Amitava Kumar’s Remarkable Follow-up to ‘The Blue Book’: ‘The Yellow Book’

27 October 2023

presents

An internationally renowned author returns with a remarkable
follow-up to the acclaimed The Blue Book
The Yellow Book: A Traveller’s Diary
by Amitava Kumar

‘One day passes. Then another. A whole succession of days turning into months and years. How to mark our separate days? The places we have been. Our individual passions, our pain. Against the blurring of years, the clarity of a record. And even amidst crises, how to keep creativity alive? Also, how to stop time?’

An irresistible combination of journal entries and paintings, The Yellow Book is a record of our times as seen through the eyes of a writer.
A beautiful book to read through, and an ideal gift this holiday season.

PB | Non-fiction | 200 pp | Rs 699
Releasing 18 November 2023

Author Amitava Kumar says, ‘“Met someone I liked on the flight.” “Train crowded with pilgrims.” “It rained today.” “Walked with Zadie Smith to the embassy of Cambodia.” The Yellow Book began with the idea of producing a diary of the places we have been—and where we are going. A record of our lives. In words and paintings. The question I’m asking myself (and my readers) is: how do we keep creativity alive through the ups and downs of our ordinary lives?’

Udayan Mitra, Executive Publisher, HarperCollins India, says, ‘Even as we were publishing The Blue Book, where Amitava fascinatingly captured the times of isolation during the pandemic in words and images, Amitava, his agent and I had begun to talk about what would come next. The Yellow Book is about travelling: to places we’ve been to before perhaps—London, Bihar, upstate New York—but which we see now with new eyes. Will the end of all our exploring be to arrive where we began, and to know the place for the first time? How will we ourselves have changed in the process? The Yellow Book is an arresting document of our times, an irresistible peek into a writer and artist’s heart, and a clarion call for hope. We at HarperCollins are delighted to be able to bring this remarkable new book to readers this holiday season.’

ABOUT THE BOOK

After the first wave of Covid had passed, the lockdown was lifted and travel resumed in earnest. Amitava Kumar found himself in London with a group of American students on a study tour—in the midst of the Omicron wave. A year later, he was in India, in his native Motihari among other places. Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine and Rushdie was assaulted with a knife in upstate New York. Amitava kept a journal—to record the times he was living through and how he would like to remember them.

In these pages, through words and drawings, an acclaimed author and artist reveals how a writer observes the world around us—and the world inside us. The Yellow Book, like The Blue Book, shows us how we can put together not just a journal or a book, but also how we assemble a life; and, in our troubled times, why we must plant memories and continue to believe in spring.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Writer’s Place, London, 2022

AMITAVA KUMAR is the author of several books of fiction and non-fiction. His work has appeared in Granta, the New York Times, Harper’s, and several other publications. He has been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and is currently a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Library. His novel Immigrant, Montana was on the Best of the Year lists at the New Yorker, The New York Times, and Barack Obama’s list of favourite books of 2018. His 2021 novel A Time Outside This Time was described by the New Yorker as a ‘shimmering assault on the Zeitgeist’. The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal, published by HarperCollins in 2022, met with a very positive response from readers and critics alike. My Beloved Life, his latest novel, will be out soon. Kumar is professor of English at Vassar College in upstate New York.

For reviews, excerpts, interviews and more information, please contact Shivendra Singh at shivendra.singh@harpercollins.co.in