Akil Kumarasamy

Kumarasamy grew up in Dismal Swamp, New Jersey, in a largely South Asian community.{{Cite web|last=Bahuguna|first=Urvashi|title='Putting brownness against a brown background compelled me to dig deeper': Writer Akil Kumarasamy|date=November 25, 2018|url=https://scroll.in/article/903146/putting-brownness-against-a-brown-background-compelled-me-to-dig-deeper-writer-akil-kumarasamy|access-date=2021-05-28|website=Scroll.in|language=en-US}}{{cite news |last1=Saha |first1=Shrestha |title=Debutante novelist Akil Kumarasamy chronicles the horrors of war and displacement |url=https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/books/debutante-novelist-akil-kumarasamy-chronicles-the-horrors-of-war-and-displacement/cid/1677583 |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=The Telegraph India |date=April 12, 2018}} She had no pets and no direct access to wildlife as a child, but initially wanted to be a zoologist.{{cite news |last1=Zaman |first1=Amal |last2=Brown |first2=Danielle |title=10 Questions for Akil Kumarasamy |url=https://www.massreview.org/node/597 |access-date=May 29, 2021 |work=The Massachusetts Review |date=October 11, 2016}} Bhavye Doye writes for Open Magazine that Kumarasamy "grew up among migrants and refugees who had packed their belongings and sorrows when they were cleaved from their homelands, and embodied within themselves a subcontinent of unarticulated experiences."{{cite news |last1=Dore |first1=Bhavya |title=Akil Kumarasamy: 'Borders are a colonial dream' |url=https://openthemagazine.com/lounge/books/akil-kumarasamy-borders-are-a-colonial-dream/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Open Magazine |date=November 15, 2018}}

She graduated from Barnard College in 2010 and completed her Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing at the University of Michigan.

In fall 2020, Kumarasamy became an assistant professor in the MFA program in creative writing at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences-Newark.{{cite news |last1=Lerner |first1=Lawrence |title=SASN Welcomes New Faculty for Fall 2020 (Pt 3) |url=https://sasn.rutgers.edu/news-events/news/sasn-welcomes-new-faculty-fall-2020-pt-3 |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Rutgers University School of Arts & Sciences-Newark |date=October 1, 2020}} Her past teaching experience includes the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. Her fellowships include the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She was awarded the Annual Bard Fiction Prize for her collection of short stories Half Gods, which includes an appointment as a writer in residence at Bard College for a semester during the 2021–2022 academic year.

After an interview with Kumarasamy, Zena Agha writes for the Asian American Writers' Workshop Magazine, "Hearing about her literary journey confirmed to me that success for women writers is not a finite thing. Kumarasamy, like those who came before and those who will come after, is engaged in the radical act of speaking poetic truths to people who are unaccustomed to listening to them."{{cite news |last1=Agha |first1=Zena |title=Hope and Destruction: A Conversation with Akil Kumarasamy |url=https://aaww.org/hope-and-destruction-a-conversation-with-akil-kumarasamy/ |access-date=May 29, 2021 |work=AAWW Magazine |date=October 24, 2018}} Kumarasamy discussed the impact of her childhood experience on her writing with Urvashi Bahuguna of Scroll.in, stating, "I think that gave me a more nuanced take on brownness. Instead of seeing it in the margins, I was able to view it from a place of centrality."

In addition Half Gods, she wrote a novel, titled Meet Us by the Roaring Sea, that was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in August 2022.{{cite news |last1=Praseed |first1=Malavika |title=10 Books I Love by AAPI Writers |url=https://chireviewofbooks.com/2022/05/24/aapi-heritage-month/ |access-date=June 8, 2022 |work=Chicago Review of Books |date=May 24, 2022}}{{cite news |title=Meet Us by the Roaring Sea |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780374177706 |access-date=June 8, 2022 |work=Publishers Weekly |date=May 2, 2022}}

