Akhil Sharma
Akhil Sharma
Akhil Sharmais an Indian-American author and professor of creative writing. His first published novel An Obedient Father won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His second, Family Life, won the 2015 Folio Prize and 2016 International Dublin Literary Award...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth22 July 1971
CountryIndia
act confused depressed fear feelings human immigrant love true
We are all human beings, immigrant or non-immigrant. We all feel fear. We all love and become confused when we don't act as well as we would like to. We all get depressed and have feelings of uselessness. All of these things are true and have always been true.
decided feared good hoped merits novel perspective publishing taken various written
I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.
parents wife wonderful
My wife is the most wonderful woman in the world, and my parents are the most extraordinary father and mother.
bad certain family happened hard situations suffering worse
Writing about what happened to my brother and to my family was awful. It was hard to look back at how much suffering there was and at how certain bad situations were made worse by our decisions.
book expression feels
Exposition suggests a great trust in the reader, and this expression of trust makes a book feel tender.
nonfiction memoir
For me, a memoir is nonfiction and nonfiction has to be absolutely true.
memories taken character
I can't have composite characters. I can't attribute dialogue to someone based simply on my memory and not based on notes taken at the time that the words were spoken.
mean writing important
I need to tell the things that are important but which don't make sense in terms of the narrative, things that would destroy symmetry or narrative pace. This is my personal belief about what it means to write nonfiction.
thinking people needs
People often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides.
unique thinking different
Certainly the details of our life are unique. Spending time thinking of how I am different from someone else, however, does not tend to be very productive.
writing difficult reader
It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.
children narrative information
It is hard to create a first-person narrator that can be a child and yet is able to take in enough information for the narrative to be legible to the reader.
honesty voice doctors
Intern will resonate not only with doctors, but with anyone who has struggled with the grand question 'What should I do with my life?' In a voice of profound honesty and intelligence, Sandeep Jauhar gives us an insider's look at the medical profession and also a dramatic account of the psychological challenges of early adulthood.
emotional way assuming
To me exposition always contains tenderness. While a dramatized scene is a way of proving and guaranteeing an emotional experience for the reader, exposition assumes that the reader is sophisticated and can see the universal.