No to literary pirates!

It’s just been a couple of days that Mark Billingham, one of the most popular British authors of crime fiction, arrived in India. But he has already raised a voice against a crime rampant in the literary markets of India — book piracy.

Being someone who earns his bread and butter writing novels, Mark is agonised that piracy in India is bringing down the quality of books. The 48-year-old writer says, “I haven’t been able to see Mumbai that much but I have already noticed the abundant book piracy that is going on everywhere. At every traffic signal there is someone selling pirated books.”

Mark feels the reasons for book piracy in India is home-grown. He says, “Books are very cheap in the UK. There you can buy them even at supermarkets. With such low costs, no one feels the urge to fake books.”

Mark is not just a fiction writer for adults. He also writes fiction for children. In the UK, he feels that the young audience is quite intelligent and no writer can get away by talking down to them.
He says, “Kid crime fiction in UK is quite similar to adult fiction. They like it dark and really scary. Everything actually changed after Harry Potter.”