Half Gods was named in the "Best of 2018: Short story collections" by Scroll.in,{{cite news |title=Best of 2018: Short story collections |url=https://shop.scroll.in/book/907727/best-of-2018-short-story-collections |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Scroll.in}} one of "6 Summer Books That Explore the Immigrant Experience" by The Village Voice,{{cite news |last1=Mohamed |first1=Alana |title=6 Summer Books That Explore the Immigrant Experience |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/05/31/six-summer-books-that-explore-the-immigrant-experience/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=The Village Voice |date=May 31, 2018}} and an Editor's Choice by The New York Times,{{cite news |title=9 New Books We Recommend This Week |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/books/review/9-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=July 12, 2018}} as well as featured on the "Lest We Forget: A Reading List" by PEN America,{{cite news |title=Lest We Forget: A Reading List |url=https://pen.org/lest-we-forget-reading-list/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=PEN America |date=December 4, 2018}} "Four terrific fiction debuts by Asian-American women not to miss" by USA Today,{{cite news |last1=Li |first1=Grace Z. |title=Four terrific fiction debuts by Asian-American women not to miss |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2018/07/25/dont-miss-these-terrific-fiction-debuts-four-asian-american-women/794002002/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=USA Today |date=August 7, 2018}} and "Short Story Collections That Should Be on Your Must-Read List" by Redbook.{{cite news |last1=Sullivan |first1=Corinne |title=Short Story Collections That Should Be on Your Must-Read List |url=https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/parenting/short-story-collections-that-should-be-on-your-must-read-list/ss-BB1bcMNb |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=MSN |agency=Redbook |date=December 10, 2020}}

In a review for The New York Times, Tania James writes, "As Akil Kumarasamy pointed out in a 2017 interview, the Tamil equivalent of goodbye is poyittu varen, meaning “I’ll go and return." These are parting words especially suited to the refugee: ever running away, ever looking back. Kumarasamy poignantly illustrates this tension in her debut story collection".{{cite news |last1=James |first1=Tania |title=Debut Stories Trace the Aftershocks of the Sri Lankan Civil War |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/books/review/half-gods-akil-kumarasamy.html |access-date=29 May 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=July 5, 2018}} In a review for the Hindustan Times, Sonali Mujumdar writes that the novel "has its primordial roots in that tumultuous time, but the larger canvas is about exile, adopted cultures, about families and people that have crossed continents to make new lives, colliding awkwardly with each other in their chosen lands," and "Kumarasamy rips open wounds, lays them bare, washes and wipes, and secures her creations; disjointed pieces of trauma and treasures, that come together to piece an irregular whole. Here the mortals too have feet of clay in a world full of poetic injustice."{{cite news |last1=Mujumdar |first1=Sonali |title=Review: Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/review-half-gods-by-akil-kumarasamy/story-Nz3hJospM1Dzhio33MQgyM.html |access-date=May 29, 2021 |work=Hindustan Times |date=November 30, 2018}}

Katy Waldman writes for The New Yorker, "The book doubles as a chilling history lesson for readers unfamiliar with the bloody conflict between Sri Lanka’s Tamils, a northern minority, and its Sinhalese majority," and "More than a hundred thousand people were slain in the Sri Lankan civil war, between 1983 and 2009."{{cite magazine |last1=Waldman |first1=Katy |title=Akil Kumarasamy's "Half Gods": A Début Collection Explores Strife, Trauma, and "a Lifetime Loving Strangers" |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/akil-kumarasamys-half-gods-a-debut-collection-explores-strife-trauma-and-a-lifetime-loving-strangers |access-date=29 May 2021 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=June 7, 2018}} Michael Patrick Brady writes for The Millions, "More than 800,000 people were displaced, with many fleeing the country as refugees to India, the United Kingdom, and the United States," and "Kumarasamy explores what it means to be made to feel like a foreigner in one’s own country, a theme made all the more affecting by recent events."{{cite news |last1=Brady |first1=Michael Patrick |title=A Foreigner in One's Own Country: On Akil Kumarasamy's 'Half Gods' |url=https://themillions.com/2018/07/a-foreigner-in-ones-own-country-on-akil-kumarasamys-half-gods.html |access-date=30 May 2021 |work=The Millions |date=July 20, 2018}}

