Matter of Rats

Amitava Kumar is a novelist, poet, journalist, filmmaker, and Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College. He is the author of A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb and Nobody Does the Right Thing: A Novel, both also published by Duke University Press; Husband of a Fanatic: A Personal Journey through India, Pakistan, Love, and Hate, a New York Times "Editors' Choice" selection; Bombay-London-New York, a New Statesman (UK) "Book of the Year" selection; and Passport Photos. He is the editor of several books, including Away: The Indian Writer as an Expatriate, The Humour and the Pity: Essays on V. S. Naipaul, and World Bank Literature. He is also the screenwriter and narrator of the prize-winning documentary film Pure Chutney. Kumar's writing has appeared in The Nation, Harper's Magazine, Vanity Fair, The American Prospect, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Hindu, and other publications in North America and India.

"An intimate and whimsical book, but one that truly shines when the author turns his gaze to the ordinary people who still live in Patna . . . skillfully evoking the circumstances of chaos, filth and absurdity in which even the city’s middle-class professionals are forced to live." - Sonia Faleiro (New York Times Book Review) “This new look at an ancient city transports readers on a fun journey. Lovers of travel writing, Indian history, and fans of literature will greatly enjoy this short book. . . .” - Melissa Aho (Library Journal) "Pound for pound, Amitava Kumar is one of the best nonfiction writers of his generation. . . . No one in India writes a more fine-grained and quietly evocative prose. . . . In his marvelous new work A Matter of Rats: A Short Biography of Patna, Kumar puts a stethoscope to his hometown and takes a reading of its heart." - Siddharth Chowdhury (Time Out Delhi) “There's much more to Patna than rats, of course, and Kumar touches on its ancient glory and later role in the East India Company's opium trade. He also writes eloquently about writing itself, and the meaning of place.”- Nina Shengold (Chronogram) “E. B. White composed Here Is New York, his fraught love letter to Manhattan, during a heat wave in the summer of 1948. Sixty-four years later, the book served as a ‘secret talisman’ for Amitava Kumar, who carried it with him into the heat and humidity of his hometown, Patna, in India, as he wrote A Matter of Rats, an equally cleareyed ode to a similarly implausible place.” - Maud Newton (New York Times Magazine) "Kumar is alert to the signs of life coming from sometimes unanticipated directions. . . . This refusal of pessimism is one of the refreshing elements of Kumar’s writing. While there is always plenty of bad news in Patna, he insists on the presence of joy - an emotion that, rare as it is, 'is as real as suffering' - even in surprising places. He poignantly describes incidents of everyday compassion and of the sacrifices of teachers, doctors, and activists. Each crisis or injustice, it seems, has sparked its own rebels, some noisy, others quiet." - David Boyk (Los Angeles Review of Books) “This book has something for everyone – historical tales, reflection on current India, guidance on writing and as a map for someone planning to visit Patna." - Rajdeep Pakanati (Contemporary South Asia)

• Acknowledgments ixIntroduction. The Place of Place xi1. The Rat's Guide 12. Pataliputra 153. Patna in the Hole 294. Leftover Patna 455. Other Patnas 636. Emperor of This World 737. Emotional Atyachaar 85Epilogue. Place of Birth/Place of Death 103Notes 109Index 113