Discipline: Literature – fiction

Amitava Kumar

Discipline: Literature – fiction
Region: Poughkeepsie, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 2019

Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist, and teaches at Vassar College. Kumar’s latest book Immigrant, Montana: A Novel (Knopf, 2018) was on the “Best Books of the Year” list at The New Yorker and on the list of “Notable Books of the Year” at The New York Times. Kumar’s other books include Lunch With a Bigot: The Writer in the World, A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm A Tiny Bomb, Nobody Does the Right Thing: A Novel, Husband of a Fanatic, Bombay-London-New York, and Passport Photos. In 2016, Kumar was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (General Nonfiction) as well as a Ford Fellowship in Literature from United States Artists.

At MacDowell, Kumar worked on a new novel about the surrounding fictions of our age tentatively titled Don't Be Enemies of The State, an investigation of life in an era of fake news in places as far apart as India and the U.S.

Studios

Schelling

Amitava Kumar worked in the Schelling studio.

Marian MacDowell funded construction of this studio the year that the organization was established and the first artists arrived for residency. It was called Bark Studio until 1933, when it was renamed in honor of Ernest Schelling, a composer, pianist, and orchestral leader who served as president of what was then called the Edward MacDowell…

Learn more