My review of Zia Haider Rahman’s “strange and brilliant” novel in the New York Times Book Review. An excerpt: Zafar’s narration shifts registers — “this fluctuation from crystal clarity of exposition to a barely restrained fury” — and folds into lengthy but fascinating digressions. Like the narrator of W. G. Sebald’s “The Rings of Saturn,”… Read more »
Posts Tagged: Amitava Kumar
Chronogram Profile
A piece on A Matter of Rats in the Hudson Valley magazine, Chronogram: A Matter of Rats was inspired by E. B. White’s 1949 essay Here Is New York, for which White traveled to Manhattan during a heat wave, staying at the Algonquin Hotel and going on daily foraging trips. Kumar followed his lead, visiting… Read more »
Away From Her
My mother passed away in Patna earlier this month. This eulogy, written on the night of her death, was published in the Indian Express: I am writing these words during a 14-hour flight from New York to Delhi. After landing in Delhi, I will catch another flight, this one to Patna. I am going to… Read more »
Mofussil Junction
A piece that I wrote on trains while traveling in a train. It appeared in Northeast Review: My son turned four the other day. Every night I read to him and sometimes we read together a picture book about trains. This is a book my son likes very much. The pictures show trains in bright… Read more »