A man with curly gray hair and glasses stands with his arms crossed, wearing a beige suit and navy polka dot tie. He is looking up slightly, in front of a dark wall with graffiti.

Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar is the author of several works of nonfiction and four novels. His novel Immigrant, Montana was on the best of the year lists at The New Yorker, The New York Times, and President Obama’s list of favorite books of 2018. The New Yorker magazine called his 2021 novel A Time Outside This Time “a shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist.” Kumar’s latest novel is My Beloved Life and was described by James Wood as “beautiful, truthful fiction.” Kumar’s work has appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, BRICK, Guernica, The Nation and several other publications. He has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, and residencies from Lannan Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bellagio. Kumar was a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library for 2023-24. He is a professor of English at Vassar College.