{"product_id":"lunch-with-a-bigot-9780822359302","title":"Lunch With a Bigot","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe twenty-six essays in \u003ci\u003eLunch With a Bigot\u003c\/i\u003e are examples of how Amitava Kumar turns his observations of the world into words. A mix of memoir, reportage, thoughts on the craft of writing, and criticism, these essays tell broad stories of immigration, change, and a shift to a more globalized existence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Heterogeneous and complex, this book offers insight into Indian culture from a multitude of complex spaces between East and West. An exuberantly inquisitive collection of essays.” * Kirkus Reviews *\u003cbr\u003e“[Kumar’s] rhythms and insights beguile, and the trip itself is as rich as the destination. The reader returns with a broader sense of power, religion, oppression, familial love, censorship, and the power of the written word, to name but a few.” -- Robert Burke Warren * Chronogram *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kumar is an artful, frank and clean-cut writer, with a compassionate curious mind and a dry sense of humor. He includes his personal responses in his journalism and maintains his questioning skepticism even in his most emotional essays.”\u003c\/p\u003e -- Sara Catterall * Shelf Awareness *\u003cbr\u003e“A dexterous and entertaining book that mixes personal essay, reportage, and criticism,\u003ci\u003e Lunch With a Bigot \u003c\/i\u003enever loses sight of its subtitle: each piece, in its own way, is about the writing life, whether it deals with paper as an object of the sacred and profane, the immigrant writer’s experience of ‘being brown in America,’ or the temporal dislocation of returning home.” -- Jonathon Sturgeon * Flavorwire *\u003cbr\u003e\"Taken together, these essays written over the last 15 years of cataclysmic wars, fanaticisms, environmental disasters, and turbo-capitalism, tell the story of what has really been happening while those of us in the West have looked the other way. As the media caters to our fascination with Donald Trump’s hairstyle and his vitriolic one-liners, Syrian refugees have had to find refuge in Dachau. To see how one narrative has obfuscated the other ought to enrage us, and asks us to examine what is absent from our daily conversations. Kumar provokes us with his vulnerability, his observations of our shared flaws, and his impassioned interest in a world he hopes to make more livable. He reminds us what the writer — the writer as rioter — can do. And he reminds us that to be alive demands that we search for new forms of intimacy all the time, in order, as Adrienne Rich insisted, 'to extend the possibilities of truth between us.'\"  -- Leah Mirakhor * Los Angeles Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eLunch with a Bigot \u003c\/i\u003eis, at its core, a collection of writing that delivers Kumar’s memoir. The ambling essays wander but never strand readers, and together they form something largely autobibliographic—that is to say, a deep, lengthy telling of the author’s reading (and viewing) life. ... Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.\" -- E. McCourt * Choice *\u003cbr\u003e\"While Kumar’s well-trained eye roves from subject to subject with intellectual rigor and academic insight, he is able to coalesce these disparate parts into a cohesive whole with his inevitable return to his love of literature.... Kumar proves to be an astute cultural and literary critic, adept at surveying the world around him at all angles—making\u003ci\u003e Lunch with a Bigot\u003c\/i\u003e an engaging and memorable collection.\"  -- Alex Brubaker * Rain Taxi *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAuthor's Note xi\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Part I. Reading\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 1. Paper 3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 2. My Hanif Kureishi Life 14\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 3. The Map of My Village 29\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 4. The Poetry of Gujarat Riots 32\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 5. Conversation with Arundhati Roy 37\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 6. Salman Rushdie and Me 51\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 7. Bad News 58\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Part II. Writing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 8. How to Write a Novel 79\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 9. Reading Like a Writer 84\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 10. Writing My Own \u003ci\u003eSatya\u003c\/i\u003e 97\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 11. Dead Bastards 106\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 12. The Writer as a Father 110\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 13. Ten Rules of Writing 119\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Part III. Places\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 14. Mofussil Junction 127\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 15. A Collaboration in Kashmir 132\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 16. At the Jaipur Literature Festival 141\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 17. Hotel Leeward 146\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 18. The Mines of Jadugoda 151\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 19. Upon Arrival in the Past 155\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 20. Bookstores of New York 162\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Part IV. People\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 21. Lunch with a Bigot 169\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 22. The Boxer on the Flight 183\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 23. Amartya's Birth 187\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 24. The Taxi Drivers of New York 192\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 25. On Being Brown in America 196\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 26. Missing Person 201\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Index 213","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406089036119,"sku":"9780822359302","price":22.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822359302.jpg?v=1730494486","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/lunch-with-a-bigot-9780822359302","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}