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Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
How to pronounce Manil Suri: Ma-neel Soo-ree
Manil Suri is the internationally acclaimed author of The Death of Vishnu and other books. His work has been translated into twenty-seven languages and received several honors, including winning the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and being longlisted for the Booker Prize. He is a distinguished professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and lives with his husband in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Manil Suri's website
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I’m Michael Cunningham, and I have the privilege of talking to
Manil Suri about his remarkable first novel, The Death of Vishnu. Who are
some of your literary influences? Do you identify yourself particularly as an
Indian writer?
Both of these questions are kind of loaded questions, because
first of all I’m never quite clear in my mind what is meant by a literary
influence. How do you interpret that?
I would say, any piece of writing that stays with you, and in some
way influences the kind of writer you are, whether it be Henry James or
Jacqueline Susann, both of whom I claim as influences.
OK, well that’s good, because I certainly grew up on a lot of
Jacqueline Susann-type novels. But more serious writers I would have to say, the
one that comes to mind is V. S. Naipaul. I’ve just read one book of his, A
House for Mr. Biswas, and the thing that stayed with me out of that novel was
the way his characters speak. And they speak in English, but you can tell they
are speaking an Indian language. It’s their intonation, or, I don’t know how
he does it, and that’s certainly something I would love to be able to do. So
that’s something that definitely did stay with me. I’ve ...
Aravind Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, which was awarded the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Last Man in Tower, and a collection of stories, Between the Assassinations. He was born in India and attended Columbia and Oxford ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Death of Vishnu
Try:
The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
Sonny Brewer is the author of the novels, The Poet of Tolstoy Park, A Sound Like Thunder, Cormac - The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing, and The Widow and the Tree. Brewer also edited the anthology series Stories from the Blue Moon... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Death of Vishnu
Try:
The Poet of Tolstoy Park
by Sonny Brewer
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