Authenticity does matter, but only as it serves the novel's more traditional literary demands: that the fault lines be drawn where the… — Amitava Kumar Authenticity Copy Share Image
In fiction, you don't invent the events. What is imaginative about it is the consciousness: how you think about the events and… — Amitava Kumar Consciousness Copy Share Image
Capitalism might everywhere be spreading havoc, but it is also triumphant everywhere. — Amitava Kumar Also Copy Share Image
A postcolonial writer who has often been credited with mixing the mundane with the magical, and history with fiction, is Salman Rushdie. — Amitava Kumar Fiction Copy Share Image
I don't think any writer is a friend to the reader if he or she is not funny. — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
'An Obedient Father' is perhaps the novel that, some might say, Arundhati Roy had wanted to write when she wrote 'The God… — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
Writers interest me for their style, their obsessions, the ways in which they approach the world. — Amitava Kumar Interest Copy Share Image
Hindi writing, as well as Hindi journalism, is a great gift to Indian writing. — Amitava Kumar Gift Copy Share Image
A writer can be subjective, even digressive, or introspective and certainly judgmental. This is a simplification, of course, but as a general… — Amitava Kumar General Copy Share Image
I like listening to Garrison Keillor's 'The Writer's Almanac' with my daughter. — Amitava Kumar Children Copy Share Image
Imagination makes us shape better stories, sure, but it also allows us to multiply possibilities. — Amitava Kumar Better Copy Share Image
When I close my eyes and think of a writer, I don't imagine him or her as someone who is sitting above… — Amitava Kumar Close Copy Share Image
Mistaken identity, of course, has been the province of much postcolonial fiction. An important feature of this writing is the manner in… — Amitava Kumar Failure Copy Share Image
Like every other self-respecting academic, I'm distrustful of self-help books. — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
I was seen as a traitor for marrying a Muslim - a Pakistani at that. — Amitava Kumar Islam Copy Share Image
Writing gives me the license to go, explore, and learn about the world. — Amitava Kumar About Copy Share Image
With non-fiction, there is the struggle to be accurate. With fiction, it is a bit different: the desire to let imagination take… — Amitava Kumar Desire Copy Share Image
A character takes shape in the act of writing. You start with something, and you add or subtract. — Amitava Kumar Character Copy Share Image
Why does the American cyberindustry have a thing for Indians? — Amitava Kumar American Copy Share Image
The border is a marketplace. The invisible hand of the powerful governs the crossings. — Amitava Kumar Borders Copy Share Image
I've immersed myself in reading more and more of American literature, but no editor has asked me to comment on Jonathan Franzen… — Amitava Kumar American Copy Share Image
I was pretty aimless as a youth, especially in Patna. I think reading saved me. — Amitava Kumar I think Copy Share Image
A long, negative review I wrote of Rushdie's novel 'Fury' earned me a rebuke from the writer: He told an administrator at… — Amitava Kumar College Copy Share Image
Long ago, when I was in higher secondary school in Delhi, I read an essay by George Orwell in which he said… — Amitava Kumar Everything Copy Share Image
