April | 2015 | Jaya's blog

Ruskin Bond, ” A Gathering of Friends”

Earlier this month, Aleph Book Company, published Ruskin Bond’s A Gathering of Friends. It is a collection of twenty-one short stories. These have been chosen by the author himself, from a body of work written over a period of fifty years. The well-known and much loved stories include “The Blue Umbrella”, “Panther’s Moon”, “The Cherry Tree”, “The Night Train at Deoli”. “Susanna’s Seven Husbands”, “The Night Train at Deoli” and “The Prospect of Flowers”. This book has been published to coincide with the 81st birthday celebrations of Ruskin Bond.

“Rust-free fiction”, the foreword by David Davidar, Publisher, Aleph is a wonderful snapshot of fifty years of publishing and storytelling. I was delighted to discover the connection between legendary publisher, Diana Athill, and legendary storyteller, Ruskin Bond. When Diana Athill was at Andre Deutsch she gave Ruskin Bond his earliest break as a writer. Both of them are admirable. Today Diana Athill is ninety-seven years old and writing. Ruskin Bond is in his eighties and writing. Ruskin Bond’s introduction to the book can be read at the DailyO.

Given the number of books Ruskin Bond has written it is impossible to read them all. A Gathering of Friends is a fine introduction to this fantabulous storyteller who excels in detailing the ordinary like an exquisite miniaturist. This book is for keeps, to be passed on from generation to generation.

With the permission of the publishers, I am reprinting the foreword.

Rust-free Fiction

by David Davidar

Over fifty years ago, in a world that no longer exists, a young man in India decided that he wanted to be a writer, a novelist to be precise. At the time, if you wrote in English, and belonged to the erstwhile colonies, in order to be taken seriously you had to publish in London, so our would-be-man-of letters set sail for England. The English publishing world of those decades could have been lifted from the pages of a P.G. Wodehouse or Evelyn Waugh novel. Men (and the occasional woman) from the English upper classes, with plummy accents, would decide the fate of would-be-writers over long, bibulous lunches at their clubs or restaurants like Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, with scant regard for the nuances of profit and loss accounts and, more discouragingly, the work of writers outside their ken. Unsurprisingly, it was a closed world, and one that was difficult to break into. The young man from India would soon discover this, when the rejection slips began to mount. However, there was a chink in the closed ranks of British publishing – a resourceful maverick of Hungarian origin called Andre Deutsch. The eponymous publishing house he owned, and Diana Athill the brilliant editor who worked for him, soon became a major force in the London publishing world. They launched the careers of several brilliant ‘foreign’ literary novelists, Wole Soyinka and V.S. Naipaul among them. They would provide a home for The Room on the Roof, the first novel of the young Indian writer we’ve been following, Ruskin Bond.

Today, British publishing is no longer the force it once was, bleeding as it is from a thousand tiny cuts, but the star of the author of The Room on the Roof continues to be in the ascendant. The publishing firm Andre Deutsch no longer exists as an independent entity, but Ruskin Bond, the recipient of multiple honours and awards, has over a hundred books in print and can legitimately claim to be India’s best-loved author. And, to the great good fortune of readers, even though he is now in his eighties, he shows no signs of slowing down.

What is it about Ruskin’s work that gives it its extraordinary vitality, clarity, and what can only be called luminosity? From the oldest work to the most recent, his stories shine with a brightness that rises from what the great American novelist, Ernest Hemingway, called ‘true sentences’—creative prose of weight, distinction, honesty and insight that does not strive for effect by being unnecessarily clever, showy or pretentious. Ruskin’s fiction never seems to rust or date, and seems as fresh today as the day on which it was first written. Impervious to the dictates of literary fashion or changing trends, it continues to ensnare generation after generation of readers. I asked him why he thought his writing held up so well, why it didn’t lose its lustre, decade after decade, reading after reading. ‘I’m flattered that you think that,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘But I never think about any of that. I have always approached my writing with the wide-eyed curiosity of a kid. It’s the same today as it was in the beginning, and if there is any secret ingredient to my writing that would be it. I hope I never lose that.’

