Hari Kunzru / Features / Untitled Books

Hari Kunzru credit jamie Diamond (use).jpg

"I do like me some crime and drugs, if done right. James Ellroy had a fantastic period, but he’s really jumped the shark. Richard Price, sometimes. But these aren’t really guilty pleasures, They’re all good writers."

Photograph: © Jamie Diamond

Hari Kunzru

Hari Kunzru is the author of numerous novels, including The Impressionist, and the story collection Noise. His short stories and journalism have appeared in publications as diverse as The New York Times, Guardian, New Yorker, Times of India, Wired and New Statesman. He lives in New York and is happy writing anywhere with a flat surface and tea-making facilities.

Where are you right now?
In a room in a business hotel on the Strand

Where do you write?
I used to be very picky about that, but I've been moving around so much over the last few years that I've trained myself to work almost anywhere there's a flat surface, power, and the means to make tea.

How do you write?
I make indecipherable notes in an A5 spiral bound Europa notebook. I draft straight onto the screen, trying to minimise the amount of time I spend looking up weird references on the web or checking my email

What keeps you writing?
Lack of imagination. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.

Who do you write for?
Myself, initially. Then a reader who, at a minimum, isn't privy to my thought processes, but is, apart from that, very like me. Apart from that I don't know. It's not important to know. I think books find their own way out into the world.

Do you discuss your work with anyone?
Sometimes. The important stuff isn't really available to me on a conscious level until it's down on the page.

How do you know if your work is good?
I don't.

Do you have any unwritten characters in mind?
Many. Some of them have been around for years.

Which book do you wish you'd written?
Nabokov's Ada, perhaps. Mainly because it'd mean I could make puns in several languages.

What is your literary guilty pleasure?
A while back it was Patrick O'Brien, but that faded. I do like me some crime and drugs, if done right. James Ellroy had a fantastic period, but he's really jumped the shark. Richard Price, sometimes. But these aren't really guilty pleasures, They're all good writers.

Which writer made you want to write?
Thomas Pynchon, probably. He made it look like there weren't any rules.

Who's the most exciting author writing today?
I like to think it's some young woman in Tuvalu, whose work won't catch on until 2050, when the world will stand in awe at her mastery of technique.

If you weren't writing you'd be...?
bored

What next?
Quite a lot of interviews and festivals, interspersed with research for a new book.

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Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru is published by Penguin.

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Thursday, 4 August, 2011