Hari Kunzru | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru 1969 (age 55–56) London, England |
| Occupation | Author, journalist |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford Warwick University |
| Genre | Literary Fiction |
| Notable works | Gods without Men White Tears Red Pill |
| Spouse | Katie Kitamura |
| Children | 2[1] |
| Website | |
| harikunzru | |
Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru (born 1969) is a British novelist and journalist. He is the author of the novelsThe Impressionist,Transmission,My Revolutions,Gods Without Men,White Tears,[2]Red Pill, andBlue Ruin. His work has been translated into 20 languages.
Kunzru was born inLondon, England, to an Indian father ofKashmiri Pandit descent and a British mother.[3] He grew up inEssex and was educated atBancroft's School. He studied English atWadham College, Oxford, then gained an MA in Philosophy and Literature fromUniversity 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]
From 1995 to 1997, Kunzru worked onWired UK. Since 1998, he has worked as a travel journalist, writing for such newspapers asThe Guardian andThe Daily Telegraph. He was a travel correspondent forTime Out magazine, and worked as a TV presenter interviewing artists for theSky TV electronic arts programmeThe Lounge. From 1999 to 2004 he was also music editor ofWallpaper* magazine, and since 1995 he has been a contributing editor toMute, 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 2004. In 2005 he published the short-story collectionNoise. His third novel,My Revolutions, was published in 2007. His fourth novel,Gods Without Men, was released in 2011.[2] Set in the American southwest, it is a fractured story about multiple characters across time. It has been compared toDavid Mitchell'sCloud Atlas.[2] His novelBlue Ruin appeared in May 2024.[4]
In 2004 the "supersonic supernatural drama"Sound Mirrors was dramatised as part of theBBC Radio 3 drama strand, The Wire. It was a collaboration between Kunzru and DJ producersColdcut.
Kunzru was awarded TheJohn Llewellyn Rhys prize for writers under 35, the second-oldest literary prize in the UK, but turned it down on the grounds that it was backed by theMail on Sunday whose "hostility towards black and Asian people" he felt was unacceptable.[5] In a statement read out on his behalf, he wrote, "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 recommended that the award money be donated to the charityRefugee Council[citation needed].
He is Deputy President of EnglishPEN.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Kaltes klares Wasser" to Oxfam'sOx-Tales project, four collections of UK stories by 38 authors. Kunzru's story was published in the Water collection.[6]
In 2012, at theJaipur Literature Festival,[7] Kunzru and three other authors,Ruchir Joshi,Jeet Thayil, andAmitava Kumar, risked arrest by reading excerpts fromSalman Rushdie'sThe 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."[8] The reading drew sharp criticism from Muslim groups as a deliberately provocative move to gain publicity for the four authors. Kunzru admitted in an interview that the festival organizers asked him to leave as his presence was likely to "inflame an already volatile situation."[9]
In 2016, Kunzru visitedIsrael, as part of a project by the "Breaking the Silence" organization, to write an article for a book on theIsraeli occupation, to mark the 50th anniversary of theSix-Day War.[10][11] The book was edited byMichael Chabon andAyelet Waldman, and published in 2017 under the titleKingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.[12] During the Gaza War, he announced that he supports a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers and literary festivals. He was an original signatory of the manifesto "Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions".[13]
Kunzru is married to novelistKatie Kitamura, and the couple have two children.[14] Kunzru is fascinated byUFOs and as a youngster often imagined a close-encounter experience with one.[15]
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