Tabish Khair is an Indian English writer, poet and professor. He teaches in the Department of English at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is popular for his books Jihadi Zen and the sci-fi The Body by the Shore (2022).
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Tabish Khair was born on Monday, 21 March 1966 (age 57 years; as in 2023) in Ranchi, Bihar (now in Jharkhand). His zodiac sign is Aries. He was brought up in Gaya, Bihar. He completed his secondary school education at the local Nazareth Academy. He belonged to a family of doctors and engineers and his father wanted Tabish to study medicine like the rest of his family. After school, he began studying medicine, but later dropped out to study a Bachelor of Arts in English (Hons), Sociology and History. He graduated in 1986 and later, he did his post-graduation in English from the local Magadh University and moved to Delhi to start his career in writing with newspapers and news magazines. During his time in Delhi, he fell in love with a Danish girl and moved to Copenhagen, Denmark for her. Initially, Tabish Khair worked immigrant jobs in Denmark, including hotel cleaning, dish washing, and house painting. Later in 1999, he received a PhD merit scholarship and pursued his PhD at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Physical Appearance
Hair Color: Black
Eye colour: brown
Family
parents and siblings
Tabish’s father, Dr. Khalid Khair, was a doctor and his mother was a business owner for a while and later became a housewife. His father died in December 2013.
Tabish Khair’s parents
Tabis Khair with his mother
wife and children
Tabish Khair has 3 children, 2 daughters and a son. There is not much information about his wife.
Tabish Khair with his children
other relatives
kalam hydari
Kalam Hydari was a businessman, lecturer and writer. He was Tabish’s uncle as he married Tabish’s eldest aunt. Tabish was inspired by Kalam’s literary and political interests and visited his home daily and spent some time with him in his office downstairs. Tabish met many writers there like Joginder Paul and heard about many writers including Ismat Chughtai, Krishna Chander and Bhisham Sawhney. Kalam Hydari founded The Cultural Academy, which helped young writers and students to write and get published in Urdu. During college, Tabish also edited several issues of the English-language six-monthly magazine, Rachna.
Tabish Khair’s uncle Dr Kalam Hydari
Tabish wrote an article for the online platform, Life and Legends, about his uncle, known as “Kalam Hydari: Phupajaan”. Talking about his last conversation with his uncle, Tabish wrote in the article,
I remember teasing him during our last meeting. As he picked up his prayer mat and started walking towards a quiet corner, I said to him, ‘But Phupajaan, I thought Communists didn’t believe in God.’ Son, I am of your age, you would prefer not to take any risk.
religion/religious views
Tabish Khair believes in Islam but according to him religion is a complex matter and while talking about it in an interview he said,
Religion is a complex matter. I’m a big admirer of theorists like Terry Eagleton, who is an atheist Marxist but deeply connected to his religious traditions. I dislike those who believe blindly in ‘God’ or simply dismiss religions: on both sides there seems to be a disappointing lack of engagement with the complexities of the past and with human aspirations and ideas.
signature/autograph
livelihood
Tabish Khair started writing during his college days; He worked as a district reporter for the Patna edition of The Times of India. Tabish got his first poetry collection, ‘My World’, published by a leading publishing house, Rupa & Company, Delhi, before leaving his hometown. Her first collection was designed by Keki N. Daruwala, Adil Jussawala, Vilas Sarang and Shiv K. Appreciated by senior poets and critics like Kumar.
Tabish Khair
Later, at the age of 25, due to conflict with some local radicals, he moved to Delhi, where he worked for The Times of India. While in Delhi, Khair published two more collections and began writing her first novel, ‘An Angel in Pajamas’, which was later published by HarperCollins in 1996. In India Today, it was described as “the calling card of a writer with the power to captivate”. Tabish’s literary work reflects themes of xenophobia, climate change, racism, abuse of power, and science.
Tabish Khair’s first novel
After Delhi, he moved to Denmark where he completed his PhD in 2000 and wrote a thesis which was published as the book Babu Fiction: Alienation in Indian English Novels (2001), an account of the problems faced by Indian writers while writing in English. Talks about problems. And because of not being able to write in Hindi or Urdu. Khair’s second novel, ‘The Bus Stopped’, was published by Picador in 2004. His major books include The Thing About Thugs, How to Fight Islamic Terror from the Missionary Position, and The Bus Stopped. Khair has co-edited various books and journals, including a casebook of essays on Amitav Ghosh (Permanent Black, Delhi) and ‘Other Routes’, an anthology of Asian and African travel writing before 1900.
The Body by the Shore, by Tabish Khair
His academic papers, reviews and essays have been published in renowned journals and newspapers. Tabish gave her first reading from her book Just Another Jihadi Jane in Bergen, Norway for a small but informative gathering in September 2016. In 2022, he published a science fiction novel, The Body by the Shore. He received an Honorary Fellowship for Creative Writing from the Baptist University of Hong Kong, a Fellowship at the Universities of New Delhi and a Sub-Fellowship at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK. He edited Other Routes (2005), an anthology of travel writing by Africans and Asians, in 2005. His work has been translated into over 6 languages, including French, Spanish, Danish and Portuguese.
Tabish Khair at Kolkata Literary Meet 2019
Tabish has read his poetry and books at several global events including Jaipur Literary Festival (2017), Tabish Khair at Kolkata Literary Meet (2019) and Kalam Festival, Kolkata (2019). He has been writer in residence at the University of York in the UK and visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge and the University of Leeds. He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia and the Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar in India.
Tabish Khair at Jaipur Literature Festival 2017
Awards and Honors
- Her second novel, The Bus Stopped, was short-listed for the Encore Award (UK).
- His novel The Thing About Thugs was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Award and the DSC Award for South Asian Literature.
- In 1995, his poem Birds of North Europe won the first prize in the Sixth Poetry Society All India Poetry Competition.
- In June 2008, his novel, Filming (2007), was shortlisted for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in India.
- In 2010, his novel, The Thing About Thugs, was shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award.
- The Danish translation of her novel, Filming: A Love Story (2007), was shortlisted for Denmark’s top translation/literature prize (ALOA Prize).
Favorite
- Books): Lost Connections by Johann Hari, Change: The Biography of a Village, by Arvind Narayan Das
- Indian Writer: Khushwant Singh
- Beverages: Sheer Tea, Lassi
Facts/General Knowledge
- In 2020, Khair participated in a large protest against racism and the Black Lives Matter movement in Aarhus, Denmark.
Tabish Khair at a protest in Aarhus, Denmark
- Tabish wrote a poem about his mother for Poetry at Sangam, an electronic magazine by Priya Sarukkai Chabria, in 2016.
- According to Tabish, he does not like that his literary work is categorized as having diasporic, subalternist and post-colonial themes. He hates being identified as a “modern or westernized Muslim” and does not want to be identified as such.
- In 2020, Tabish Khair was part of The Decameron 2020, a project founded by Italian writer Eri De Luca and director Michael Mayer, where he got various writers from around the world to write stories about their lives during the lockdown. Tabish Khair wrote River of No Return, which was read by Indian actress Shabana Azmi.
- He is a great fan of the works of Salman Rushdie and is often seen reading his works in interviews.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn