Indian-American author Amitava Kumar, who released his novel The Lovers recently, announced that the official India launch of the book will be held in Mumbai on August 3.
As part of the launch event, Kumar will also engage in a conversation with prominent Indian writer Shobha De, the novelist said in a tweet on Sunday.
The Lovers is based on the life of an Indian immigrant who lands in the US and goes through different experiences of love, youth, and discomfort living in a foreign land.
Kumar, who is an Indian immigrant himself, weaves the story together in a narration that spans two decades when the narrator, Kailash, spends his life in the US, exploring feelings of having to live as an alien among an unfamiliar culture, and the lack of clarity between men and women that causes confusion and chaos within.
The novel also has the political texture of campus life and a charismatic professor overseeing these young men and women, Ehsaan Ali (modelled on the real-life Eqbal Ahmad).
The heart of the novel is an investigation of love – “loves despite, or in spite of; a love beyond and across dividing lines”.
A review of The Lovers by Scroll.in described the book as “a story of modern love set in the murky terrain of desire and cultural mishaps, braiding together the pleasures of fiction and non-fiction.”
Kumar’s previous books include, Husband of a Fanatic, an “Editors’ Choice” award winning book at the New York Times; Bombay-London-New York, which won “Books of the Year” in New Statesman (UK); and Passport Photos an “Outstanding Book of the Year” award winner from the Myers Program for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America.
His novel Home Products was short-listed for India’s premier literary prize, the Vodafone Crossword Book Award.
Kumar, who grew up in Bihar, is currently a Professor of English on the Helen D Lockwood Chair at Vassar College. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.
