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About the author
Kanishk Tharoor is an Indian writer based in New York City. His journalism, criticism, and short stories have appeared in international and Indian publications; his story 'Tale of the Teahouse' was shortlisted for a US National Magazine Award. He studied at Yale, Columbia, and at New York University.
Summary
'Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a writer who is gifted not just with extraordinary talent but also with a subtle, original and probing mind.' Amitav Ghosh
An interview with the last speaker of a language. A chronicle of the final seven days of a town that is about to be razed to the ground by an invading army. The lonely voyage of an elephant from Kerala to a princess's palace in Morocco. A fabled cook who flavours his food with precious stones. A coterie of international diplomats trapped in near-Earth orbit.
The stories in Swimmer Among the Stars reveal an extraordinary young storyteller in Kanishk Tharoor, whose tales emerge from a tradition that includes the creators of the Arabian Nights, Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter and other ancient and modern masters of the fable.
Foreword
Furiously inventive, beautifully crafted and remarkably assured, Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a blazing Indian talent.
Additional text
Kanishk Tharoor’s mind is an overflowing library from which he pulls Persian folklore Egyptian history, Anglo-Saxon poetry and 20th-century politics. He prods the world with his great stick of irony and vast imagination . . . Wherever he goes and in whatever era, Mr Tharoor is original, unselfconscious and relevant.