—————————————————————————————————————-

This piece is adapted from the foreword to Ruskin Bond’s latest book, A Gathering of Friends, published to commemorate his 81^st birthday

Ruskin Bond A gathering of friends: My favourite stories Aleph Book Company, New Delhi, 2015. Hb. pp.250. Rs 395

Toni Morrison “God Help The Child”

21 04 , 2015 No Comments

I wasn’t a bad mother, you have to know that, but I may have done some hurtful things to my only child because I had to protect her. Had to. All because of skin privileges. At first I couldn’t see past all that black to know who she was and just plain love her. But I do, I really do. I think she understands now. I think so.

Last two times I saw her she was, well, striking. Kind of bold and confident. Each time she came I forgot just how black she really was because she was using it to her advantage in beautiful white clothes.

Taught me a lesson I should have known all along. What you do to children matters. And they might never forget. She’s got a big-time job in California but she don’t call or visit anymore. She sends me money and stuff every now and then, but I ain’t seen her in I don’t know how long. ( p43)

It has been more than a month since I read an advance proof of Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child. Yet, I cannot get any of it out of my mind. Bride or Lula Ann as she was named at birth, is successful in the cosmetics industry. She is known for her beauty, enhanced considerably by her black skin contrasted by the sharp white garments she wears. As the designer she consulted for her makeover, Jeri, told her, “You should always wear white, Bride. Only white and all white all the time. … Just you, girl. All sable and ice. A panther in snow. and with your body? And those wolverine eyes? Please!” ( p.33-34)

Despite being a very successful professional, Bride as she prefers to be known, is haunted by her unpleasant memories of her childhood. For instance the innumerable instances of shadism or of child abuse such as witnessing the rape of a young boy by their landlord. As an adult too she is abused and comes across other victims such as Rain. It is as if this cesspool of violence coexisting with “normal” life is a given. There is a moment when Bride ( innocently) hopes that she can “right” a “wrong” she did in her childhood with a repercussion she did not anticipate. While recovering from the episode, Bride decides to set off on a quest in search of her boyfriend, Booker, who disappeared from her life.

God Help the Child is a fine blend of all that is familiar in Toni Morrison’s novels and interviews. Her preoccupation with portrayal of women, Black culture and history, race and child abuse. Her fine expertise as a master craftsperson shows in the novel. There is a hint of magic realism in the storytelling along with the confident play of different narratives, juxtaposed in a manner that jolt the reader into realizing none of the narrators can be relied upon. Yet, every voice that tells their version of events is a strong personality. It is possible to envision the speaker, especially the women, clearly whether it is Booker’s elderly and kind aunt Queen, Bride’s mother Sweetness, ex-convict Sofia, or child prostitute Rain. The ending of the novel is chilling with its disturbing note, ironically couched in circumstances that offer hope.

Toni Morrison began writing God Help the Child as a memoir a few years ago, but abandoned it midway. She resumed working upon the manuscript recently as a work of fiction, deciding never to write her memoir. Instead of critically analyzing this literary fiction masterpiece threadbare, it may be worth considering the story as wisdom being shared by an 84-year-old woman who has packed in many lifetimes into one. It has a tired (but angry) tone of an elderly woman and an award-winning writer, who after having written 11 novels and edited many other well-known writers, marking her stamp as a formidable force in American Literature, sees little change in the modern world. The publication of this novel is timely when USA is preoccupied with issues of racism and riots such as the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland or that of 51-year-old Walter Scott in North Charleston. For Toni Morrison “Race is the classification of a species…and we are the human race, period. But the other thing – the hostility, the racism – is the moneymaker. And it also has some emotional satisfaction for people who need it.” In her NPR interview she makes it clear that her emphasis on Bride’s dark colour was to make the distinction from race, the preference and hierarchy for skin colour being a social construct and responsible for racism.

In a delicious interview where Junot Diaz interviews Toni Morrison at NYPL , December 13, 2013. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5kytPjYjSQ ), Diaz says that upon reading Song of Solomon at Rutgers University, “the axis of my world changed and never returned”. Eight novels later, it holds true with God Help the Child. Toni Morrison retains the magic to tell a story and making the reader think.

Read it.

Some links:

1. “Sweetness” by Toni Morrison New Yorker, February 9, 2015 issue ( http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/sweetness-2 ). This is the first chapter of the book, an extract published in the New Yorker.

2. Toni Morrison in the New York Times. “The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison” By RACHEL KAADZI GHANSAH, APRIL 8, 2015. ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html?_r=0 )

3. ‘I Regret Everything’: Toni Morrison Looks Back On Her Personal Life, NPR, 20 April 2015. ( http://www.npr.org/2015/04/20/400394947/i-regret-everything-toni-morrison-looks-back-on-her-personal-life )

3. A glowing review http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/19/god-help-the-child-review-toni-morrison

4. An ambivalent review http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/18/toni-morrison-spins-a-lame-fairy-tale.html

Toni Morrison God Help the Child Chatto & Windus, London, 2015. Hb. pp.180 £14.99

21 April 2015

Two powerful books of fiction and farmers in India

13 04 , 2015 No Comments

For the past few years, India has witnessed a rise in the number of suicides by farmers. The primary reason is the inability to pay of the debt cycle they find themselves in. These could be due to a variety of reasons, some of which are genetically modified seeds that cannot be used for propagation in the next season, poor harvest and displacement due to the construction of dams etc.

Few people have been recording this horrific phenomenon of farmer’s suicides in India, such as award-winning journalist like P. Sainath who has been doing so systematically. He refers to himself as “Rural Reporter”. ( http://psainath.org/) As founder editor he launched a website called, “People’s Archive of Rural India: The everyday lives of everyday people” ( http://www.ruralindiaonline.org/ ) where he and his team have been posting fantastic articles from rural India. But all these articles make for fascinating ( and disturbing) reportage. For such grim issues –farmer suicides and poor compensation for land and harvest destroyed– to make its presence felt in fiction and powerfully too continues be extremely rare. But it does happen.

Sonora Jha makes the suicide of cotton farmers focus of her debut novel, Foreign ( 2013) and Na. D’Souza’s novella, Dweepa ( first published in 1970 in Prakasha, a weekly from Manipal and translated from Kannada into English by Susheela Punitha for OUP in 2013) is about the displacement of farmers in the Malnad region due to the building of the Linganamakki dam on River Sharavathi. For both writers, gestation of the fiction was grounded in their research and day jobs. As Sonora Jha said to me in an email, “It started as a research project for me. I am a social scientist by training, with a Ph.D. in Political Communication, focusing on the reporting of social movements and social protest. So, I was researching the reportage on the farmer suicides. That’s what took me to Vidarbha, to interview farming families, activists and journalists. There was the pre-Vidarbha research and the post-Vidarbha research. Apart from my interviews, I read everything I could get my hands on.” Similarly, Na D’Souza says in his introduction to the novella, “The problem of submersion of land in the cause of modernization and the ensuing displacement of local people is something that has bothered me for a long time. I worked for about twenty-five years in areas connected with the Sharavathi hydroelectric project…[in the late 1950s]….The film version of Dweepa won the President’s Gold Medal in 2006 besides many other awards.” Even Foreign was shortlisted for the prestigious Hindu Lit Prize 2013.

Both books are worth reading and gain significance given how distressingly “topical” they continue to be. Sonora Jha puts it across well when describing why she chose cotton farmers as the focus of her first novel? “I believe that the farmers’ suicides and the farmers’ crisis is a global story and is one of the biggest, most frightening stories of our time. But it isn’t gripping people’s hearts the way other stories of more immediate and glamorous disasters do. I wanted to tell the story in a way that it connected with ordinary readers. … One big purpose for me with Foreign was to get the issue of farmers’ suicides even more in the press, through the back door. Anyone who reviewed Foreign and/or interviewed me had to write about the farmers’ crisis in India. That gives me so much satisfaction.”

And now with the “rational explanations” being provided for land acquisition by the government, the nightmare for Indian farmers seems to be far, far from over.

Read these books. Discuss the issues.

13 April 2015

Sonora Jha Foreign Random House India, India, 2013. Hb. Rs 399

Na. D’Souza Dweepa ( Island) Translated from Kannada by Susheela Punitha. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, India, 2013. Pb. pp. 100. Rs. 195

A fistful of journalism: An interview with Deca collective

12 04 , 2015 No Comments

( I interviewed some members of the DECA collective. Founder-member, Sonia Faleiro facilitated the conversation via email. This was uploaded on the Hindu website on 11 April 2015 at: http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/a-fistful-of-journalism/article7088990.ece and a shorter version of it in print on 12 April 2015. I am also c&p the text below.)

The members of Deca, a global journalism cooperative, share the reason for sharing it, and the future of web publishing.

Deca is a global journalism cooperative that creates long-form stories about the world to read on mobile devices ( www.decastories.com and @decastories). It takes its cue from Magnum Photos, a member-owned cooperative that changed the rules of photojournalism in the 1950s. Magnum’s founders, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, took advantage of the technological shifts of the time — portable 35mm cameras and fast, cheap film processing —to strike out on their own, covering the stories they felt were most important. With journalism entering an era of dramatic change with tablets and smartphones replacing print books and newspapers, established journalists can now bring their stories directly to readers. These shifts — and agencies like Magnum — are Deca’s inspiration.

Deca’s members have authored acclaimed books and articles in magazines like Harper’s, The Atlantic,The New Yorker, Time, Science, Rolling Stone, GQ, National Geographic, Outside, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The New York Times Magazine. The members — who are based in Rome, London, Shanghai, Barcelona, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Seattle, Washington DC, UAE, Lebanon, and South Africa — include winners and finalists of prestigious awards like Pulitzer Prize, National Magazine Award, PEN Literary Award, Livingston Award, Whiting Writers’ Award, and Los Angeles Book Prize. Since Deca’s launch in mid-2014, five stories have been published. Sonia Faleiro’s 13 Men was No. 1 on Amazon India and was selected as a ‘Kindle Select 25’ (one of 25 best books in the Amazon Kindle storefront across all markets).

Once a month, Deca publishes a non-fiction story about the world, somewhere between a long article and a short book. Each piece is written by one member, edited by another, and approved by the rest. The eight founding members are Sonia Faleiro, Stephan Faris, McKenzie Funk, Vanessa M. Gezari, Marc Herman, Mara Hvistendahl, Delphine Schrank, and Tom Zoellner. Recently, Elizabeth Dickinson, Rania Abouzeid, and Richard Poplak became members too. In a freewheeling interview, Deca’s members talk about why they started Deca and the future of publishing on the web. Excerpts:

What prompted the creation of Deca?

Our inspiration — and proposed response to any coming changes — are one and the same. New technologies may be gutting the market for print journalism but they have a silver-ish lining: If journalists want to write directly for their readers, it’s now cheap and easy to pull off. No longer do the two sides need a magazine in order to find one another. Note that we also found inspiration in newer photo cooperatives like Noor and VII, which came about after a more recent sea change in photography: digital cameras. We wanted to tell the important stories of our times, to do so in detail, and for as wide a readership as possible. But we also wanted to maintain the standards we’ve become used to working for great traditional media. We wanted to be sure we’d be well edited, copy edited, and beautifully published. Deca does all of this along with providing us the support and security of working with a group of similarly idealistic but also very hard-working people.

Once you publish the long-form stories, what next?

Photo cooperatives have long functioned as a way to keep archival photos by its members from disappearing in the dust bin. It’s likewise possible that Deca could package and put out anthologies of its members’ work — stories sitting in our individual archives that are newly relevant today.

What are the rules that you foresee changing of making content available on smartphones?

A shocking proportion of people now read their news and books on their smartphones. It helps that screens keep on getting bigger, which is true of Amazon’s phone as well as the new iPhone, apparently. Stories can now live independently of their publications.

How will crowdsourcing work for this collective?

Kickstarter’s been a smashing success so far. But it will go on in some fashion via our website and a campaign on the new crowdsourcing platform Tugboat. Many publications are now using a slow-drip version of the NPR model: “If you like us, please support us.”

How will the collective work add new authors?

New authors will be added subject to a unanimous vote. We’re obviously looking to work with great writers. But we are a co-op so we also want to be sure that whoever we bring on board understands that this is about shared effort, responsibility, wins and losses. They must also be pretty easy to work with.

What is the selection process?

We publish only members’ work and have no plans to do otherwise. We do have plans to eventually translate members’ stories to other languages, however.

Will you develop this into a subscription model or will it remain as an offering of digital singles on KDP?

Yes. Subscribers are signing up now via Kickstarter. Our app is up and running and so is our subscription service. So basically we now sell singles on Amazon. We sell singles and subs through our app that people can download to their smartphones or digital devices. Readers can subscribe to Deca for $14.99, which buys them 10 stories (http://www.decastories.com/store/subscribe/). Readers can also buy singles from our website to read online (http://www.decastories.com/13men/)

Why did you opt for a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM model) when models such as Creative Commons are becoming popular?

Perhaps mainly because we’re a bunch of writers, not techies or business people, and funding our work via the DRM is the model we could most easily wrap our heads around. Creative Commons is great, but we’ve yet to understand how, if readers don’t pay, we can’t fund reporting trips, let alone pay ourselves. So we’ve started with a pay-to-read model and are crossing our fingers. The money for research has to come from somewhere. Readers supporting journalists directly — outside the framework of a magazine or a large media organisation — is also a trend. Even so, our subscription for a full year costs about the same as a single night out at the movies, and directly expresses your support for the continued existence of this kind of journalism.

Will you ever consider anthologising these e-singles in print? (Guernica announced in summer of 2014 it will be publishing an annual print-anthology.)

Absolutely considering. We’re still fond of print, even if we’re enabled by digital. And there may already be cases when you see Deca’s work in print: When new Deca stories come out, we aim to partner with magazines and publish excerpts therein. In fact, Of Ice and Men was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. They published a whopping 9k word excerpt.

12 April 2015

Ian Caldwell, “The Fifth Gospel”

07 04 , 2015 No Comments

Never had I seen a book made that way. Like a prehistoric creature found living at the bottom of the sea, it bore only the faintest resemblance to its modern cousins. The manuscript’s cover was made with a sheet of skin hanging off like a satchel flap, designed to wrap around the pages again and again, to protect them. A leather tail dangled from it, beltlike, looping around the book to cinch it closed.

I undid the straps as carefully as if I were arranging hairs on a baby’s head. Inside, the pages were gray and soft. Flowing letters were penned in long, smooth strokes with no rounded edges: Syriac. Beside them. inked right there on the page, was a Latin index written by some long-dead Vatican librarian.

Formerly Book VIII among the Nitrian Syriac collection.

And then, very clearly:

Gospel Harmony of Tatian (Diatessaron).

A shudder went through me. Here in my hands was the creature invented by one of the giants of early Christianity. The canonical life of Jesus of Nazareth in a single book. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John fused together to form the super-gospel of the ancient Syrian church.

( p.60-1)

Ian Caldwell’s second novel, The Fifth Gospel is a Vatican thriller which took more than a decade to write. The story revolves around the Vatican hosting an exhibition in the hope of earning some revenue. It promises to be an exciting one since it is about one of the oldest relics in Christianity — the Turin Shroud. It also involves the possibility of exhibiting the Diatessaron, discovered in the library. But a week before the exhibition is to open, the curator, Ugo Nogara, is found dead on the grounds of Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer palace. The body is discovered by his friend the Roman Catholic priest Simon Andreou, who is soon joined by his younger brother, Father Alex Andreou, a Greek Catholic priest. Thus begins the murder investigation, implicating Father Simon Andreou. He is to be tried by a Vatican court. Meanwhile Father Alex Andreou is determined to get to the truth. Unfortunately there are moments when not only does he expose himself, but also his five-year-old son Peter, to danger, but the little fellow is made of quite stern stuff. ( Father Alex Andreou being a Greek Catholic priest is allowed to marry unlike his brother who remains a celibate.)

The Fifth Gospel is a fascinating account of life within the Vatican, a murder mystery, duplicity of the Vatican, the complexity of theology, the fascination with relics, and of course, the importance of family — related by blood or the banding together of the priests to create a sense of family. It is a stunning book. The details of daily life at the Vatican and the intricate and rich backdrop to the plot are mesmerising to read about. The reading experience is enriched by the deft characterisation — many of them such as Simon, Peter, Alex, Uncle Lucio, his secretary Diego, and even minor characters such as Alex’s friend Swiss Guard Leo, Alex’s wife Mona and Alex’s childhood friend Gianni Nardi remain memorable. They exist with you even after the novel is finished.

The twelve years spent by Ian Caldwell in research and writing show in the details of the literary landscape and the court scenes all though the murder mystery plot is basic. Yet it does not make the story any less gripping. What makes it even more astounding is that Ian Caldwell has never visited the Vatican. As he says in the KLTA5 interview, he has a young family and it would have been impossible to leave them for long periods to do his research in Italy. He was required at home. So he did the next best thing. He interviewed, met, spoke and discussed with many priests, canonists, professors, seminary instructors, Church lawyers, and prominent Catholic scholars who answered all his questions in detail “but sometimes spoke openly about their experiences at the Vatican”. (p.430) It is an interesting coincidence that within a week of this novel being released, and its focus on the acrimony and hostility that Christian relics can create within the church, the New York Times publishes an article on 4 April 2015, “Findings Reignite Debate on Claim of Jesus’ Bones”. It is about two ancient artifacts that have set off a fierce archaeological and theological debate. At the heart of the quarrel is an assortment of inscriptions that led some to suggest Jesus of Nazareth was married and fathered a child, and that the Resurrection could never have happened. (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/world/middleeast/findings-reignite-debate-on-claim-of-jesus-bones.html?_r=0 ) Timely perhaps, blurring the lines between the worlds of reality and fiction.

