Quotes by Hari Kunzru

About Hari Kunzru:

Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru is a British Indian novelist and journalist of Kashmiri Pandit origin, author of the novels The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men. His work has been translated into twenty languages.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

As I got older I became a kind of sub cultural junkie, foraging around in music, street fashion and eventually art, politics and the freakier reaches of the Internet, hunting the next discovery, the next seam of underground gold.

Hari Kunzru

Being in Harlem on the night of Barack Obama's election was extraordinary. It was the best street party I have ever gone to, and it felt like the period of American history which began with slavery had ended that evening.

Hari Kunzru

But it's the particularity of a place, the physical experience of being in a place, that makes it onto the page. That's why I don't just do library research. I very rarely write about somewhere I haven't been.

Hari Kunzru

In my early teens, science fiction and fantasy had an almost-total hold over my imagination. Their outcast status was part of their appeal.

Hari Kunzru

I can see a version of my life where it all becomes meaningless. On a good day, writing seems noble. Other times, it's narcissistic and pointless.

Hari Kunzru

I suffer from vertigo. It's paralyzing in extreme situations. The most scared I've been as an adult was trying to conquer that fear by going climbing in Wales.

Hari Kunzru

There are things about our world that almost by their nature defy our ability to comprehend them. Some people use a religious register to deal with that - they call it God and that's a way of domesticating it.

Hari Kunzru

Some books I've kept because the binding is beautiful - I'm unlikely ever to read my grandmother's copy of 'The Life of Lord Nelson.' I'm addicted to secondhand bookshops.

Hari Kunzru

I tried to take seriously the idea that if you tortured language you might arrive at some new truth. Later it became clear to me that I was retreading ground by fighting the literary battles of the 1950s and 1960s, and that I was actually a bit bored...

Hari Kunzru

I realized I had a novel on my hands, but didn't know where it was going to go. So I thought, 'I'm going to do everything that you're not supposed to do when you plan a novel; I'm going to step back and let this thing take itself wherever it wants to...

Hari Kunzru

These days we're all hyper-aware of the canonical way in which stories are supposed to play out - people are taught all about three-act scripting and where to put the reversal and all of that - and I think we can do more interesting narratives.

Hari Kunzru

I think it's important for all culturally literate people to understand the technological substrate of new developments.

Hari Kunzru

I'm interested in complexity, in the mathematical sense, as well as the idiomatic sense. The idea of emergence - that it's possible for complex patterns to arise out of many simple interactions - is fascinating.

Hari Kunzru

I enjoy thinking myself into other times and places. I don't like some of the conventions of the 'historical novel', but I think there's a way of doing it that has a lot of merit.

Hari Kunzru

There's an explosion of Indian fiction of all kinds, from military thrillers to chicklit. I think that's exciting.

Hari Kunzru

I'm fascinated by the emergence of a global class. They're highly mobile; they reject the idea of place.

Hari Kunzru

Suburbia is all about private ownership and not having to share, and it leads to a paranoid, defensive mindset. I know this, having grown up in Essex.

Hari Kunzru

There's nothing New York likes more than a thing. Or a place. Or a place that's a thing. Or a thing that happens to be a place.

Hari Kunzru

Say there are three identical-looking pizza joints on a street. Two of those will always be empty. The third will have a line of people patiently waiting, checking their phones. There's always one place that's the place. That's how it works.

Hari Kunzru

When I try to understand somebody, create a character, I fall into them. When I think writers are telling me what to think, I get harrumphy.

Hari Kunzru

Author Bio

  • NameHari Kunzru
  • DescriptionBritish Indian novelist and journalist
  • AliasesHari Mohan Nath Kunzru
  • Born1969
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionJournalist; Author