‘Much of recent history is a long sequence of fearmongering’: an interview with Tabish Khair

Tabish Khair is an acclaimed Indian poet, novelist, journalist, and academic. He works as an Associate Professor of English at Aarhus University, Denmark. In this interview, Khair discusses his fiction, with a particular focus on his latest novel The Body by the Shore (2022). He reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, emphasising that it was not just about viruses and human precarity but also about power, wealth, the corporate-government nexus, corruption, and violence. Khair also speaks about other matters related to his writing, including intertextuality and the fusion of scientific plausibility with his literary imagination. This conversation further touches upon some of his previous novels and elicits his thoughts on immigrant identity, Muslims, religion, radicalisation, and terrorism. Khair also underscores the role of literature in countering fundamentalism, which he defines broadly, climate change, and other issues of global significance. He reiterates that literature engages with reality and enables serious thinking.