2019 CLSC Selection Update
Swimmer Among the Stars by Kanishk Tharoor has been named a 2019 CLSC Selection.
In one of this collection’s singularly imaginative stories, despondent diplomats entertain themselves by playing table tennis in zero gravity―for after rising seas destroy Manhattan, the United Nations moves to an orbiting space hotel. In other tales, a team of anthropologists treks to a remote village to record a language’s last surviving speaker intoning her native tongue; and Genghis Khan’s marauding army steadily approaches an unnamed city’s walls.
With exuberant originality and startling vision, Tharoor cuts against the grain of literary convention, drawing equally from ancient history and current events. His world-spanning stories speak to contemporary challenges of environmental collapse and cultural appropriation, but also to the workings of legend and their timeless human truths. Whether refashioning the romances of Alexander the Great or confronting the plight of today’s refugees, Tharoor writes with distinctive insight and remarkable assurance. Swimmer Among the Stars announces the arrival of a vital, enchanting talent.
Kanishk Tharoor’s journalism and fiction have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker, and his work has been nominated for the National Magazine Award. He is the presenter and writer of the BBC radio series "Museum of Lost Objects" and a columnist for the Hindustan Times and the Hindu Business Line in India. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
The CLSC Presentation will take place at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, August 15, 2019 at the Hall of Philosophy. Please note that Kanishk Tharoor replaces Hala Alyan (Salt Houses), previously announced for Aug. 15.
