Suketu Mehta

Creator Context

Summary

Suketu Mehta is an Indian-American author, journalist, screenwriter, and NYU journalism professor known for Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found and This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto. His nonfiction repeatedly examines migration, diaspora, racism, nationalism, colonialism, urban inequality, and the lives of marginalized communities. Since the rise of Donald Trump, he has publicly criticized anti-immigrant rhetoric, racial populism, and nativist politics, arguing that wealthy countries benefited from the resources and labor of poorer nations. He has also encouraged Indian Americans and other immigrant communities to engage in political and cultural life rather than remain deferential. His work is primarily literary and journalistic rather than activist campaigning, and his screenwriting credits include conventional commercial productions, but immigration, cultural identity, and anti-colonial framing are sustained features of his public writing and reputation.