Excerpted in Kenyon Review, “Paper”
On the “Book of the Year” list at the New Statesman (UK)
Watch a video of a section of Bombay-London-New York in the documentary film, Pure Chutney
“On an impulse, I decided to read Amitava Kumar’s Bombay, London, New York again. I read it in a hurry when it first came out in 2002, noting with pleasure that it was, among many other things, the first really good book on reading written by an Indian. Reading it this time, I discovered with excitement that it is not only still the best Indian book about how and why we read but also an original, riveting piece of non-fiction.” — Pradeep Sebastian, The Hindu
This is a work of luminous imagination and tenderness. Amitava Kumar is a startling story teller: that rare cultural critic who writes from and for the heart. When last did any academic so successfully harmonize a love of language with a passion for ideas? This book will surely establish Kumar as one of the most eloquent, searching public intellectuals of his generation. — Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of Dreambirds
…[a] wilful, engaging book on Indian fiction in English, where it is always clear that there is a relationship between literary journeys and those embarked on in real life, between the flow of words and the movement of people and things, and between the reader’s act of finding the literary centre and the writer’s task of illuminating the periphery. — Times LiterarySupplement
Bombay-London-New York is a riveting book. Kumar’s passion for his subject matter is infectious. But he is doing much more than simply providing illuminating insights into Indian cultural life in the West. He is showing a way forward for cultural criticism, with the critic as an insightful storyteller. It is the wave of the future. – Independent
This intriguing book illuminates both the writers examined and the act of writing as a means of re-creating the past. Highly recommended for literary collections and all large public and academic libraries. — LibraryJournal
“What a relief to read criticism of South Asian fiction that is immune to ‘the desperate grasping for authenticity that produces … the mistress of spices, the heat and dust, the sweating men and women in lisping saris, brought together in arranged marriages, yes … and the whole hullabaloo in the guava orchard.’” — Village Voice
[Kumar’s] literary criticism is effortless and illuminating…his analysis of the Indian underclass and social unrest is incisive. When Kumar is personal and honest he is most effective. His observations on Naipaul and Rushdie, in particular, are balanced and insightful. Kumar is clearly capable of great narrative. – Persimmon“…a contentious, illuminating travelogue into the heart of reading itself.” Nilanjana Roy, India Today