Akash Kapur

Thanks for visiting my Author's Page and for your interest in my work. I am an Indian-American journalist and author. I write about a wide range of topics but my main interest is in human stories. I believe literature illuminates the human condition, and I love talking to people (I hate calling them "interviews"), understanding their lives, and translating their stories into the written word.My first book, "India Becoming," captured stories from a changing and rapidly modernizing India; it tried to portray all the ambivalence and "creative destruction" of economic development. "Better to have Gone" is about love, faith, death, and the noble but often tragic--and destructive--search for utopia. It's set in the intentional community of Auroville, where I grew up, and is focused on the remarkable stories of my wife's parents, who were pioneers in the community and died in mysterious circumstances. The book was something of a personal quest for our family as we sought to unravel those mysteries.I'm also the editor of an anthology of writing from Auroville ("Auroville: Dream and Reality"), and I've written for a number of publications in the USA, India, and UK. These include the Atlantic, the Economist, Granta, the Hindu, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. I also used to write a fortnightly "Letter from India" column for the international New York Times. Read moreRead less