2017
Amitava Kumar is a widely admired writer, chiefly for his non-fiction work like his A Matter of Rats, a book about Patna that is as insightful as it is witty. The Lovers is his second novel, set, not unsurprisingly mainly in a university on the east coast of the US but with vivid images of Ara, the town in Bihar where the protagonist, Kailash grew up. In a BBC interview not so long ago Hanif Qureishi said, a little lugubriously, ‘ Well, all novels are about love.’