Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar
Kumar speaking at the Asian American Writers Workshop in 2011.
Born	(1963-03-17) 17 March 1963 (age 53) Bihar, India
Alma mater	Delhi University Syracuse University University of Minnesota
Occupation	Writer, journalist, and Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College

Amitava Kumar（born 17 March 1963 ） is an Indian writer and journalist who is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College.

Kumar was born in the city of Arrah in the Indian state of Bihar on 17 March 1963. He grew up close to his birthplace in Patna, also in Bihar. There he spent his formative years at St Michael's High School. In India, Kumar earned a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Hindu College, Delhi University in 1984. He holds two master's degrees in Linguistics and Literature from Delhi University (1986) and Syracuse University (1988) respectively. In 1993, he received his doctoral degree from the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. He lives with his family in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Kumar is the author of Husband of a Fanatic (The New Press, 2005 and Penguin-India, 2004), Bombay-London-New York (Routledge and Penguin-India, 2002), Passport Photos (University of California Press and Penguin-India, 2000), the book of poems No Tears for the N.R.I. (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1996), the novel Home Products (Picador-India, 2007 and as Nobody Does the Right Thing in 2009).

His prize-winning book is A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb: A Writer’s Report on the Global War on Terror (Duke University Press, 2010; and as Evidence of Suspicion, 2009). In his review, Dwight Garner (critic) at the New York Times called it a "perceptive and soulful – if at times academic – meditation on the global war on terror and its cultural and human repercussions." It was also awarded the Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the Asian American Literary Awards.