Amitava Kumar & Sunil Yapa

AMITAVA KUMAR is a writer and journalist. He was born in Ara, India, and grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of several books of nonfiction (Lunch With a Bigot, A Matter of Rats, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb, Husband of a Fanatic, Bombay-London-New York, Passport Photos) and a novel (Nobody Does the Right Thing, also published as Home Products). A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb was adjudged the best nonfiction book of the year by the Page Turner Awards in 2011; in 2007, Home Products was short-listed for India’s premier literary award, the Crossword Award; Husband of a Fanatic was an “Editors’ Choice” book at the New York Times. He is Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College.

SUNIL YAPA is the author of the widely acclaimed novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (Little, Brown, 2016). He holds a bachelor’s degree in economic geography from Penn State University and an MFA from Hunter College. He has received numerous awards and scholarships, including the Hertog Fellowship at Hunter, as well as the 2010 Asian American Short Story Award. The biracial son of a Sri Lankan father and a mother from Montana, Yapa has lived in many places around the world, including Greece, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, and India, as well as London, Montreal, New York City, and Woodstock.