A Novelist and a Mathematician

Manil Suri, mathematician and novelist who visits Albany this Friday, is interviewed in the Times Union.

Q: When did you start to write? And did your math colleagues think you were crazy?

A: It began as a hobby, once I started teaching in 1983. I looked around me at all my colleagues busy doing math and nothing else, and decided I needed another dimension in my life. So I started writing — purely as a hobby — maybe a story or so every year. I kept it a secret. I wanted to be taken seriously as a mathematician, get tenure. I even drove all the way to Washington, D.C., to attend writing groups so nobody would know what I was doing.

Read more of Elizabeth Floyd Mair's interview here:  http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Math-figures-into-The-City-of-Devi-4427739.php

Read more about Suri's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/suri_manil13.html