Writers are finding inspiration in the furiously evolving societies and encouragement in a buoyant book market, writes Andrew Buncombe in The Independent
- Colin Thubron, Vikram Seth, William Dalrymple and Pico Iyer at the Jaipur Literature Festival, 2009
There was a time, not so long ago, when a visit to a Delhi bookshop to browse its section of Indian literature would be a somewhat depressing experience. There would a handful of stellar stand-out names, of course; Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and one or two others. But the collection would be a half-hearted affair, seemingly there more out of duty than joy, and usually it would be hidden away at the back of the shop. ”Now, that has all completely changed,” laughs V K Karthika, publisher and chief editor of HarperCollins India. “Now those books are at the front of the shop. What’s more, they’re actually the books you want to read, rather than the books you read because you feel you should.” more
This year’s London book fair celebrates the diversity of contemporary Indian writing. How much do the novelists of the new generation have in common, asks Amit Chaudhuri. In the Guardian:
The theme of the London book fair this year is Indian writing. Vikram Seth, Amartya Sen, William Dalrymple and other writers in frequent circulation in this country are going to be joined by writers – K Satchidanandan, Javed Akhtar – distinguished or popular on their own terrain but less known here, for five days of discussions and celebrations. Something like this happened in 2006 to the Frankfurt book fair, when planeloads of Indian novelists and poets descended on the Intercontinental Hotel, waved to each other over breakfast, and then read from their work to courteous audiences in the afternoons and evenings.
The theme then, too, was India; and the “idea of India” acted as a catalyst to a process that might have already begun, but received, at that moment, a recognisable impetus – the confluence, in one place, of literary and intellectual dialogue with what is basically business activity, each bringing magic and movement to the other. The India-themed Paris book fair followed swiftly.
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In The National, S Subramanian pans the latest addition to India’s chick-lit canon, “You Are Here” by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan (published by Penguin):
Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s debut novel You Are Here is not the first example of Indian chick-lit, but it has been the most heralded. In 2004, Madhavan began writing an anonymous blog, The Compulsive Confessor, that introduced in its second post the two elements its author cannot seem to do without: a bar and a cute boy. Since then, Madhavan has posted candidly about sex, booze, cigarettes, clubs and relationships – subjects not often discussed within Indian society, especially by young, single women. Not surprisingly, her page views climbed quickly as the site drew voyeurs, cranks and young people who saw a little of their own lives in Madhavan’s confessions.
The blog stuck adhesively to a limited roster of favourite chick-lit subjects, and favoured the observational form. In November 2006, she described a new quasi-boyfriend thusly: “New Boy is so pretty. He really is [...] That’s not to say he’s effeminate. Far from it. New Boy is very much a boy, as he proves constantly.” In December, she medidated on two tops recently gifted to her, “one blue with beads, cut away in the middle to reveal navel piercing, one orange-y corset type thing”. That same month she confessed compulsively from Bali, from where she lamented that a “very hot American” named Dylan did not hit on her. “AND I was wearing my new tube top,” she wrote sadly.
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Namita Bhandare on literary agent David Godwin in Mint-Lounge:
Celebrated literary agent David Godwin describes himself as a “car salesman”. “My job,” he says, “is to take the Mercedes from the garage of the publisher and put it into the garage of the writer.”
British self-deprecation? Godwin is, after all, a man to be taken seriously. His clients include two Booker Prize winners (Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai) and such A-list writers as Vikram Seth and William Dalrymple, not to mention Jim Crace, Simon Armitage and Alan Warner. Surely he doesn’t really see himself as a car salesman. But Godwin is serious. “I’m here to champion writers. I want to be a literary Robin Hood.”
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