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{{Short description|Indian writer and academic}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}}
{{Use Indian English|date=July 2025}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Aruni Kashyap
| image = Aruni Kashyap আৰুণি কাশ্যপ.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date =
| birth_place = [[Assam]], India
| occupation = [[Novelist]], [[short story]] writer, [[poet]], [[translator]], [[Academic staff|academic]]
| nationality = Indian
| education = [[St. Stephen's College, Delhi]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Edinburgh]]
| genre = [[Fiction]], [[poetry]], literary criticism
| notableworks = ''[[The House with a Thousand Stories]]'' <br> ''[[His Father's Disease]]''
| awards = [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Fellowship <br> Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship
| website = {{URL|https://www.arunikashyap.com/}}
| employer = [[University of Georgia]]
}}
'''Aruni Kashyap''' is an Indian writer, translator, and academic from [[Assam]], India. He writes in Assamese and English and translates from Assamese. His works have appeared in publications such as ''[[The New York Times]]'', ''[[Boston Review]]'', ''[[The Guardian]]'' and ''[[The Hindu]]'', and have won several awards. He is an associate professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the [[University of Georgia]].

Kashyap is known for his works ''[[The House with a Thousand Stories]]'' (2013) and the short story collections ''[[His Father's Disease]]'' (2019) and ''The Way You Want to Be Loved'' (2024). His work often explores the political conflicts of his home state of [[Assam]], focusing on themes of insurgency, identity, and displacement.

== Career ==
Kashyap writes in both English and [[Assamese language|Assamese]]. His debut novel, ''The House with a Thousand Stories'', was published by [[Penguin Random House|Viking]] in 2013. The novel, set in [[Mayong, Assam|Mayong]] in rural Assam, explores the impact of the [[Assam conflict|insurgency in Assam]] on the daily lives of its characters against the backdrop of a family wedding.<ref name="MintRev">{{cite web |last=Sharma |first=Sanjukta |date=2013-07-06 |title=Book Review |url=https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/76JHY5WSDdqGO7W8KmZWBL/Book-Review--The-House-With-a-Thousand-Stories.html |access-date=2025-07-19 |website=Mint}}</ref> It received critical attention, with reviewers noting its sensitive portrayal of a region often overlooked in mainstream Indian literature.<ref name="LalitRev">{{cite web |date=2014-02-03 |title=Review: The House with a Thousand Stories |url=https://lalitmag.com/review-the-house-with-a-thousand-stories/ |access-date=2025-07-19 |website=La.Lit: A Literary Magazine}}</ref>

His collection of short stories, ''His Father's Disease'', was published in 2019. The stories are set in both Assam and the United States, examining themes of cultural misunderstanding, identity, sexuality, and the immigrant experience.<ref name="WLT_HFD">{{cite web |last=Chellappan |first=Sravya |date=Spring 2020 |title=His Father's Disease by Aruni Kashyap |url=https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2020/spring/his-fathers-disease-aruni-kashyap |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=World Literature Today}}</ref><ref name="RainTaxi">{{cite web |last=MacBride |first=Michael |date=22 May 2020 |title=His Father's Disease: Stories |url=https://raintaxi.com/his-fathers-disease-stories/ |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=Rain Taxi Review of Books}}</ref> His poetry collection, ''There Is No Good Time for Bad News'', was published in 2021.<ref name="UGA">{{cite web |title=Aruni Kashyap |url=https://www.english.uga.edu/directory/people/aruni-kashyap |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=www.english.uga.edu |publisher=University of Georgia}}</ref> It was nominated for the 58th Georgia Author of the Year Awards 2022, a finalist for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize, and the Four Way Books Levis Award in Poetry.<ref name="UGA" /><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=2023-02-01 |title=Write, translator Aruni Kashyap to visit Lander |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-index-journal-write-translator-arun/178567297/ |access-date=2025-08-10 |work=The Index-Journal}}</ref> He has also published short fiction, essays, and poetry in various literary journals, including ''[[The Kenyon Review]]'', ''[[The New York Times]]'', ''[[The Boston Review]]'', ''AGNI'', and ''[[World Literature Today]]''.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Kenyon">{{cite web |title=Almost Obscene |url=https://kenyonreview.org/piece/july-2019-almost-obscene/ |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=The Kenyon Review}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-11-22 |title=Life Under an Insurgency: An Interview with Aruni Kashyap |url=https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2021/11/life-under-an-insurgency-an-interview-with-aruni-kashyap/ |access-date=2025-07-19 |website=Michigan Quarterly Review |language=en-US}}</ref>

As a translator, Kashyap has worked to bring Assamese literature to a wider audience. He translated [[Indira Goswami]]'s novel ''The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar'' and Anuradha Sarma Pujari's ''My Poems Are Not For Your Ad-Campaign''.<ref name="NEA">{{cite web |title=Aruni Kashyap |url=https://www.arts.gov/impact/literary-arts/translation-fellows/aruni-kashyap |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=www.arts.gov}}</ref>

Kashyap is an associate professor in the Department of English and serves as the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the [[University of Georgia]] in Athens, Georgia.<ref name="UGA" />

