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 ''Gods Without Men'' is Hari Kunzru's fourth novel, first published in 2011. The title is taken from a quote by Honoré de Balzac. The novel is set in the American southwest, and contains elements of magical realism. Plot Although there are many ...

'', ''White Tears''David Robinson
"Interview: Hari Kunzru, author"
scotsman.com, 29 July 2011 and ''Red Pill''. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Personal life

Kunzru was born in London to an Indian

Kashmiri Pandit The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region l ...

father and a British mother. He grew up in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

and educated at

Bancroft's School Bancroft's School is a co-educational independent day school located in Woodford Green, London Borough of Redbridge. The school currently has around 1,000 pupils aged between 7 and 18, around 200 of whom are pupils of the Preparatory School a ...

. He studied English at

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

, then gained an MA in Philosophy and Literature from

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...

. 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." Kunzru is married to novelist

Katie Kitamura Katie Kitamura is an American novelist, journalist, and art critic. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the London Consortium. Early life and education Katie Kitamura was born in Sacramento, California in 1979 to a family of Japanese ...

, and the couple have two children. Kunzru is fascinated by

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

s and as a youngster often imagined a close-encounter type experience with them.

Career

From 1995 to 1997 he worked on ''

Wired UK ''Wired UK'' is a bimonthly magazine that reports on the effects of science and technology. It covers a broad range of topics including design, architecture, culture, the economy, politics and philosophy. Owned by Condé Nast Publications, it is ...

''. Since 1998, he has worked as a travel journalist, writing for such newspapers as ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', was travel correspondent for '' Time Out'' magazine, and worked as a TV presenter interviewing artists for the Sky TV electronic arts programme ''The Lounge''. From 1999–2004 he was also music editor of ''

Wallpaper* ''Wallpaper'', stylized ''Wallpaper*'', is a publication focusing on design and architecture, fashion, travel, art, and lifestyle. The magazine was launched in London in 1996 by Canadian journalist Tyler Brûlé and Austrian journalist Alexander ...

'' magazine and since 1995 he has been a contributing editor to ''

Mute Muteness is a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak. Mute or the Mute may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Mute'' (2005 film), a short film by Melissa Joan Hart * ''Mute'' (2018 film), a scien ...

'', 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. 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. 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 A cloud atlas is a pictorial key (or an atlas) to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, and the author of a 1923 atlas stated that "increasing use ...

''. In 2004 the "supersonic supernatural drama"

Sound Mirrors An acoustic mirror is a passive device used to reflect and focus (concentrate) sound waves. Parabolic acoustic mirrors are widely used in parabolic microphones to pick up sound from great distances, employed in surveillance and reporting of o ...

was dramatised as part of the

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

drama strand, The Wire. It was a collaboration between Kunzru and DJ producers,

Coldcut Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, ...

. Although he was also awarded The

John Llewellyn Rhys prize The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) by an author from the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and publis ...

for writers under 35, the second oldest literary prize in the UK, he turned it down on the grounds that it was backed by the ''

Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...

'' whose "hostility towards black and Asian people" he felt was unacceptable. In a statement read out on his behalf, he stated, "As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail's editorial line ... The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have no wish to profit from it." He further went on to recommend that the award money be donated to the charity

Refugee Council The Refugee Council is a UK based organisation which works with refugees and asylum seekers. The organisation provides support and advice to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as support for other refugee and asylum seeker organisations. The R ...

. He is Deputy President of English

PEN A pen is a common writing instrument that applies ink to a surface, usually paper, for writing or drawing. Early pens such as reed pens, quill pens, dip pens and ruling pens held a small amount of ink on a nib or in a small void or cavity wh ...

. In 2009, he donated the short story "''Kaltes klares Wasser''" to Oxfam's

Ox-Tales Ox-Tales refers to four anthologies of short stories written by 38 of the UK's best-known authors. All donated their stories to Oxfam. The books and stories are loosely based on the four elements: Earth, Fire, Air and Water. The Ox-Tales books we ...

project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Kunzru's story was published in the Water collection. In 2012 at the

Jaipur Literature Festival The Jaipur Literature Festival, or JLF, is an annual literary festival which takes place in the Indian city of Jaipur each year in the month of January. It was founded in 2006. It is the world's largest free literary festival. The Diggi Palace ...

he, along with three other authors,

Ruchir Joshi Ruchir Joshi is an Indian writer, a filmmaker and a columnist for '' The Telegraph'', ''India Today'' as well as other publications. He is best known for his debut novel titled ''The Last Jet-Engine Laugh'' (2001). He is also the editor of India' ...

Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, '' Narcopolis,'' ( ...

and Amitava Kumar, risked arrest by reading excerpts from

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...

's ''

The Satanic Verses ''The Satanic Verses'' is the fourth novel of British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie. First published in September 1988, the book was inspired by the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism ...

'', 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." 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." In 2016, Kunzru visited

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, as part of a project by the " Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on the

Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...

, to mark the 50th anniversary of the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

. The book was edited by

Michael Chabon Michael Chabon ( ; born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...

and

Ayelet Waldman Ayelet Waldman ( he, איילת ולדמן, born December 11, 1964) is an Israeli-American novelist and essayist. She has written seven mystery novels in the series ''The Mommy-Track Mysteries'' and four other novels. She has also written autobio ...

, and was published under the title "Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation", in June 2017.

Honours

*1999: ''The Observer'' Young Travel Writer of the Year *2002: Betty Trask Award, ''The Impressionist'' *2003:

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awa ...

, ''The Impressionist'' *2003: ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

'' "Best of Young British Novelists" (one of twenty) *2005:

New York Times Notable Book of the Year ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

, '' Transmission'' *2005: '' Lire'' "50 écrivains pour demain" *2008: New York Public Library Fellow, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers *2014: Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation *2016: Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin

Bibliography

* 2002. '' The Impressionist''. London: Hamish Hamilton. , * 2004. '' Transmission''. London: Hamish Hamilton. , * 2005. ''Noise''. London: Penguin. , * 2007. ''My Revolutions''. London: Penguin. * 2011. ''

''. London: Penguin. , * 2013. ''Memory Palace''. London: V&A * 2014. ''Twice Upon a Time: Listening to New York''. New York: Atavist * 2017 '' White Tears'', New York: Knopf , * 2020 ''Red Pill'', New York: Knopf

References

External links

* *
"Libya's Reluctant Spokesman: Hari Kunzru interviews Hisham Matar" – Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics

Video of Hari Kunzru on Sky TV

Podcast of Hari Kunzru discussing "My Revolutions" at the Shanghai International Literary Festival

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunzru, Hari 1969 births Living people Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Warwick British Book Award winners Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature English male journalists Kashmiri people 21st-century English novelists British people of Indian descent English people of Indian descent People educated at Bancroft's School British people of Kashmiri descent English people of Kashmiri descent English male novelists 21st-century English male writers Science fiction fans