Interview

Hari Kunzru discusses his first novel, The Impressionist, a black comedy about race and identity, that partially developed from his own experience as a child of an Indian father and English mother.

Described by The Observer as 'The most eagerly awaited British debut of 2002,' Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist is an epic tale of adventure and discovery. Here, we asked Hari about inspiration, identity and the cultural legacy of the British Empire.

How would you describe the The Impressionist?
The Impressionist is a black comedy about race and identity. It goes from India to England to Paris to Africa following one character, Pran, who assumes a great deal of different identities and never quite fits into any of them.

Where did the idea for the book come from?
Part of the idea came from my own experience of being the child of an Indian father and an English mother. I've grown up in England and feel pretty English in my upbringing, but there's always been an aspect of my experience that hasn't quite fitted. I wanted to write something about a character like that, only I've reversed the polarities in a way. Pran is the child of an English father and an Indian mother and I've set the book at a time (the 1920s) - maybe the last time - when the Empire really mattered. It's at a crisis point in the story of the British Empire, which of course is kind of why I m here. My father would never have come to Britain if ...