== Themes and style ==
Kashyap's fiction is noted for its focus on Assam and [[Northeast India]], a region he has stated is often misrepresented or ignored in global and Indian narratives.<ref name="SplitLip">{{cite web |title=Complicating the Idea of India: A Conversation with Aruni Kashyap |url=https://splitlipthemag.com/interviews/0321/interview-of-aruni-kashyap |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=Split Lip Magazine}}</ref> He frequently incorporates elements of the region's political history, including insurgency and state violence, into the personal lives of his characters.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ward |first=Janelle |title=UGA professor uses Toni Morrison-inspired style to pen poems about violence in India |url=https://www.onlineathens.com/story/entertainment/books/2021/06/22/uga-professor-aruni-kashyap-releases-poetry-book-indian-violence/7699743002/ |access-date=2025-07-19 |website=Online Athens |language=en-US}}</ref> In an interview with ''The Offing'', he discussed the importance of writing about his home region: "It is true that since I am from a space that is so little depicted in Indian English fiction and doesn't feed into the existing ideas of India... some agents and editors have been befuddled."<ref name="TheOffing">{{cite web |date=26 June 2025 |title=Q&A with Aruni Kashyap, author of The Way You Want To Be Loved |url=https://theoffingmag.com/interviews/qa-with-aruni-kashyap-author-of-the-way-you-want-to-be-loved/ |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=The Offing}}</ref>

His work also explores issues of [[Queer theory|queer]] identity, diasporic experience, and cultural dislocation.<ref name="WLT_HFD" /><ref name="NecessaryFiction">{{cite web |last=McGrath |first=James |date=23 December 2024 |title=The Way You Want to Be Loved by Aruni Kashyap |url=https://necessaryfiction.com/reviews/the-way-you-want-to-be-loved/ |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=Necessary Fiction}}</ref> His writing style has been described by critics as straightforward and evocative.<ref name="WLT_HFD" /><ref name="NecessaryFiction" /> He has mentioned borrowing from Assamese idioms and storytelling techniques to "expand[ing] the possibilities of English."<ref name="TheOffing" />

== Awards and recognition ==
Kashyap has received several fellowships for his work. He was awarded a [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Fellowship in 2023 to support the translation of the Assamese novel ''The Illuminated Valley'' by Dipak Kumar Barkakati.<ref name="NEA" /> In 2024, he was named a Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow at the [[Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study]] at [[Harvard University]].<ref name="UGA" /> He has also received the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing, which supported his studies at the [[University of Edinburgh]].<ref name="HarperCollins">{{cite web |title=Aruni Kashyap |url=https://www.harpercollins.com/blogs/authors/aruni-kashyap-0018065 |access-date=19 July 2025 |website=HarperCollins Publishers}}</ref> His translations have been shortlisted for the 2023 and 2024 Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation and VOW Book Awards 2024.<ref name="UGA" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Team |first=ThePrint |date=2024-06-28 |title=Valley of Words announces 2024 book awards shortlist for translated works in English & Hindi |url=https://theprint.in/india/valley-of-words-announces-2024-book-awards-shortlist-for-translated-works-in-english-hindi/2151112/ |access-date=2025-08-10 |website=ThePrint |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Selected works ==

=== Novels ===

* {{cite book |last=Kashyap |first=Aruni |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/O-7IswEACAAJ?hl=en |title=The House with a Thousand Stories |date=2013 |publisher=Viking |isbn=978-0-670-08695-5}}
* ''Noikhon Etia Duroit'' (Assamese)

=== Short story collections ===

* {{cite book |last=Kashyap |first=Aruni |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/His_Father_s_Disease/fV9LzQEACAAJ?hl=en |title=His Father's Disease: Stories |date=2019 |publisher=Westland Books |isbn=978-93-88754-58-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Kashyap |first=Aruni |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Way_You_Want_to_Be_Loved/l1920AEACAAJ?hl=en |title=The Way You Want to Be Loved: Short Stories |date=2024 |publisher=Gaudy Boy, LLC |isbn=978-1-958652-08-4}}

=== Poetry ===

* {{cite book |last=Kashyap |first=Aruni |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/There_Is_No_Good_Time_for_Bad_News/TOPPzQEACAAJ?hl=en |title=There Is No Good Time for Bad News |date=2021 |publisher=FutureCycle Press |isbn=978-1-952593-06-2}}

=== As editor ===

* {{cite book |last=Kashyap |first=Aruni |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_to_Tell_the_Story_of_an_Insurgency/hPrGDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=How+to+Tell+the+Story+of+an+Insurgency&printsec=frontcover |title=How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency: Fifteen tales from Assam |date= |publisher=Harper Collins |year=2020 |isbn=978-93-5357-653-0}}

=== Translations ===

* ''Ten Love Stories and a Novella of Despair'' by Anuradha Sarma Pujari (Westland 2026)
* ''An Illuminated Valley,'' by Dipak Kumar Barkakati (Penguin Random House 2025)
* ''My Poems Are Not for Your Ad-Campaign'' (Penguin Random House 2023) by [[Anuradha Sharma Pujari|Anuradha Sarma Pujari]]. {{ISBN|978-0-670-09681-7}}.
* ''The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar by Indira Goswami'' ([[Zubaan Books]], 2013). {{ISBN|978-93-81017-08-1}}.

== References ==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Indian novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Assam]]
[[Category:Indian poets]]
[[Category:University of Georgia faculty]]
[[Category:St. Stephen's College, Delhi alumni]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian novelists]]
[[Category:Indian male novelists]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]]

Aruni Kashyap - Revision history

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