Aatish Taseer '03
Name: Aatish Taseer
Current Home: New York
Place of Birth: London
Education: B.A. Amherst Pol Science and French
Awards and Prizes: French Prize; Costa First novel shortlist; Jan Michalski finalist
Favorite Book: Bend in the River
Favorite Author: V.S. Naipaul
Tips for aspiring writers? Get a law degree. It’s not worth it.
Tell us a bit about your path to becoming an author:
It’s been awful. A long road of disappointments that shatter your self confidence and make nervous wrecks of well adjusted happy people. The odd nice thing would happen on the way, but it was no compensation for the endless rejections. My advice is don’t do it. Walk away.
Aatish Taseer was born in 1980. He is the author of the memoir Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey Through Islamic Lands and the acclaimed novels: The Way Things Were, a finalist for the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize; The Temple-Goers, which was short-listed for the Costa First Novel Award; and Noon. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. He is a contributing writer for The International New York Times and lives in New Delhi and New York.
Photo Credit: Platform