Despite having a convenient and a satisfactory conclusion it is a novel worth spending time with. The Fifth Gospel may be written in a similar vein to a Dan Brown mystery, but it is far superior.

Buy it.

Some links worth browsing through:

A Q&A With Ian Caldwell, Author of March’s #1 Indie Next List Pick By Sydney Jarrard on Tuesday, Mar 03, 2015 http://www.bookweb.org/news/qa-ian-caldwell-author-march%E2%80%99s-1-indie-next-list-pick

KTLA5: New Book Reveals Vatican Life POSTED 9:24 AM, MARCH 26, 2015, BY NANCY CRUZ http://ktla.com/2015/03/26/new-book-reveals-vatican-life/

Ian Caldwell at the House of SpeakEasy on March 9, 2015, at New York’s City Winery. https://vimeo.com/122093010

7 March 2015

Ian Caldwell The Fifth Gospel Simon & Schuster, London, 2015. Pb. pp. 450 £12.99

Literati – Of books and launches ( 5 April 2015)

04 04 , 2015 No Comments

(My monthly column, Literati, in the Hindu Literary Review was published online ( 4 April 2015) and will be in print ( 5 April 2015). Here is the url http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-columns/literati-of-books-and-launches/article7067754.ece. I am also c&p the text below. )

Last week I attended a book launch at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. A small distinguished

(L-R) Mrs Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker, Lok Sabha, Indian Parliament, HE Pranab Mukherjee, President of India and Mrs Meira Kumar, former Speaker of Lok Sabha

audience gathered in the Yellow Drawing Room to witness the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, launch former and first woman Lok Sabha Speaker, Meira Kumar’s Indian Parliamentary Democracy: Speaker’s Perspective in the presence of the current Speaker, Sumitra Mahajan, and senior-most Parliamentarian, L. K. Advani. This volume — published by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi — contains selected speeches delivered by Kumar at various multilateral conferences and during bilateral visits to several nations in India and abroad during her tenure. It was a book launch that ran with precision, partially due to protocol but also in a large measure due to professionalism of the politicians. These people have known each other for decades, yet made the effort to spend some time reading the book, offering their personal perspective on the importance of speeches to negotiate issues of government policy and to strengthen Indian diplomacy. Listening to the frank conversation made a ‘dry’ book about the efficacy of parliamentary diplomacy as an evolving medium of communication among nations seem worth reading. It was an effective launch as it interested the audience in the book and was not just another occasion for a photo-opportunity.

***

Book promotions are a two-pronged affair. One is a planned strategy to promote a book: an author tour, book launches (preferably with a celebrity launching it), circulating review copies, book trailers on YouTube, interviews and interactions on all media platforms, the author participating in literary festivals, writing articles discussing and describing the writing process threadbare … all in a very short span of time. With the explosion of social media platforms, the variety of ways in which books and authors can be promoted is staggering — podcasts of interviews and literary salons, online book clubs, using photograph-based websites such as Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram to showcase book covers and promote reading experiences.

Tie-ups

According to Publishers Weekly, “HarperCollins is working with Twitter Commerce, the social media platform’s effort to offer ‘native commerce’, or offering firms the ability to send out tweets with buy buttons embedded in them.” The new promotion allowed fans to purchase a hardcover edition of theInsurgent movie tie-in edition at a 35 per cent discount, direct from HarperCollins Publishers US, without leaving the social media site with a buy in-tweet available only on March 23, 2015. Both HarperCollins and Twitter sent out a series of promotional tweets directed at fans talking about the Veronica Roth book series and movie adaptation.

This is similar to a recent partnership between the Hachette Book Group and Gumroad, an e-commerce venture that enables creators to sell content via social media, to promote and sell Hachette titles via Twitter. In August 2014, Amazon ‘buy it now’ buttons were embedded in Washington Post articles about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, assuming impulse buying will propel sales, but these were quickly pulled down after a massive outcry on Twitter (http://mashable.com/2014/08/18/washington-post-amazon-buy-button/). Amazon and Washington Post are both owned by Jeff Bezos. All these publicity efforts by the publishers, authors and vendors are to boost sales.