Publishers Weekly states, "Kumarasamy’s prose is gorgeous and assured, capable of rendering both major tragedy (war, the dissolution of a marriage, the loss of a child) and minor tragedy (a botched effort at matchmaking, a pitying Christmas invitation) with care and precision. Though the stories can sometimes blend together, the writing is strong throughout, resulting in a wonderful, auspicious debut."{{cite news |title=Half Gods |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-374-16767-7 |access-date=May 29, 2021 |work=Publishers Weekly |date=April 16, 2008}} Aditya Sudarshan writes in a review for The Hindu, "Half Gods is certainly an extraordinary achievement, even an epochal one. Perhaps never before in history could such a work have been created, a humanly conceived book-as-machine, properly intimidating in its refusal to explain itself, and feigning to satisfy a profound human desire, by making the stuff of our little lives into something rich and dense."{{cite news |last1=Sudarshan |first1=Aditya |title='Half Gods' review: The book as machine |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/half-gods-the-book-as-machine/article25796704.ece |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=The Hindu |date=December 22, 2018}}

Kalyan Nadiminti writes for the Los Angeles Review of Books, "Notwithstanding its allusive opacity and predictable prose, Kumarasamy's debut moves in the right direction, provoking serious questions about the writing of human rights and the ways in which literature bears the burden of representing unsolvable political problems." Kirkus Reviews writes, "While the book is moving and the writing elegant and clear, the collection begins to feel almost like a writing exercise, moving from third-person to first-person and back; when it finally comes to the rarely used second person [...], the effect isn't nearly as surprising as it might otherwise have been. It might be that Kumarasamy's control on the stories is too tight. One wonders what might happen if she were to loosen her grip."{{cite news |title=HALF GODS |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/akil-kumarasamy/half-gods/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Kirkus Reviews |date=April 16, 2018}}

A Publishers Weekly review states, "Kumarasamy's dazzling if sometimes unwieldy debut novel [...] follows a young woman as she tries to unpack the past amid an unforgiving near future", and "Kumarasamy's gorgeous prose and quiet meditations on memory will enthrall readers." In the Kenyon Review, Elinam Agbo describes the novel as "a lyrical, speculative novel set in a near future where violence is as unrelenting a reality as it is in our present moment."{{cite news |title=KR's 2022 Summer Reading Recommendations |url=https://kenyonreview.org/2022/05/2022-summer-reading/ |access-date=June 8, 2022 |work=Kenyon Review |date=May 31, 2022}}

Melissa Chadburn writes for The New York Times that the book "alternates between the near-future, second-person perspective of Aya, a 26-year-old A.I. trainer in Queens, and passages from a manuscript she is translating from Tamil into English", and "Kumarasamy’s quirky language and wit are dazzling."{{cite news |last1=Chadburn |first1=Melissa |title=Longing for Things Just Out of Reach |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/books/review/meet-us-by-the-roaring-sea-akil-kumarasamy-the-last-karankawas-kimberly-garza-mother-in-the-dark-kayla-maiuri.html |access-date=4 October 2022 |work=New York Times |date=September 7, 2022}} In a review for the Los Angeles Times, Ilana Masad writes that the book, "is under 300 pages, and there is certainly a lot going on, but it all feels beautifully balanced — chapters threaded together nimbly, the translated manuscript and the protagonist’s life echoing each other."{{cite news |last1=Masad |first1=Ilana |title=Review: Wrapped inside a dystopian novel, an epic of 'radical compassion' |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-08-24/meet-us-by-the-roaring-sea-by-akil-kumarasamy-review |access-date=4 October 2022 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=August 24, 2022}}

