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 Read Quote
Indian writers in English are rank individualists. Even among the progressives, there is a strain of anti-leftism, or at least a suspicion of any organized politics. Amitava Kumar Read Quote
Neither the writer nor the reader can save the world by themselves. Or escape it entirely. Amitava Kumar Read Quote
I have to tell you, when I hear the song ‘Jiya ho Bihar ke Lala,’ I want to throw the history books out of the window and dance! Amitava Kumar Read Quote
Culture survives in smaller spaces – not in the history books that erect monuments to the nation’s grand history but in cafes and cinema houses, village squares, and half-forgotten libraries. Amitava Kumar Read Quote
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 Read Quote
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 Read Quote
In the way in which we are living in a much more explosive and more tension-filled society, a society that is driven with more and more contradictions, it is but unavoidable that some of this will also come into cinema. I would, in fact, argue that a part of it is borrowed from Hollywood. It’s as if Quentin Tarantino has come to Mumbai. Amitava Kumar Read Quote
I’ve immersed myself in reading more and more of American literature, but no editor has asked me to comment on Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan. It is assumed I’m an expert on writers who need a little less suntan lotion at the beach. Amitava Kumar Read Quote
