LUNCH WITH A BIGOT AMITAVA KUMAR The Writer in the World LUNCH WITH A BIGOT The Writer in the World AMITAVA KUMAR “These are the very best sort of essays: the kind in which the pleasure of reading derives from the pleasure of following a writer's mind as it moves from subject to subject, making us see connections we might otherwise have been unaware of. Often a single paragraph contains such a story or detail so arresting that the reader must pause to appreciate it before moving on.”—Francine Prose, author of Reading Like a Writer “Stimulating, wide-ranging, learned and funny—exactly what one wants from a book of essays.”—Geoff Dyer, author of But Beautiful: A Book about Jazz “Amitava Kumar is a sensitive, probing, erudite writer, always ready to question others and himself. It turns out his ceaseless curiosity and skepticism is the best way to write about India in all its complexity and heterogeneity—his is a fascinating mind turned towards a crucial subject.”—Edmund White, author of Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris To be a writer, Amitava Kumar says, is to be an observer. The twenty-six essays in Lunch with a Bigot are Kumar’s observations of the world put into words. A mix of memoir, reportage and criticism, the essays include encounters with writers Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, discussions on the craft of writing, and a portrait of the struggles of a Bollywood actor. The title-essay is Kumar’s account of his visit to a member of an ultra-right Hindu organization who put him on a hit-list. In these and other essays, Kumar tells a broader story of immigration, change, and a shift to a more globalized existence, all the while demonstrating how he practices being a writer in the world. Amitava Kumar is Helen D. Lockwood Chair of English at Vassar College. He is the author of A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, and Nobody Does the Right Thing, all also published by Duke University Press. He is the editor of several books, including Away: The Indian Writer as an Expatriate, The Humour and the Pity: Essays on V. S. Naipul, and World Bank Literature. He is also the screenwriter and narrator of the prize-winning documentary film Pure Chutney. Kumar’s writing has appeared in The Nation, Harper’s, Vanity Fair, The American Prospect, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Hindu, and other publications in North America and India. 240 pages $23.95 trade paper, ISBN: 978-0-8223-5930-2 Publicity Contact: Laura Sell $84.95 library cloth, ISBN: 978-0-8223-5911-1 [email protected] or 919-687-3639 $23.95 e-book, ISBN: 978-0-8223-7539-5 Publication Date: May 15, 2015 DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS About Amitava Kumar Amitava Kumar is a novelist, poet, journalist, filmmaker, and Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College. He was born in Bihar, India; he grew up in the town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty, and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna (2014), A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb (2010) and Nobody Does the Right Thing: A Novel (2010), all also published by Duke University Press; Husband of a Fanatic (2005), Bombay-London-New York (2002), and Passport Photos (2000). He has also written a book of poems, No Tears for the N.R.I. (1996). Husband of a Fanatic was a New York Times “Editors’ Choice;” Bombay-London-New York was a New Statesman (UK) “Book of the Year;” and Passport Photos won an “Outstanding Book of the Year” award from the Myers Program for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America. Kumar serves on the editorial board of several publications and co-edits the web-journal Politics and Culture. He has edited five books: Class Issues (1997), Poetics/Politics (1999), World Bank Literature (2002), The Humour and the Pity: Essays on V.S. Naipaul (2002), and Away: The Indian Writer as an Expatriate (2003). Amitava Kumar’s non-fiction and poetry has been published in The Nation, Harper’s Magazine, Kenyon Review, New Statesman, Vanity Fair, Boston Review, Transition, American Prospect, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Toronto Review, Colorlines, Biblio, Outlook, Frontline, India Today, The Hindu, Himal, Herald, The Friday Times, The Times of India and a variety of other venues. He is the script-writer and narrator of the prize-winning documentary film, Pure Chutney (1997), and also the more recent Dirty Laundry (2005). Kumar is represented by the literary agency Aitken Alexander Associates. Lunch with a Bigot: The Writer in the World Amitava Kumar 240 pp., $23.95 trade paperback, ISBN: 978-0-8223-5930-2 Publication Date: May 2015 Publicity Contact: Laura Sell, Duke University Press, 919-687-3639, [email protected] Events for Amitava Kumar’s Lunch with a Bigot Reading and Conversation Featuring