It’s boom time for Indian authors and publishers

It was more than making Hay while the Kerala sun shines. Sure, rock legends, Sting and Bob Geldof stirred up a storm singing during the Hay- on-the-Arabian-Sea (Trivandrum) Literature Festival last week. But Hay-on-Wye, the world’s most prestigious literary festival, didn’t choose Kerala for those dazzling shores and coconut trees — or delectable fish curries and appam.

These days, India is the place to be — or to forage for talent — for those in the business of books. Literary agents now swoop down regularly, fishing for the Next Best Thing. And, there is money that goes along with the buzz that’s getting louder. Moreover, writers from the Indian subcontinent, including those who live overseas, are landing on the short and long lists of prestigious literary prizes.

Indians may have gone missing from the Man Booker List this year, but they are popping up on many other lists of literary prizes.

The long list of the 2011 Impac Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most valuable literary prize (£100,000) has just been announced. It includes three books from Indian publishers; Delhi- based Rana Dasgupta’s novel Solo, which also won this year’s Commonwealth Writers’ prize. The other two are Pinki Virani’s Deaf Heaven and HM Naqvi’s Home Boy.

The Costa Book Awards’ shortlist of five debut novels by writers based in the UK and Ireland has a strong desi presence this time. It has Aatish Taseer for his Delhi-based story, The Temple-Goers, Kishwar Desai for Witness the Night, and Nikesh Shukla for Coconut Unlimited. The prize is not negligible: £30,000.

Our diasporic desis have really done well this year. The 2010 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award was recently won by Raghuram G Rajan for his book, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy.
Meanwhile, back in the homeland, our impresarios of the literary scene have begun to put their money where their mouths are. The freshly instituted DSC Literature Prize of $50,000 will be announced at the forthcoming DSC Jaipur Literature Festival.

DSC’s mandate is to scout for the best examples of the contemporary novel set in, or about South Asia. However, the authors do not have to be from the region. The Hindu has also got into the business of awards. Manu Joseph’s debut novel Serious Men, recently won the first Hindu Best Fiction award — worth Rs5 lakhs.

Literary prizes and festivals are partially responsible for moving Indian and South Asian writers into the mainstream. Clearly, they, as well as the diasporic Indian writers, have begun find a place in the upper reaches of the international literary pantheon. It looks like they are here to stay. “People now talk about a novel written by an Indian as a novel and not an ‘Indian’ novel,” says VK Karthika, publisher and chief editor, HarperCollins India. “We are now on a level playing field.”

The earth is becoming flat for Indian writers and publishers as well. Indian and international publishers now have separate deals for the same book: India is not necessarily an add-on, or a distribution outlet.

So, those of you who feel that you have a book in you, don’t be shy.  Beginner’s luck seems to be working: Arundhati Roy and Arvind Adiga won the Booker with their debut novels. And many of the lucky strikers on the lists this time are first-time novelists.

— The writer is a journalist based in New Delhi