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Mala Shantha Kumar (born January 4, 1985) is an Indian American international development practitioner and author. She has held two jobs with the United Nations and released her debut novel, The Paths of Marriage, in October 2014.

Early life
Kumar was born in Los Alamitos, California to K.L. Ashok Kumar and Latha Kumar. Shortly after she was born, her family moved to Chester, Virginia where Kumar lived until she left for college.

Education
Kumar attended C.C. Wells Elementary School (1990 - 1995) and Carver Middle School (1996 - 1999), both in her childhood town of Chester. She then attended the Governor's School for Government and Intenational Studies (which later became the Maggie L. Walker School for Government and International Studies) in Richmond, Virginia. It was at the Governor's School that Mala began to more fully develop her interest in international development. As a student, she played on the school's varsity soccer and field hockey teams, strengthened her French language skills, and became an active member of the school's Model United Nations organization.

In 2007, Kumar began her freshman year at Virginia Tech. She graduated in 2011 with her Bachelors of Science (B.S.) in Marketing Management and minors in French for Business and Global Business.

After completing her undergraduate degree, Kumar traveled to Lyon, France to teach English to primary school students for nine months. She then went back to the United States to attend gradudate school at The New School in New York City, where she studied international development. She earned her Masters of Arts (M.A.) from the university in May, 2010.

International Development Practitioner
Kumar used her graduate degree and expertise to work in international development in many different capacities, including two jobs with the United Nations (UN).

U.N. World Food Program (Jan 2012 - July 2013)
In January, 2012, Kumar began working as a Program Officer (PO) for a division of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) called the African Risk Capacity (ARC), which aims to insure African countries likely to suffer from effects of severe weather events, such as drought. Her roles as a PO included redoing the ARC website, colloborating on ARC's software package interface, and presenting technical work to in-country stakeholders in English and French. Her work travel took her to Rome, Italy as well as several African cities including Kampala, Uganda, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Dakar, Senegal. Upon completion of her initial contract WFP, Mala left the organization in July, 2013.

UNICEF (Sept - Dec 2014)
In early September 2014, Kumar left for the African country of Burundi to begin work as a technical consultant for UNICEF's KiraMAMA project, which aims to help mother and child survival using RapidSMS mobile platform technology. The work proved difficult, as Burundi was still reeling from the effects of a civil war in the mid-to-late 20th century and is still one of the five poorest countries in the world. Its fragile economic and political state meant that the country didn't have nearly the mobile platform infrastructure necessary to begin significant work on the KiraMAMA project. Nevertheless, Kumar worked in Burundi's capital city of Bujumbura for three months to help get the Burundian government started on the right track. She moved back to New York in December, 2014.

The Paths of Marriage
Kumar wrote her debut novel, The Paths of Marriage off and on over a period of about four years. The story, which follows three generations of Indian women and their struggles against both internal and external discrimination, contains some similarities to her own family history. After self-publishing it in April, 2014 under the the title The Circumstance of Marriage, the novel was picked up by a published company and re-released later that year with its new title.

First Incarnation: The Circumstance of Marriage
The Circumstance of Marriage was written in chunks during various periods of Kumar's life throughout many years. While Kumar always had hopes of eventually publishing the novel, she became more dedicated to completing it during much of late 2013 and early 2014. She created a website for the book, an e-mail subscription list, and many social media pages for the novel in an effort to advertise and market her work. The book officially became available for purchase on April 22, 2014, and she held a book-launch party in early May in New York City to celebrate the novel's release.

New Contract and Retitled: The Paths of Marriage
Kumar's hard work marketing her book paid off when, at her book launch party in May, 2014, she announced that The Circumstance of Marriage was picked up by the publishing company Bedazzled Ink. She signed a contract to republish the book through the publishing company and subsequently renamed the novel The Paths of Marriage. The retitled novel became available for purchase on October 1, 2014.

Personal Life
Kumar has stated that she has often had difficultly reconciling her personal life with her work in the field as an international development practitioner in many francophone African countries. She publicly came out as gay in an op-ed published on the website of the LGBT-interest magazine, The Advocate, citing the UN's lack of protection of its gay employees against many African countries' homophobic laws as a major reason for leaving her position at UNICEF.

Interviews and Public Appearances
In addition to her op-ed, Kumar has conducted several other interviews:


 * On Novemeber 28, 2014, the Swedish non-profit organization Girls' Globe published an interview with Mala Kumar, in which she discussed The Paths of Marriage and her thoughts on arranged marriages throughout the world. She mentions the lack of power that women and girls have in deciding when and to whom they marry, stating that "Until all women have the true option to say no to marriage, the idea of arranged marriage will persist.".


 * In early December, 2014, Kumar was interviewed by the women's leadership advocacy organization Women LEAD. Kumar discussed her personal and professional background, her inspiration for The Paths of Marriage and her thoughts on women's empowerment, including the fact that child marriage is less pervasive in regions of the world where women's education is valued and upheld. The interview was published on Women LEAD's website on December 5, 2014.


 * In mid-December, 2014, Kumar returned to her old high school to speak to current students about her experiences in the UN and her novel The Paths of Marriage. Following her talk, she was interviewed by a local Richmond news magazine Style Weekly, and the interview was published on Style Weekly's website on December 19, 2014. In the interview, Kumar discusses her work in Burundi, coming out in her op-ed on The Advocate, and the positive influence of such an open and accepting high school community, including from her late English teacher Greg "Bear" O'Bryan, who passed away shortly after the release of her novel in October.