Robertson Hall, 20 Prospect Ave, Princeton, NJ 08540, United States
Akhil Sharma holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
Gallery of Akhil Sharma
Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
Akhil Sharma attended Harvard Law School.
Career
Gallery of Akhil Sharma
2014
Milk Studios, New York City, United States
John Freeman, Novelist Akhil Sharma, Novelist Téa Obreht, and Novelist Chang-Rae Lee attend Vulture Festival presented by New York Magazine at Milk Studios on May 11, 2014, in New York City. Photo by Craig Barritt
Gallery of Akhil Sharma
2014
Paris, France
Akhil Sharma, an Indian writer, poses during a portrait session held on December 17, 2014, in Paris, France. Photo by Ulf Andersen
Gallery of Akhil Sharma
2014
Milk Studios, New York City, United States
Author Akhil Sharma speaks onstage during Vulture Festival presented by New York Magazine at Milk Studios on May 11, 2014, in New York City. Photo by Craig Barritt
John Freeman, Novelist Akhil Sharma, Novelist Téa Obreht, and Novelist Chang-Rae Lee attend Vulture Festival presented by New York Magazine at Milk Studios on May 11, 2014, in New York City. Photo by Craig Barritt
Author Akhil Sharma speaks onstage during Vulture Festival presented by New York Magazine at Milk Studios on May 11, 2014, in New York City. Photo by Craig Barritt
(As an inspector for the Physical Education Department in ...)
As an inspector for the Physical Education Department in the Delhi school system, Ram Karan supports his widowed daughter and eight-year-old granddaughter by collecting bribes for a small-time Congress Party boss. On the eve of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, one reckless act bares the lifetime of violence and sexual shame behind Ram's dingy public career and involves him in a farcical, but terrifying, political campaign that could cost him his life. An astonishing character study, a portrait of a family - and a country - tormented by the past, Akhil Sharma's An Obedient Father recalls Dostoyevsky's guilt-ridden anti-heroes in this fully formed debut novel.
(Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" (Philadelphia Inquirer)...)
Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" (Philadelphia Inquirer) for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived" fiction (New York Times), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice "as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky" (The Nation). In his highly anticipated second novel, Family Life, he delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision.
(A Life of Adventure and Delight delivers eight masterful ...)
A Life of Adventure and Delight delivers eight masterful stories from dazzlingly original and critically acclaimed author Akhil Sharma. Hailed as a storyteller whose fiction is “a glowing work of art” (Wall Street Journal), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky” (The Nation). In A Life of Adventure and Delight, Sharma delivers eight masterful stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad and that plunge the reader into the unpredictable workings of the human heart. A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorcé tries to become the perfect partner by reading women’s magazines. A man’s longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. Tender and darkly comic, the protagonists in A Life of Adventure and Delight deceive themselves and engage in odd behaviors as they navigate how to be good, how to make meaningful relationships, and the strengths and pitfalls of self-interest. Elegantly written and emotionally immediate, the stories provide an intimate, honest assessment of human relationships between mothers and sons, sons and lovers, and husband and wives from a dazzlingly original, critically acclaimed writer.
Akhil Sharma is an American author and educator. He is an assistant professor in the creative writing MFA program at Rutgers University-Newark.
Background
Akhil Sharma was born on July 22, 1971, in New Delhi, India. In 1979 his family immigrated to the United States. His parents spoke Hindi exclusively while at home, and Sharma visited India every other summer during his childhood and adolescence. When Sharma was ten and his brother fourteen, Anup dove into a swimming pool and struck his head on the bottom. He remained underwater for three minutes; when he was pulled out, he had catastrophic brain damage that left him blind and unable to communicate or move.
Education
Akhil Sharma studied at J.P. Stevens High School. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Sharma attended Harvard Law School.
Akhil Sharma's first published story, "If You Sing like That for Me," appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in May 1995, just as he was entering Harvard Law School. It was subsequently published in The Best American Short Stories 1996 and received the prestigious Second Place O. Henry Award in 1996. Since then, he has had several stories published in both The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.
After law school, Sharma went on to work as an investment banker. In 2000, at the age of 29, Sharma debuted his first novel, An Obedient Father, which he wrote between his long work hours. An excerpt from the novel was published in the June 2000 issue of The New Yorker; it generated a fair amount of outcry and controversy for its frank depiction of incest between the main character and his young daughter.
His novel, Family Life, is heavily based on his own family's experiences coming to America. Aged eight Ajay is fascinated, and sometimes confused, by the wonders that his new home has to offer. His elder brother, Birju, protects him from the bullies who take exception to the novelty of an Indian child when he is not studying hard for the exams that offer him access to a lucrative medical career, resulting in financial comfort for the whole family. When an accident at a swimming pool leaves Birju severely brain-damaged, Ajay tries to remain strong while his father retreats into the oblivion of the bottle and his mother entertains the evermore fanciful rituals of those who claim to have healing powers.
Three years later, Sharma is back with his first story collection A Life of Adventure and Delight, about both Indian life in New Delhi and America. Sharma’s complex stories explore the corruption at home, the sexual violence and repression pervasive in Indian society, and how taboos and social castes affect Indian life in America.
Akhail Sharma told: "Ernest Hemingway has been the most important influence on me as a writer. But at a certain point as a writer, I realized that he was writing about good people doing good things. This did not match my experience of life and so I found my sentences stretching and becoming less plain."
Quotations:
"It's easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don't want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind."
"Why do people always think hurting others is all right, as long as they hurt themselves as well?"
Connections
In 2001 Akhil Sharma married Lisa Swanson, a lawyer.