Listen to Episode 129 on the Maris Review
On writing fiction while surrounded by fake news:
Amitava Kumar: The idea of how the world comes into your mundane life, how to find an imprint of that on the page, I think that’s what novels are doing these days. My novel is an investigation into that feeling when the pandemic comes rushing in. Why write fiction when you’re surrounded by the fiction of fake news? In the process of writing the book I was struggling with this question, and I’m not sure I really have an answer for it. But I was trying to say, for example, one horror would be succeeded by another horror so quickly that I would forget what had happened on Tuesday. So I thought okay, why don’t I make my novel a record of what’s happening.
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