INHALE — A Novel in Stories by R. Kumra

Author. Witness.

R. Kumra was born and raised near Dearborn, Michigan. Before Inhale, he had never published a word. He worked nights at a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey, operating a forklift and listening to his coworkers talk about their children, their ex-wives, their gods. Inhale was first written in the break room on receipt paper and napkins, then retyped into a secondhand laptop missing the letter Q. He does not teach. He has no fellowships, no residencies, no grants. Once he sat in the courtyard of the American University of Beirut while a lecture on the literature of displacement carried through an open window, then bought a jellab from a cart outside and took the service taxi home. He lived in a studio apartment above a laundromat with his mother, who never read his work but told everyone at Jummah her son was a writer.

She was correct.