that separates us from those poor and unnamed people who resent us, we first need to see them, to look into their eyes. We need, Mr. Kumar writes, “to acknowledge that they exist.” This angry and artful book is a first step.

And

Publishers Weekly gives A Foreigner… a starred review:

A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb
Amitava Kumar, Duke Univ., $21.95 (232p) ISBN 978-0-8223-4578-7
Kumar’s searching and humane account of the global consequences of the U.S. “war on terror” gets behind the rhetoric and state public relations campaigns in a brisk but thoughtful narrative. Kumar covers intellectual and artistic responses to American domestic and foreign security policies, including the work of conceptual artist Hasan Elahi, who after being randomly interrogated by the FBI after 9/11, has taken to documenting and uploading to his Web site every move he makes. In his own reportage, Kumar (Husband of a Fanatic) focuses on two legal cases, in whose details, including his own interviews with the defendants, he astutely deconstructs the logic of what he sees as a burgeoning police state and the global order (or disorder) it encourages. The first is that of Hemant Lakhani, a boastful 70-year-old smalltime London clothier arrested in a sting operation delivering a sample shoulder-fired missile to an FBI informant. The other concerns Shahawar Matin Siraj, drawn into a bomb plot by undercover New York police. An arresting and heartrending work of public protest and valuable social analysis, this work contributes forcefully to a subtle, human-scaled accounting of 21st-century geopolitics. (Aug.)

Listen to Amitava Kumar discuss A Foreigner on the Leonard Lopate Show.

Listen to Amitava Kumar on PRI’s The World

More praise for A Foreigner:

“…an absolute must-read…” The Christian Science Monitor

“…brilliant…” Bookslut

“Kumar’s study (think Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side meets Coco Fusco’s protest art) reveals how deeply the figure of the “terrorist” has seeped into our imaginations by brilliantly synthesizing straight reportage—on the Mumbai blasts and the trials of two putative terrorists in New York—and contemporary conceptual art’s responses to ‘the war on terror.” PW Staff Picks 2010

“… A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb is a worthwhile read. Kumar’s perspective is one not often seen in American writings on similar subjects. That alone would recommend the book; the high quality of the writing should secure its place on any library shelf.” ForeWord

Read an excerpt from A Foreigner… published in Guernica, August 2010.

TO VISIT MY BLOG GO HERE. FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER.