Manil Suri

Hartford One Book

2008-11-07T03:29:24Z

The folks at Hartford sure know how to organize an event! They chose "The Death of Vishnu" as their "one book" for 2008, and on Oct 24, I had the privilege of giving a talk at their brand new library. This was the culmination of events that had been going on since August - see their website. Great questions from the audience, and a lavish buffet of Indian delicacies afterwards for everyone who came.

South Asian Writers for Obama

2008-10-07T02:06:39Z

It gave me great pleasure to join five other South Asian writers: Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta and Akhil Sharma to put on a benefit reading for Obama on October 4. The event was organized by author Meera Nair, and emceed by film maker Mira Nair. Suketu had a great party at his house afterwards. We ended up raising $56,000 for Obama! Here's more on it on Sepia Mutiny.

New Yorker Festival

2008-10-07T01:18:11Z

On October 3, I participated in a fiction panel at the New Yorker festival. I was a little horrified by my cartoon in the catalog, but I suppose that's supposed to be the point. Enjoyed the party afterwards! Here's an account of the session on emdashes.com.

DANCE! DANCE! DANCE! Me as Helen!

2008-09-17T01:34:31Z

At the Brooklyn Book Festival, I was asked to do a reading and then perform something risky/embarrassing afterwards. Decided to do Helen's immortal Bollywood number from the movie Caravan, "Piya Tu Ab To Aja." Figured something this over the top would help me to not take myself too seriously. Glad to see it up on YouTube!

New York Times Interview

2008-06-28T20:27:33Z

In April, I had a stimulating three hour conversation with Claudia Dreifus, a writer for the Science section of the New York Times. Here is the article based on this conversation, published in the New York Times on June 17, 2008. Read Interview

The Book Tour

2008-06-28T19:27:40Z

It seems like I've been traveling for months. First came the Indian book tour in January, where I went to five different cities: Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Jaipur. I wrote an article about this which just came out in the June 2008 issue of Outlook Traveller (India). Next came a 15 city US tour, which took most of February and a little of March. The most memorable part was, as usual, the Bay area - lots of good friends and good food, not to mention great weather. (I keep asking myself why I don't live there.) I had tough competition during the tour from an unexpected quarter: the Obama Clinton contest was in full swing throughout. But I got some great coverage - for instance a radio interview on New America Media. After that, a couple of cities in the UK and Ireland, followed by a quick dash to Toronto for a reading at Harbourfront on March 26. In April, I only did local events, but come May, I was back on the road. Back to Mumbai to do a Math/Writing event at the American Center (a powerpoint presentation called "The Mathematics of Fiction" which went really well), followed by a reading at Oxford Bookstore. From there, I went to France to meet my French editor (also my French translator). Then on to Wales, for the Hay on Wye Book Festival (one of the highlights was watching a show at the circus run by my UK editor's stepdaughter). The next stop was a Mathematics conference in Helsinki, Finland, to celebrate the 60th birthday of my friend and research collaborator Professor Juhani Pitkaranta. The Finns really know how to celebrate - the conference dinner was held at an amazing restaurant on the water, where we feasted on Arctic Char and watched the sunset (which occurred at around 10 p.m.). The final stop of this 32 day trip was a few days in London to meet up with Pakistani and Indian writer friends. In June, there was an event in New York at the Asian American Writers' Workshop, where I read with the talented new Sri Lankan author V.V. Ganeshananthan. Then came the week-long Aspen Literary Festival (see separate entry to be posted shortly). In July, I intend to rest.

The Glamorous Life of A Writer

2008-02-27T20:31:36Z

Since I've been at UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) for so many years, it was only fitting that I have the US release of The Age of Shiva at the university. It was a wonderful event - a great audience that (in addition to such luminaries as Senator Sarbanes) included several of my former students. As usual, I barely got to try the food - the two samosas (and one carrot stick) that I tried before my reading were very good, but the desserts all vanished while I was signing books. By the time I got home, I was starving, so I made myself a scrambled egg for dinner. So much for the glamorous life of a writer. But the event was thoroughly enjoyable, a real treat - and it gives me great pleasure to share the filmed version.

The Birth of a Novel

2008-02-04T19:07:58Z

Welcome to my blog. I'm looking forward to this column as a way of posting occasional items that may be of interest to readers. This entry, my first, was prompted by a very special event - today was the day that I finally held in my hands the printed hardcover edition of my second novel, The Age of Shiva. My editor had e-mailed me yesterday that she was overnighting it to me and, sure enough, at around 10 a.m. the bell rang. Looking down from my office window, I saw the UPS man racing back to his van. Not quite a stork-like image, but there, on my doorstep, all swaddled in its plastic envelope was the product of a gestation period of not nine months, but seven years. It was beautiful, my baby, but I suppose that's what every parent says. 9.75 inches long and 6.5 across, weighing 27 ounces (which is 4.5 ounces more than its sibling Vishnu). More statistics (perhaps of interest only to myself): whereas Vishnu had about 93,000 words over 297 pages, Shiva has about 164,000 over 455 pages (a 76% increase in total word count and, quite curiously, a 15% increase in average words per page). And yet another statistic: it took me seven years to write Shiva compared to five for Vishnu, which my long-suffering agent and publisher should please note is a 26% increase in productivity, in terms of words written per year. But surely there are more poignant feelings I should be sharing, about holding my newborn for the first time. Gazing at the cover photograph, for instance, which seems to capture the entire story in one shot - it probably couldn't be more apt even if I'd commissioned it. I found it on the Web - it took forever to track down the heirs of the French photographer Boubat who shot it in 1971 and negotiate rights with them. Or turning to the page with the poem by the Urdu poet Sauda, and translated by Ahmed Ali. Locating Ali's son for permission was another adventure - the trail eventually lead me to a phone number in Karachi, Pakistan, after a turn through Madison, Wisconsin. Mostly, though, I simply take in all the fonts and the flourishes and the jacket colors, enjoying how all the countless little decisions have come together to make a whole. Of course, it's not the jacket or the quote or the cover photo that makes a book - it's the words inside, and how they have been laid down. Surely this is the moment to get all sentimental, to think of the effort each page seemed to require and the times when I wondered if I'd ever get done. All those years when I looked forward to precisely this moment: my book, my baby, complete in my hands, ready to be launched into the world. I feel the individual pages and allow myself to float away on the waves of warm and fuzzy sensation. Lest I get too intoxicated with my own creation, there are always those statistics to bring me back. 164,000 words in seven years - doesn't that work out to only 64 words per day? I hear somebody gasp. It's actually 64.19, is all I can muster weakly in response. Another good reason to be thankful I keep my day job.