A second and crucial component of book promotional activity is the preview critic and book reviewer. A good review is fair and unbiased. For instance, Neil Gaiman’s review in The New York Times of Kazuo Ishiguro’s new and oddly fascinating novel, The Buried Giant, says it is “a novel that’s easy to admire, to respect and to enjoy, but difficult to love.” It is a balanced, constructive and informed critique by the superstar of contemporary mythographers of another exceptional storyteller.

With the democratisation of social media platforms too, bloggers (word and video) and online reviewers have made their mark. Many are professional and their opinion is valued tremendously. But there is a tiny core in the online community offering “book reviewing plans” to promote a book, by publishing reviews on specific websites, blogs and online vendors — for a price. Unfortunately these reviews gush hyperboles. The mistake often made is that a paid promotion needs to be positive. This does not sell a book; only honest and constructive engagement with the book does.

4 April 2015

Of comic culture and conventions in India

02 04 , 2015 No Comments

An eleven-year-old girl had a birthday coming up. While swinging in the school playground she blurted out to me, “I do not want a birthday party. I do not want any gifts. When you are a child, you can ask for many things. All I want is a book on how to draw cartoons.” Her mother who was flummoxed. There were only two options I could think of at such a short notice: 1. Recommend Scott McCloud’s classic Understanding Comics but it would not be possible to get it in time for her birthday OR 2. Contact Sharad Sharma of World Comics and seek his advice. I did the latter. Sure enough he did have a slim manual that had been produced in-house on how to create cartoons.

Sharad Sharma should know. After all World Comics Network ( http://www.worldcomicsindia.com/ ) promotes the use of grassroots comics as a medium of self-expression. Since it began in the mid-nineties, Sharad Sharma has conducted over a 1000 workshops in remote areas and trained over 30,000 people. He has also begun a Comics for All: A World Comics Network Bulletin. The latest issue that I read, Comics in Education, consists of comics made by people around the world discussing education. Some of the topics covered are on identity, cultural and linguistic diversity, displacement, sexuality, humanity, mental health, communalism, adult literacy, and rights. The newspaper is multi-lingual but the synopsis of comics are available in English. The cover has snippets of comics and speech bubbles created by government school teachers in Uttar Pradesh, India. Sharad Sharma and his colleagues trained 70 teachers in sequential art and they in turn trained another 700 teachers.

****

Meanwhile the hugely popular Comic Con India will have its first event of the year in Bangalore ( 3-5 April 2015). Links are available at: http://www.comicconindia.com/ and http://www.comicconbangalore.com/ . It promises to be quite an extravaganza with celebrities such as Natalia Tena ( from Game of Thrones and Harry Potter fame), Rana Daggubati of Bahubali and comic book artists such as Greg Cappullo ( X-Force, Quasar, Spawn and Batman), Mark Millar ( Wolverine) and Paul Azaceta ( Graveyeard Empires) participating via Skype. (In the past, storytellers such as Neil Gaiman Mark Millarhave participated in Comic Con India via Skype too. The picture in this blog is of noted

Neil Gaiman in conversation with Sam Arni, Comic Con India, 2014

author, Sam Arni in conversation with Neil Gaiman. )

This year, Comic Con has announced a list of awards. This is the fourth year of the awards in India. The nominees for the fourth edition are:

Best Graphic Novel

World War One

Rumi

Sholay

Simian

Nirmala and Normala

Best Pencilller/Inker/Penciller-Inker Team

Gowra Hari Perla, KAKAA Fableri

Abhijeet Kini, Holy Hell, Meta Desi Vol. 2

Zoheb Momin, Item Dhamaka

Harsho Mohan, Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel

Harsho Mohan, Aghrori 11

Lalit Kumar Sharma and Jagdish Kumar, World War One

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 1

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 2

Harsho Mohan, Chakrapurer Chakkare

Sabu Sarasan, Ayodhya Kand

Zoheb Akbar and Arijit Dutta Chowdhury, Jatayu and Nandi (Divine Beings)

