Thread by @harikunzru

It’s the end of the year, and like everyone else I’m happy to see it go. Still, I'm going to do one of those year-in-review threads, so please do mute if you’re not in the mood.

Main achievement: @katiekitamura and I have two happy sane children who have learned some stuff at home. We lost my uncle to covid and my parents haven’t seen their grandchildren in a year, but we’re doing ok.

I wrote a lot of non-fiction this year. In March for @nybooks I reviewed @DaleBeran's book about 4chan, Gamergate and how the angry internet fringe went mainstream nybooks.com/articles/2020/…

In July I wrote about @mashagessen’s Surviving Autocracy, and explored the various ways 45 has sought to exit democratic politics nybooks.com/articles/2020/…

In the same week that my Gessen essay was on the cover of the NYRB, I had fiction in the New Yorker, which made me feel like I'd really got the hang of this NYC writer thing newyorker.com/magazine/2020/…

interlude: 7 minutes until I lose the right to live and work across the EU. 2021, year of 'sovereignty'.

In September, after the summer of #BLM protests, I wrote about the history of “whiteness”, and how it has come to inflect so much of American political discourse nybooks.com/articles/2020/…

Also in September I published Red Pill, a novel in which I tried to make sense of the experience of the last few years. Here’s Jenny Offill’s review
nybooks.com/articles/2020/…

Here’s a thread from September about Wannsee in Berlin, where much of the action of Red Pill is set twitter.com/harikunzru/sta…

I teach on the @NYUCWP and like a lot of friends on here I had to move online, so a shout out to everyone who was in my MFA fiction seminar in the spring, the NYU undergraduates who escaped quarantine by zooming in to summer school and all in the Fall non-fiction seminar

Hmm trying again with the Red Pill Wannsee thread as the link seems to be broken

https://twitter.com/harikunzru/status/1302707118760439808?s=20

I spent much of 2020 making ‘Into the Zone’ for @pushkinpods . 8 episodes, each one about (as one listener put it) ‘one of my nerdy obsessions’, from my family’s involvement in the Indian independence struggle, to Adorno’s stay in LA pushkin.fm/show/into-the-…

Here's a thread introducing Into the Zone

https://twitter.com/harikunzru/status/1301586824935112705?s=20

The New York Times named Into the Zone one of the best podcasts of the year. Which was nice. Red Pill also made the list of NYT 'notable books', as well as lists from the LA Times, NPR and elsewhere nytimes.com/2020/12/21/art…

Not to judge but 2020-wise I think I’ve held it together better than some

Viral accident of the year: on the day the election was finally called for Biden, I was walking around doing errands, venting on twitter about the crooks and scoundrels who’ve been running things. 40k likes later...

https://twitter.com/harikunzru/status/1325129548325933056?s=20

Almost at the end of the list. For the first time I'm going to be writing a regular column - the 'Easy Chair' slot at the front of @Harpers - first one out now

https://twitter.com/Harpers/status/1343482067816833024?s=20

And because the pandemic has generated a new reality every few weeks, I’ve been keeping a diary. Around 1800 pages of notes so far

So that was my year. Thanks for reading - health, happiness and a sense of futurity to you all for 2021