Amitava Kumar on Books That Shaped Him—And Why Reading Should Hurt a Little

The Hindu

3 days ago

Published : Jul 06, 2025 10:16 IST - 8 MINS READ
Amitava Kumar is the author of several works of nonfiction including Husband of a Fanatic, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, A Matter of Rats, and four novels, including Immigrant, Montana, whichwas on the best of the year lists at The New Yorker, The New York Times, and former US President Barack Obama's list of favourite books of 2018, and A Time Outside This Time. Kumar's latest, My Beloved Life (2024), was praised by James Wood as 'beautiful, truthful fiction'. Three volumes of his diaries and drawings were published by HarperCollins India. His work, often exploring migration, identity, and global issues, has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's, Guernica, and The Nation. Kumar was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016, a Cullman Center Fellowship at the New York Public Library (2023-24), and residencies from Yaddo, MacDowell, the Lannan Foundation, and the Hawthornden Foundation. He is professor of English at Vassar College, where he holds the Helen D. Lockwood Chair.
Kumar has written with grace and style about the complexities of identity and migration in his novels, essays, and reportage. With keen observation and deep curiosity, his work across genres reflects a lifelong love of books that have shaped both his craft and life. In this new column for Frontline on books that have shaped different writers, public intellectuals, activists, etc., he spoke about the authors and books that left a lasting impression on him—from his school days in Patna to his college years in Delhi, and later when he moved to the US for further studies. He also shares his favourite books, the ones he gifts to family and friends, and books he often revisits for inspiration.
How will you define your relationship with books and reading? How have your reading tastes evolved over the years as you got older?
I wish I had more time to read. When my students at the college where I teach ask me if they should pursue higher education, I'm in two minds: on the one hand, there are fewer jobs for English PhDs, but, on the other hand, you read so much when you are a student. I only became a real reader when I was doing my PhD. I had asked my dissertation director how much should I read, and he had replied, 'You should read till your eyes bleed.'
Tell us about your earliest reading memory from childhood that made an impression? Was it a book in English, or Hindi?
I must have been 12 or 13. I had gone early to a cinema hall in Patna to buy tickets for my sisters and others. I got the tickets and then opened the book The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham. I had recently borrowed it from the British Library in Patna, which is now gone. I was surprised that I understood what I was reading and that it gave me pleasure. This was a late start but it was a real introduction to the pleasures of reading.
Any particular book or story from your childhood years that holds a special place in your heart?
You know, textbooks are often unimaginative, boring things. And they are anathema to any notion of delight that reading affords. And we have mastered this fatal art in India. Many bookshops, including in my hometown Patna, offer mostly textbooks for sale. It is a disease caused by commerce.
But my own experience with textbooks was different in one crucial respect. When I came to Delhi from Bihar for my higher secondary, my English textbook had the writings of Maugham whom I have mentioned before, but also Khushwant Singh, George Orwell, Dom Moraes, S. Radhakrishnan, Nissim Ezekiel, Edward Thomas. Those textbooks have a special place in my heart.
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Any book or author(s) that profoundly influenced you as a young man while studying in a college in New Delhi?
I was staying in the Hindu College hostel when pursuing my MA. I didn't have a room of my own and a friend very kindly let me sleep on his floor. On his desk he had among his books to help him with his civil services exams, a copy of V.S. Naipaul's Finding the Centre. My friend wasn't literary; I have no idea how he came to acquire that book. There are two narratives in it and the first one is about Naipaul's literary beginnings and his discovery of the vocation of writing. It was an education to read that account and I have always cherished it.
Book or books that made you want to become a writer?
Well, the book I just mentioned to you is certainly a part of that self-fashioning. So much of Naipaul's work is problematic in its judgments but because he is always dramatising the process of writing, he becomes very attractive to anyone who wants to pursue writing.
Any particular books or authors you find yourself returning to often, and why?
I have always been fascinated with the ways in which J.M. Coetzee examines the workings of power and shame in his books. I'm thinking of Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace. I like the intellectual probing that he does in his other books too. In recent years, I have been drawn to Annie Ernaux's books. I like her for her intelligence and clarity. Also, her books are short!
A book that is your comfort read, on your bedside, that you often revisit for inspiration or pleasure?
I think reading is good when it disturbs you—which is the opposite of comfort. I'm lucky to have several friends who are writers. When I pick up their books, I feel I'm once again in conversation with them. It is no different from when I'm sitting with them, sharing a meal or having drinks. For that purpose, over the past few months, I have re-read Teju Cole's Tremor and Open City, and Zadie Smith's Feel Free and Embassy of Cambodia.
Any book or books that you often give away as a gift to family members or close friends?
I don't give the same book to people—even though I was intrigued by a woman who once told me that she gave men she was intimate with Roland Barthes's A Lover's Discourse. In recent months, I have gifted my son books by Colson Whitehead and Ta-Nehisi Coates and my daughter, who is an English major, books by Sheila Heti, Sigrid Nunez, Claire Messud and Rachel Kushner.
Are there some books or authors you discovered later in life that made a deep impression on you?
As it happens, one of my editors at Granta, Thomas Meaney, has written about a fascist writer named Curzio Malaparte. I read the piece and was fired up by Meaney's vivid prose but I was also faced by the question—why had I never known about this writer?
I really feel that so much of what I have read has come late in my life. And there is so much that I have not read. During COVID, thanks to Yiyun Li, I read War and Peace. And Moby Dick. In both these writers I loved the way in which fiction gave way to essays.
What are you currently reading? Any recent book written by an Indian author—in fiction, non-fiction, or poetry—that you would highly recommend?
Later this month, I have to teach a writing workshop at the New York Public Library for schoolteachers. For that, I'm reading Reality Hunger by David Shields and the novella So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. I really enjoyed Sakina's Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag. Two books by younger Indian writers I liked were Neha Dixit's The Many Lives of Syeda X and Saharu Kannanari's Chronicle of an Hour and a Half.
Your go-to Indian classic? One that you would recommend everyone should read?
I have always liked Pankaj Mishra's Butter Chicken in Ludhiana. I saw him in London recently and he was kind enough to give a copy of that book to my son. In the hotel room that night, I re-read the opening pages. So funny, so sharp.
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Can you name a few lesser-known books by Indian authors in any genre you wish more people would discover and read?
Had it not been for the wretched IPL [Indian Premier League], so many talented cricketers would not get their moment in the spotlight. I think the same applies to writing. A few are chosen and the rest toil in the shadows. If you look at the numbers, so much mindless verbiage dominates the market. Literary fiction in India still awaits discovery, especially in languages other than English.
Name a few books that have changed or influenced your understanding of contemporary India and your place in it?
Over the past few years, I have liked reading Snigdha Poonam's Dreamers, Mansi Choksi's The Newlyweds, and Arundhati Roy's My Seditious Heart.
Any book(s) that best captures the spirit of your home city?
The books by Siddharth Chowdhury, starting with Patna Roughcut, have moments that are deeply authentic and they pierce my heart.
You are hosting a literary dinner party and you can invite only three Indian writers, authors, poets, both living or dead. Who would you like to invite, and why?
Next week, I'm having dinner with two writer friends, Kiran Desai and Sabrina Dhawan. We are going to have fun. Who else could I invite to make it even more enjoyable? I have met Vikram Seth but not for any length of time. I think he would be smart and hilarious. Could you find out if he is free on Sunday at 7:30 pm?
Majid Maqbool is an independent journalist and writer based in Kashmir. Bookmarks is a fortnightly column where writers reflect on the books that shaped their ideas, work, and ways of seeing the world.