50 Amitava Kumar Quotes for You to Enjoy

Amitava Kumar

Indian Writer

Born: Mar 17, 1963

Me Think World Writer Writing You

Related authors: Aravind Adiga Bharati Mukherjee Munshi Premchand Neel Mukherjee Om Malik Pico Iyer Shakuntala Devi

To write what is not dead on the page, one has to be open to all kinds of disturbances and challenges and confusion. Amitava Kumar

Challenges Confusion Kinds Write Open Dead Page

The radio stations will happily recycle a badly worded statement by a politician all day but will steer clear of broadcasting more than once or twice a poem by Tomas Transtromer or Rita Dove. Amitava Kumar

Like every other self-respecting academic, I'm distrustful of self-help books. Amitava Kumar

Every Other Books Like Academic Self-Help

A wonderful innovation of the Occupy Wall Street movement was the use of the human microphone - the name given to the body of the audience repeating, amplifying, each statement made by the speaker. Amitava Kumar

I arrived in the U.S. for graduate study in literature in the fall of 1986. I was twenty-three. After a year, I began to paint, even though I had come to the U.S. intending to become a writer. Amitava Kumar

Become Year Fall Though Writer Had Study Come Arrived Began Intending Graduate After Literature Paint Even

In the poetry of immigrants, nostalgia is as common as confetti at parades or platitudes at political conventions. Amitava Kumar

Political Parades Immigrants Poetry Common Nostalgia Conventions Platitudes

I haven't reported in grand detail on rituals of American life, road journeys or malls or the death of steel-manufacturing towns. I think this is because I feel a degree of alienation that I cannot combat. Amitava Kumar

Life Death Degree Think Alienation Detail Rituals Road Combat Feel Journeys Towns Because Malls Reported American Cannot Grand American Life

It's so easy for folks to normalize their opinions, to engage in a groupthink that is damaging. Amitava Kumar

Easy Folks Opinions Engage Damaging

Most writers censor themselves in awful ways. I do, too. Amitava Kumar

Too Ways Writers Most Censor Themselves Awful

I grew up in India during the 1960s and '70s in a meat-eating Hindu family. Only my mother and my grandparents were vegetarians. The rest of us enjoyed eating - on special occasions - chicken or fish or mutton. Amitava Kumar

Family Mother Rest India Mutton Eating Only Occasions Hindu Fish Were Up Chicken Grew Us Grandparents Special Enjoyed

India's nuclear-test blasts have pretty much put to rest the myth of Indians being peace-loving Gandhians. Amitava Kumar

Rest Myth India Indians Pretty Blast Put Being Much

'An Obedient Father' is perhaps the novel that, some might say, Arundhati Roy had wanted to write when she wrote 'The God of Small Things.' Amitava Kumar

God Small Things Father Say Obedient Some Small Write Had Perhaps Wrote She Wanted Might Novel Things Roy

Novels describe what it means to be alive at a given moment. Amitava Kumar

Alive Given Means Moment Describe Novels

Even fake news tries to convince us of its reality, but it does so mostly by appealing to your preconceived notions, your shared biases, or your prejudice. How to do the opposite? To create a sense of the real and then challenge your biases. I think that is my favourite aspect of writing, and that is what I've tried to do in 'The Lovers.' Amitava Kumar

News Reality Writing Challenge Fake News Sense Think Tried Tries Favourite Shared Biases Mostly Does Fake How Real Opposite Preconceived Lovers Then Us Create Convince Prejudice Aspect Your Notions Appealing Even

When we were getting married the Hindu way in Arrah, we had an old guest who asked my wife what her 'good name' was. I think she'd heard that I had married a Muslim. When my wife said, 'Mona Ahmed Ali,' the lady looked at me and exclaimed, 'Oh, so you've married a terrorist.' Amitava Kumar

Good Me You Old Wife Think Ali Guest Way Muslim Married Had Name Looked She Hindu Said Terrorist Were Heard Getting Oh Getting Married Lady Asked Who Mona Her

The recurring question that anyone from Bihar gets is whether Patna has improved. I'm not interested in answering that question. Amitava Kumar

Recurring Answering Question Improved Gets Anyone Not Interested Whether Interested

I like to write about real people, real crimes. But what has increasingly come to interest me, and also appear to me as a challenge, is the idea of doing strange things with what is real. Take what is real and make it more or less real. Amitava Kumar

Me Strange People Challenge Increasingly Crimes About More More Or Less Write Take Idea Come Like Also Make Real Doing Real People Interest Strange Things Less Appear Things

I have a couple of thick files about things that have gone wrong between people; I ought to write about them in the manner of a thriller. It would finally convince me that I was a real writer. Amitava Kumar

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