Joe Sacco’s excellent report from India, The Once and Future Riot, was published by Metropolitan Books in the US last year, but its publication in India has run into trouble. The book was to be distributed by Penguin India and in recent weeks, we have learned that the publishers have decided to withdraw it. Penguin India reportedly sent… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Criticism
Read Naipaul With Me
Join me in reading V.S. Naipaul’s The Enigma of Arrival. This is under the auspices of A Public Space. We start on March 23, 2026. The reading will stretch over 30 days; reading a daily average of 10-12 pages. My daily notes on the pages we are reading will be emailed to you if you… Read more »
Writer to Writer—with Teju Cole
Brick literary magazine has released the podcast conversation between Teju and me. This is a part of their Writer to Writer series.
A Lover’s Discourse
I was interviewed for Frontline magazine, for their new “Bookmarks” column. The interview has been published under the title “Reading is Good When It Disturbs You.” In the interview I had mentioned A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes and, after listening to Merve Emre’s podcast “The Critic and her Publics,” I have posted a Substack… Read more »
An Ordinary Life
Sometimes the book you write finds the right reader. Here is the great James Wood in the New Yorker magazine lavishing generous, insightful attention on my new novel, My Beloved Life. Excerpting a few lines from the essay: Above all, his new novel is always deeply human; the heart is everywhere in these pages. It… Read more »
Favorite Books of 2022
Rushdie, Again
A week has passed since the attack on Salman Rushdie. Today, I published a longer essay on Oprah Daily. Why use a still from The Far Pavilions here? Read on. In the opening paragraph of his memoir titled Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie writes about first receiving the call from a BBC reporter asking for a response… Read more »
Outlook Magazine
Read the interview here.
McNally Jackson Zoom Event
Every Day I Write the Book Register for this free McNally Jackson event on Zoom. A conversation on writing between Amitava Kumar and Hua Hsu, Thursday, May 21, 7 PM EST. From the McNally Jackson website: Topic Amitava Kumar (Every Day I Write the Book) In Conversation with Hua Hsu Description Amitava Kumar’s Every Day I… Read more »
On Our Grief
In the Indian Express, my article on our current grief. “The contagion has produced a new world, no doubt, but everything appears to be only a repetition of all that was there before.” More