Hari Kunzru

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Hari Kunzru
Literary Fiction
Notable worksGods without Men
White Tears
Red Pill
SpouseKatie Kitamura
Children2[1]
Website
harikunzru.com

Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru (born 1969) is a British novelist and journalist. He is the author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, White Tears[2] and Red Pill. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Early life and education

Kunzru was born in London to an Indian

Essex and educated at Bancroft's School. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, then gained an MA in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick. In his teens, Kunzru decided that he did not believe in formal religion or God, and is "opposed to how religion is used to police people."[3]

Career

From 1995 to 1997 he worked on

Mute, the culture and technology magazine. His first novel, The Impressionist (2003), had a £1 million-plus advance and was well received critically with excellent sales.[2] His second novel, Transmission, was published in the summer of 2004. In 2005 he published the short story collection Noise. His third novel, My Revolutions, was published in August 2007. His fourth novel, Gods Without Men, was released in August 2011.[2] Set in the American south-west, it is a fractured story about multiple characters across time. It has been compared to David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.[2]

In 2004 the "supersonic supernatural drama" Sound Mirrors was dramatised as part of the BBC Radio 3 drama strand, The Wire. It was a collaboration between Kunzru and DJ producers, Coldcut.

Although he was also awarded The

Refugee Council[citation needed
].

He is Deputy President of English

PEN
.

In 2009, he donated the short story "Kaltes klares Wasser" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Kunzru's story was published in the Water collection.[5]

In 2012 at the Jaipur Literature Festival[6] he, along with three other authors, Ruchir Joshi, Jeet Thayil and Amitava Kumar, risked arrest by reading excerpts from Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, which remains unpublished in India due to fear of controversy. Kunzru later wrote, "Our intention was not to offend anyone's religious sensibilities, but to give a voice to a writer who had been silenced by a death threat."[7] The reading drew sharp criticism from Muslim groups as being a deliberately provocative move to gain publicity for the four authors. Kunzru himself admitted in an interview that he was asked to leave by the festival organizers as his presence was likely to "inflame an already volatile situation."[8]

In 2016, Kunzru visited

Israeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War.[9][10] The book was edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, and was published under the title "Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation", in June 2017.[11]

Personal life

Kunzru is married to novelist

UFOs and as a youngster often imagined a close-encounter type experience with them.[13]

Honours

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ Kunzru-Kitamura children
  2. ^ a b c d David Robinson. "Interview: Hari Kunzru, author", scotsman.com, 29 July 2011
  3. ^ a b Romig, Rollo (13 March 2012). "Staring into the Void with Hari Kunzru". The New Yorker. New York City. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  4. ISBN 978-1-349-34594-6
    . Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  5. ^ Oxfam: Ox-Tales Archived 18 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Singh, Akhilesh Kumar; Chowdhury, Shreya Roy (23 January 2012). "Salman Rushdie shadow on Jaipur Literature Festival: 4 authors who read from 'The Satanic Verses' sent packing". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2012.
  7. ^ Kunzru, Hari (22 January 2012). "Why I quoted from The Satanic Verses". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2012.
  8. ^ Salman Rushdie shadow on Jaipur Literature Festival: 4 authors who read from 'The Satanic Verses' sent packing, Times of India, Jan 23, 2012
  9. ^ Zeveloff, Naomi; The Forward (18 April 2016). "Renowned Authors Learn About Occupation Firsthand in Breaking the Silence Tour". Haaretz.
  10. ^ Cain, Sian (17 February 2016). "Leading authors to write about visiting Israel and the occupied territories". The Guardian.
  11. ^ "Kingdom of Olives and Ash Writers Confront the Occupation By Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman". Retrieved 18 August 2022.
  12. ^ Silverman, Jacob (9 March 2012). "Author Hari Kunzru on the culture wars, meth, and his ambitious new novel, Gods Without Men". Chelsea, United States. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
  13. ^ Hodgekinson, Ted (10 March 2012). "Interview: Hari Kunzru". granta.com. Retrieved 21 July 2012.

External links

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