American · b. 1959
Manil Suri is a mathematician who writes novels about Mumbai. "The Death of Vishnu" (2001), his debut, unfolds on a single staircase in an apartment building as a handyman lies dying on the landing and the families above carry on with their dramas. Suri was born in Bombay and teaches mathematics at the University of Maryland; his fiction brings an analytical eye to Hindu mythology and middle-class Indian life. He has written columns on mathematics for the New York Times and continued his Mumbai trilogy with "The Age of Shiva" and "The City of Devi."