Amitava Kumar

1 month ago | amitavakumar.substack.com | Amitava Kumar

The writer Lynn Freed has died. I met her at Yaddo many years ago: she was a neighbor of mine in the West House during a summer that I was working on a novel. We had a several exchanges in the years since, and in each message I see myself trying to be funny about whatever situation both of us were complaining about. Lynn loved to complain. Her complaints were intelligent and quickly sought complexity.

1 month ago | amitavakumar.substack.com | Amitava Kumar

A journalist I knew in college in Delhi, a man from my home-town, has been posting pictures proclaiming Indian advances in war. Another acquaintance, a journalist from Pakistan, has been similarly diligent, uploading reports of Pakistani strikes against India. These are otherwise sane voices.

1 month ago | amitavakumar.substack.com | Amitava Kumar

Here’s the first short short-story I have for you about boys. When I was working on my book Husband of a Fanatic, and traveling in Kashmir, several people told me about a story by Akhtar Mohiuddin’s entitled “Terrorist.” The story’s popularity might be explained by the fact that it outlines a situation where the loss of innocence is represented not through the expected assault but, instead, by the seductive power of violence.

1 month ago | amitavakumar.substack.com | Amitava Kumar

I am on my way back from the PEN World Voices Festival in NYC where I participated yesterday on a panel that foregrounded “how changing political environments reflect the shifting nature of personhood.” Yesterday was also World Press Freedom Day and last evening I attending the closing section of the festival titled “Under Siege: The Perils of Journalism in an Age of State Repression.” As it happens, I’m teaching a journalism course this semester—the question of state repression has surfaced...

2 months ago | amitavakumar.substack.com | Amitava Kumar

When reading the news from Pahalgam, I thought of Amit’s poem and texted him, asking him whether there can be poetry after a massacre. Then I made the above drawing. I had asked Amit this question because I had also seen reports this morning that called for even greater violence. Arnab Goswami, the news-anchor who has turned rabid nationalism into a rag for polishing the shoes of the powerful, even gave it a name “final solution.” (Hmmm. What does that term remind you of?