Jonathan Russell Clark describes the novel in a review for the Star Tribune as "a brazenly complex, labyrinthinely structured, deeply philosophical, thematically ambitious novel, and although it may not be the breeziest read, it is also a masterpiece that more than confirms the promise of "Half Gods.""{{cite news |last1=Clark |first1=Jonathan Russell |title=Review: 'Meet Us by the Roaring Sea,' by Akil Kumarasamy |url=https://www.startribune.com/review-meet-us-by-the-roaring-sea-by-akil-kumarasamy/600199605/ |access-date=4 October 2022 |work=Star Tribune |date=August 19, 2022}} In the Chicago Review of Books, Malavika Praseed writes, "this is a book that commands a greater focus and closer attention than I anticipated as a reader. And while individual passages shimmer and terrify, the book as a whole leaves dangling threads that go beyond the unanswered questions of thought-provoking narrative. We never truly comprehend our protagonist, just as our protagonist rarely seems to comprehend the world around her."{{cite news |last1=Praseed |first1=Malavika |title=The Haunting Undercurrent of Grief in "Meet Us by the Roaring Sea" |url=https://chireviewofbooks.com/2022/08/22/the-haunting-undercurrent-of-grief-in-meet-us-by-the-roaring-sea/ |access-date=31 December 2022 |work=Chicago Review of Books |date=August 22, 2022}}

Meet Us by the Roaring Sea is on the shortlist for the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize.{{Cite web |title=The 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction |url=https://www.ursulakleguin.com/prize23 |access-date=2023-07-12|website=The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust|language=en-US}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Kumarasamy |first1=Akil |title=At the Birthplace of Sound |journal=Boston Review |date=April 21, 2015 |url=https://bostonreview.net/fiction-arts-society/akil-kumarasamy-birthplace-sound}}{{cite news |last1=Nadiminti |first1=Kalyan |title=Melancholic Mythologies: "Half Gods" and the "Mahabharata" |url=https://dev.lareviewofbooks.org/article/melancholic-mythologies-half-gods-and-the-mahabharata/ |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Los Angeles Review of Books |date=June 16, 2018}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Kumarasamy |first1=Akil |title=The Butcher |journal=American Short Fiction |date=Summer 2017 |volume=20 |issue=65 |url=https://americanshortfiction.org/issue-65/}}
• {{cite magazine |last1=Kumarasamy |first1=Akil |title=New World |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2017/08/new-world/ |magazine=Harper's Magazine |date=August 2017}}
• {{cite news |last1=Kumarasamy |first1=Akil |title=The Office of Missing Persons |url=https://lithub.com/the-office-of-missing-persons/ |work=Literary Hub |date=July 5, 2018}}
• Kumarasamy, Akil (2018). Half Gods. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|978-0374167677}}
• Kumarasamy, Akil (2022). Meet Us by the Roaring Sea. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. {{ISBN|978-0-374-17770-6}}

• 2018 The Story Prize Spotlight Award (Half Gods)
• 2019 finalist for the PEN/Robert W Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection (Half Gods){{cite news |title=PEN America Names 2019 Literary Awards Finalists |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=2158 |access-date=May 30, 2021 |work=Publishers Weekly |date=January 24, 2019}}
• 2021–2022 Annual Bard Fiction Prize (Half Gods){{Cite web|title=Annual Bard Fiction Prize Is Awarded to Akil Kumarasamy|url=https://www.bard.edu/news/details/?id=17341&prefurl=annual-bard-fiction-prize-is-awarded-to-akil-kumarasamy-2020-12-01|access-date=2021-05-28|website=www.bard.edu|language=en}}
• 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize Shortlist (Meet Us by the Roaring Sea){{Cite web |title=The 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction |url=https://www.ursulakleguin.com/prize23 |access-date=2023-07-12|website=The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust|language=en-US}}

{{reflist}}

• {{official|https://akilk.com/home/}}
• [https://dev.lareviewofbooks.org/article/pushing-against-the-self-in-fiction-a-conversation-with-akil-kumarasamy/ Pushing Against the Self in Fiction: A Conversation with Akil Kumarasamy] (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2022)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kumarasamy, Akil}}

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:21st-century American women

Category:21st-century American writers

Category:American women writers

Category:Barnard College alumni

Category:Writers from Middlesex County, New Jersey

Category:University of Michigan alumni

Category:American fiction writers

Category:American educators