Whether showcased in large print, humming in soft verse or sitting tightly bound on snooty shelves, Indian words are poised to travel widely in 2008. The forecast for books is upbeat — literary agencies at last, publishers proliferating by the minute, professionally planned jackets, storytellers hitting the spot bang-on, genres unlimited… Is there a twist in the tale? Only 2009 will tell. Meanwhile, banker-cum-author Chetan Bhagat readies for the sweepstakes once again, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni dwells on desi spells, and Pulitzer-winner Jhumpa Lahiri spins more stories in the new year. So fasten your seatbelts, bookworms, and prepare to vroom around the world while cuddling up with bestsellers this holiday season and beyond.
Of late, the looks of books have been getting better and better, with even mediocre works offset by beauty-parloured covers. Breakthrough technical savvy in production has shooed out the assembly-line look, bringing the bling back to coffee-table books, which, like page-three socialites, were beginning to appear boringly same. Blurbs, too, now cut to the chase with less blubber, more kick-ass copy. As HarperCollins chief editor VK Karthika puts it, the year ahead is “exciting”!
Despite cyber substitutes, online reads and Nobel laureate Doris Lessing’s warning that the Internet has “seduced a whole generation into its inanities”, books are not into birth-control yet, thank god! From gift-wrapped sermons to casting showbiz celebs in a new light and plucking the yuk factor from taboo topics, the books of the future are leaving no page unturned when it comes to genres.
Kapish Mehra of Rupa and Company sees a broadening of reader base. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but Year 2008 will see a bit of everything. The question is where is the Indian reader going? What is his mind pattern, taste? The target audience is changing, maturing. The increase in retailing means more books of all types.”
Against this potpourri prediction is the notion that the literary muse may even be homeward-bound. Says Chetan Bhagat, whose new book is scheduled for summertime, “The trend of homegrown literature will continue to grow. Hope some good non-fiction also comes out domestically.”
Nilanjana S Roy, literary critic and chief editor of EastWest and Westland Books, says: “I think you’ll see a demand for more food writing and cookbooks, for more graphic novels, and for more works that deal directly with Indian history and biography. With so many of us in publishing now, our trade list — the more commercial books — should also become more ‘Indian’ and less ‘imported’. For example, we should have more indigenous yoga books, rather than imports from elsewhere.”
Agrees Bollywood Roulette author Rahul Bajaj, “I think the defining trend of 2008 is going to be accessibility, an acceleration of the process of Indification of English language Indian literature. It is breaking out of a mould — like Indian cinema did over a hundred years ago — when it switched from foreign themes to Indian themes and look where that evolution has brought Bollywood. Pioneering this trend are going to be innovative, small, nimble home-grown publishers who are not scared to take a chance and challenge the big, established players. Democratisation at the hands of market forces is going to be the theme of 2008.”
If going indigenous is the new mantra, then can homogenisation be far behind as literary themes begin to crisscross the atlas? The Random House palette can’t get more global, with AIDS awareness and LTTE child soldiers in the field of fiction even as Sage gives gays a voice with Parmesh Shahani’s Gay Bombay and R Raj Rao and Dibyajyoti Sarma’s Whistling In The Dark: 20 Queer Interviews. Smita Jain’s Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions (Westland’s Tranquebar imprint) is all chick-lit fun while Indira Jaisingh’s Marital Rape (Sage) goes into grim realities.
The Fiction files
Even as Bhagat’s book (Rupa), Abhijit Bhaduri’s Married But Available and Karan Bajaj’s Keep Off The Grass (HarperCollins) are being touted as bestsellers in the making, other books are vying for the top spot.
Penguin India has biggies like Sea Of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh, Bombay Tiger by Kamala Markandaya and Lost Flamingoes Of Bombay by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi lined up. Penguin imports, Age Of Shiva by Manil Suri, Something To Tell You by Hanif Kureishi, and The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam are also all set to rock readers.
Picador manager (sales) Rajdeep Mukherjee lists forthcoming blockbusters from Pan Macmillan in 2008 as The Palace Of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, An Atlas OfImpossible Longing by Anuradha Roy and Escape by Manjula Padmanabhan.
While The Palace Of Illusions harks back to the time of the Mahabharat, Escape explores a mythical men-only land and the dangers of female foeticide. Tarun Tejpal returns with The Story Of My Assassins (HarperCollins), which “is built around the story of a journalist who becomes the focus of attention — of the government, the media, the income tax department and the cops for his anti-establishment views”.If Tony D’Souza chases the immigrant dream in The Konkans, Mahua Maji depicts the rise of Bangladesh in Me Borishailla (Rupa). Katha is readying four novels by Krishna Sobti in translation.
Roli, meanwhile, has Boots, Belts, Berets by Tanushree Poddar, Freedom’s Ransom by John Hood and Simians Of The South Block by Ranjit Lal up its sleeve.
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