Hari Kunzru Biography and latest books by Hari Kunzru

Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru (born 1969) is a British Indian novelist and journalist. He has authored novels lfour novels: The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions and Gods Without Men. His work has been translated into twenty languages.


Hari Kunzru was born of mixed English and Kashmiri Pandit ancestry in London. He was raised in Essex and educated at Bancroft\'s School, Essex. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, and earned an MA in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick.


From 1995 to 1997 he worked on Wired UK. From 1998 he worked as a travel journalist writing for newspapers as The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. He has worked as a travel correspondent for Time Out magazine, and worked as a TV presenter interviewing artists for the Sky TV electronic arts programme The Lounge. Post 1999 he was the music editor of Wallpaper magazine and since 1995 he has been a contributing editor to Mute, a culture and technology magazine. His first novel, The Impressionist, had a £1 million-plus advance and was well critically appreciated too. His second novel, Transmission and third novel, My Revolutions were hits too. His fourth novel, Gods Within Men, was released in August 2011. Set in the American south-west, it\'s a fractured story about multiple characters across time has been compared to David Mitchell\'s Cloud Atlas.


Although he was also awarded The John Llewellyn Rhys prize for writers under 35, the second oldest literary prize in the UK, he turned it down on the grounds that it was backed by the Mail on Sunday whose "hostility towards black and Asian people" he felt was unacceptable. In a statement read out on his behalf, he stated, "As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail\'s editorial line... The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have no wish to profit from it." He further went on to recommend that the award money be donated to the charity Refugee Council (UK).


He is Deputy President of English PEN.