Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru was born in London in 1969 and grew up in Essex, to a Kashmiri Pandit father and British Anglican Christian mother. He began his career as a travel journalist. He was very much influenced by Nayantara Sahgal.
WORKS
The Impressionist, published in 2003, is a story of a boy, Pran, who is half-English and half Indian. It is a picaresque novel. The author describes the journey of Pran in a very adventurous way. All the things happen in Pran’s life depending upon his way of looking at things in an ambiguous manner. Even his survival depends upon his way of maintaining his ambiguous characteristics of life. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2003.
My Revolution, published in 2007, is set-up against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. The protagonist, Chris Carver, lives with his family by hiding his real identity, i.e., he is Michael Frame. The family members have no knowledge about the terrorist activity of Chris Carver protesting the Vietnam War by setting bombs around London. Suddenly one day, he found a ghost from his past and Chris flees. During his journey, he remembered his alienated youth and how he fell in love with Anna Addison. Sean Ward, the leader of the radical August 14th group, also loved Anna. They were rivals of each other. Later one horrifying night they departed from one another and never seen again.
Gods without Men was published in 2011. The setting of the novel is the Mojave Desert in southeastern California. Raj is the son of Jaz and Lisa Matharu. Suddenly, Raj is missing from the California desert as they came to spend a vacation and the couple feels like hell. The place Mojave possess a strange power and later Raj reappears and they realized that their fate is somewhat similar to those who have visited the place earlier.
SELECTED WORKS
Novels
- The Impressionist (2003)
- Noise (2005)
- Transmission (2005)
- My Revolutions (2007)
- Gods Without Men London (2011)
Awards
- .1999 The Observer Young Travel Writer of the Year
- 2002 Betty Trask Award, The Impressionist
- 2003 Somerset Maugham Award, The Impressionist
- 2003 Granta “Best of Young British Novelists” (one of twenty)
- 2005 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Transmission