One day passes. Then another. A whole succession of days turning into months and years. How to mark our separate days? The places we have been. Our individual passions, our pain. Against the blurring of years, the clarity of a record. And even amidst crises, how to keep creativity alive?
Also, how to stop time?
After the first wave of Covid had passed, the lockdown was lifted and travel resumed in earnest. Amitava Kumar found himself in London with a group of American students on a study tour-in the midst of the Omicron wave. A year later, he was in India, in his native Motihari among other places. Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine and Rushdie was assaulted with a knife in upstate New York. Amitava kept a journal-to record the times he was living through and how he would like to remember them.
In these pages, through words and drawings, an acclaimed author and artist reveals how a writer observes the world around us-and the world inside us. The Yellow Book, like The Blue Book, shows us how we can put together not just a journal or a book, but also how we assemble a life; and, in our troubled times, why we must plant memories and continue to believe in spring.
"The Yellow Book is suffused with the enlightening vim of John Berger, the piercing sagacity of Peter Schjeldahl, and an abutting of time and place that few are capable of accomplishing so well." — The Telegraph
"... reaffirms how Kumar is at his finest when he is a record keeper of the quotidian." Indian Express
"Kumar’s book takes me back to reading. As I return to Kumar’s writing, I re-learn how to get the most out of living. This is an immersive experience. It makes the reader in me want to mine my own life in search of great writings and conversations.... Comforting and illuminating, The Yellow Book is a reader's guide to meaningful living." — Scroll
"[Kumar] reimagines a world in its entirety and tries to locate one’s place in it." The New Indian Express
Amitava interview, Platform Magazine
Amitava Kumar interview on Amit Varma's show The Seen and the Unseen
Amitava Kumar calls himself a failed artist?
Amitava Kumar interview at Kunzum Bookstore
Amitava Kumar interview at Indo Asian News Service
The Yellow Book in The Tribune
The Yellow Book in India Today
The Yellow Book in The Hindu