Amitava Kumar is the author of several works of nonfiction and three novels. His 2018 book Immigrant, Montana: A Novel, published in India under the title The Lovers, was on the list of most “notable books of the year” at the New York Times and The New Yorker. (Barack Obama named Immigrant, Montana among his favourite books of the year.) His 2019 nonfiction book Writing Badly Is Easy is a meditation on writing style. Kumar’s latest novel, A Time Outside This Time, will be published by in 2021. He is professor of English at Vassar College in upstate New York.