You ask a politician a question, like, why they ran in an election, and you'll hear, I assume, something about wanting to… — Amitava Kumar Community Copy Share Image
I didn't know V. S. Naipaul very well, and to a large extent, my acquaintance with him was limited to meetings at… — Amitava Kumar Festivals Copy Share Image
My past makes me an insider, but my profession makes me an outsider. A writer always stands outside to report on reality. — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
I thought I'd be the first to introduce herbal tea to Patna. White tea, ginger tea, rooibos, camomile. No one touched it.… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
In the early 1990s, my relatives in Patna, even those who had no interest in reading or writing, wanted Parker fountain pens. — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Governance in India comes in the iron-clad armour of bureaucracy. Anyone in uniform considers it his or her right that we regard… — Amitava Kumar Bureaucracy Copy Share Image
Indian writers in English are rank individualists. Even among the progressives, there is a strain of anti-leftism, or at least a suspicion… — Amitava Kumar 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
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
I haven't reported in grand detail on rituals of American life, road journeys or malls or the death of steel-manufacturing towns. I… — Amitava Kumar Alienation Copy Share Image
The recurring question that anyone from Bihar gets is whether Patna has improved. I'm not interested in answering that question. — Amitava Kumar Bihar Copy Share Image
I have to tell you, when I hear the song 'Jiya ho Bihar ke Lala,' I want to throw the history books… — Amitava Kumar Bollywood Copy Share Image
Muslim anger has, of course, been stoked by America's war in Iraq and by Israel's brutal policies toward Palestine and Lebanon. — Amitava Kumar America 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 Copy Share Image
I like to write about real people, real crimes. But what has increasingly come to interest me, and also appear to me… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
The radio stations will happily recycle a badly worded statement by a politician all day but will steer clear of broadcasting more… — Amitava Kumar Day Copy Share Image
I grew up in India during the 1960s and '70s in a meat-eating Hindu family. Only my mother and my grandparents were… — Amitava Kumar Family Copy Share Image
My own personal conviction is that if I were writing without thinking about how images or how journalism is creating a world… — Amitava Kumar Faith Copy Share Image
Such is the impurity of our enterprise, as writers or as critics, that even in the act of proclaiming our freedom from… — Amitava Kumar Authenticity 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 Copy Share Image
In 1997, Alain de Botton published his book 'How Proust Can Change Your Life.' I was charmed by it. I remember using… — Amitava Kumar Books Copy Share Image
For me to say that all novels in English written by Indians are all alike would be a bit like saying that… — Amitava Kumar Copy Share Image
Ideally, I'd like to write poetry for public performances and prose for a different, more contemplative kind of consumption. — Amitava Kumar Consumption 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