Amitava Kumar and Akhil Sharma May 7, 7pm Tsion Café 763 St. Nicholas Avenue, New York, NY 10031 http://tsioncafe.com/events/ Presentation, Q&A, and Book Signing May 9, 7pm Oblong Books 6422 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, NY 12572 http://www.oblongbooks.com/event/presentation-qa-book-signing-amitava-kumar-lunch- bigot-writer-world Reading and Discussion Featuring Amitava Kumar and Dani Shapiro May 12, 7pm Community Bookstore 143 7th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215 https://www.facebook.com/events/429988953845846/ Reading and Signing May 15, 7pm Inquiring Minds Bookstore 6 Church Street, New Paltz, NY 12561 http://www.inquiringbooks.com/ Lunch with a Bigot: The Writer in the World Amitava Kumar 240 pages, $23.95 trade paperback, ISBN: 978-0-8223-5930-2 Publication Date: May 2015 Publicity Contact: Laura Sell, [email protected] or 919-687-3639 Praise for Amitava Kumar’s Previous Books A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna (2014) “An intimate and whimsical book, but one that truly shines when the author turns his gaze to the ordinary people who still live in Patna . skillfully evoking the circumstances of chaos, filth and absurdity in which even the city’s middle-class professionals are forced to live.”—Sonia Faleiro, New York Times Book Review “Kumar is alert to the signs of life coming from sometimes unanticipated directions. This refusal of pessimism is one of the refreshing elements of Kumar’s writing. While there is always plenty of bad news in Patna, he insists on the presence of joy — an emotion that, rare as it is, ‘is as real as suffering’ — even in surprising places. He poignantly describes incidents of everyday compassion and of the sacrifices of teachers, doctors, and activists. Each crisis or injustice, it seems, has sparked its own rebels, some noisy, others quiet.”—David Boyk, Los Angeles Review of Books “E. B. White composed Here Is New York, his fraught love letter to Manhattan, during a heat wave in the summer of 1948. Sixty-four years later, the book served as a ‘secret talisman’ for Amitava Kumar, who carried it with him into the heat and humidity of his hometown, Patna, in India, as he wrote A Matter of Rats, an equally cleareyed ode to a similarly implausible place.”—Maud Newton, New York Times Magazine A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb (2010) “[A] perceptive and soulful . meditation on the global war on terror and its cultural and human repercussions. A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb carries in the crook of its own arm Mr. Kumar’s plaintive appeal. If we’re to bridge the perilous divide that separates us from those poor and unnamed people who resent us, we first need to see them, to look into their eyes. We need, Mr. Kumar writes, ‘to acknowledge that they exist.’ This angry and artful book is a first step.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times “Kumar’s searching and humane account of the global consequences of the U.S. ‘war on terror’ gets behind the rhetoric and state public relations campaigns in a brisk but thoughtful narrative. An arresting and heartrending work of public protest and valuable social analysis, this work contributes forcefully to a subtle, human-scaled accounting of 21st-century geopolitics.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “Foreigner is part contemporary history, part investigative journalism, part political treatise, part memoir – and an absolute must-read. Kumar is an excellent storyteller. He’s also immensely convincing. Drawing on his vast, voracious knowledge of literature, film, television, and breaking headlines, Kumar makes a case that post-9/11 fear has created a not-so-brave new world of bullies and fools.” —Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor “[An] eloquent analysis of the weird cocktail of buffoonery, violence and inefficacy that is the War on Terror. .” —Daisy Rockwell, Bookslut Nobody Does the Right Thing (2010) “If you’re willing to have Indian villages and metropolises and pop culture and politics become a small part of who you are, pick up a copy of Nobody Does the Right Thing. You’ll be the richer for it.” —Patricia Hagen, Minneapolis Star Tribune “Kumar’s latest, distinctive novel looks at the multifaceted, interconnected lives of two cousins within the blurry terrain of personal ambition, class, and contemporary life. The shifts between rural communities and the urban sprawl of Delhi and Bombay heighten the contrasting perspectives in Kumar’s intelligent tale.” —Leah Strauss, Booklist Husband of a Fanatic (2005) “Kumar exposes his, and his country’s, complex interiors in this important work of provocation.”— Independent (UK) “Kumar’s soul-searching is unsparing even of his own liberal reactions as a post-independence ’secular’ Indian raised to question all religiosity.