Indian - Novelist | April 24, 1984 -
I tend to see my characters from inside and outside at once; this is a technique I use to retain a slight distance. It means my characters can act in unexpected ways on two axes: physical and mental. It isn't just, 'I thought this and then I did this,' which is the technique of the modern psychological novel.
Karan Mahajan
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Muslims remain the most convenient target for prejudice in a city like Delhi, which is far more ghettoized than Bombay or Bangalore, for example.
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When I lived in Delhi, it was burdened with so many futures - fast roads, malls, flyovers - that one felt almost obliged to be hopeful. Now that hope has diminished, you can feel the city going into a frenzy to reinvent itself. I miss living there.
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Getting some distance allowed me to develop a hunger for India and to come back and explore it in a way I wouldn't have had I been living here. And that probably made me more political as well.
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I think there is a chance that Indian writers in America will start producing very interesting books in the years to come.
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Apparently, the city of Delhi is a 'character' in my novels. I'd argue that it's a ... city... in my novels.
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I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes.
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I put my thoughts in a book, which must mean I don't want anyone to read them.
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When you've finished reading every last thing by a famous writer, literary convention holds that you move on to his or her letters, the DVD extras peddled by publishers.
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Cobain the writer is funny and self-aware and snotty with a knack for off-the-cuff profundity. Remarking to a friend that his band will be called 'Nirvana,' he scribbles next to it the words 'Oooh eerie mystical doom.'
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Novelists get to say plenty in their massive tomes; rock singers only get four-minute songs with two verses and a chorus' worth of lyrics, and so there's a real pleasure in accessing the intelligence behind the music, even if it doesn't qualify as 'great literature.'
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I lived in Brooklyn from 2007 to 2012 but for the last few years have resided in Austin, Texas, where my world - especially the world of downtown - is predominantly white.
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