Best Colourist

Sanman Mohita, Futile, Blind Spot

Vipul Bhandari, Cross Hair, Blind Spot

R. Kamath and Prabhu, Item Dhamaka

Neeraj Menon, Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel

Prasad Patnaik, Aghori 11

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 1

Sachin Nagar, Kaurava Empire Vol. 2

Vijay Sharma and Pradeep Sherawat, World War One

B. Meenakshi and Pragati Agrawal, Space Doughtnut, Tinkle 276

Best Cover

Abhijeet Kini, Ground Zero #2

Sumit Kumar, Parshu Warriors

Sumit Kumar, Devi Chaudhrani

Mukesh Singh, Ravanayan Finale Part 2

Rahil Mohsin, Rumi, Sufi Comics

Priya Kurien, Bookasura

Culpeo S. Fox, The Fox and the Crow

Best Writer

Alan Cowsill, World War One

Rajani Thindiath, Dreams: My World in My Head, Tinkle Holiday Special 41

Lewis Helfland, They Changed the World

Best Continuing Graphic Series

Chiyo, Tinkle Digest

Ravanayan, Holy Cow

Beast Legion

Dental Diaries, Tinkle

Best Illustrated Children’s Book

Tinkle Digest 276, Tinkle

Pashu, Puffin

The Fox and the Crow, Karadi Tales

Malgudi School Days, Puffin

Best Children’s Writer

Sean D’Mello, Tantri the Mantri: The Dream Team, Tinkle Tall Tales 4

Ruskin Bond, With Love from the Hills

Arundhati Venkatesh, Bookasura

Devdutt Pattnaik, Pashu

Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan, Ayodhya Kand

Best Publication for Children

Tinkle Holiday Special 41

Tinkle Digest 273

CN Remix, Pepper Script

Bookasura, Scholastic

Ayodhya Kand, ACK

Lifetime Achievement Award

Aabid Surti

Of these I have only read Nirmala & Normala ( Penguin), The Fox and the Crow ( Karadi Tales), Pashu ( Puffin India) and World War One ( Campfire). Every one of these book is distinctive in style, plot and genre. The jury is not going to have an easy time picking the winner in each category. The only element common to the diverse books nominated are they have the potential of reaching out to an international audience, even if they have originated in India. Maybe this is keeping in step with the spirit of Comic Con India in going global. On 3 September 2014, a press release issued stating, “Comic Con India (CCI) today announced a joint venture with Reed Exhibitions; part of the FTSE listed Reed Elsevier Group, to grow the pop culture space in India and bring world class events to Indian fans. The Comic Con India team will work closely with the ‘ReedPOP’ division of Reed Exhibitions, the largest producer of pop culture events in the world. With this JV in place, CCI enters the burgeoning ReedPOP portfolio of pop culture events which includes New York Comic Con, PAX, the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, Oz Comic-Con, Singapore Toy, Gaming & Comics Convention and Star Wars Celebration among many others.” ( http://www.reedexpo.com/de/Pressemitteilungen/2014-Press-Releases/Comic-Con-India–Reed-Exhibitions-Enter-Joint-Venture-to-Produce-Experiential-Pop-Culture-Events-for-the-Burgeoning-Indian-Market/ )

The culture of comics, including have specialised standalone bookstores, having a community of comic connoisseurs, focused conventions such as a Comic Con where artists, comic legends, actors, fans etc can mingle and meet are at an advanced stage of evolution in mature markets such as USA and Europe. This experience is still at its infancy in India. So having Comic Con India spread across four cities– Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai — is a good beginning to popularise this particular genre. Having said that, importing a tried and tested model of a popular culture convention into India lock, stock and barrel without tweaking it may result in a distancing from the very market the format is trying to make an impact in. Only time will tell!

Meanwhile as a response to Comic Con India, there are already attempts by some Indian comic artists to come together to launch an alternative platform. At first many of these artists and illustrators were hopeful that Comic Con India would fulfill the crying need to create a platform where professionals from this creative sector met and discussed their art. Unfortunately many feel that this event has” turned out to create a market for western comics rather than promoting the Indian comics and artists”. So they formed COMIX. According to Sharad Sharma, one of the promoters of this idea, “the idea is to have a 2-3 days meet/seminar/workshop for a limited 100-150 artists, illustrators, media critic, publishers etc). Comix is an amalgamation of all visual storytelling art forms under one platform, comics, illustration, and cartoons. It is a unique attempt to form a platform which brings people connected to line art under one creative roof. …Comix will construct a forum to discuss creator rights and ways to safeguard them. It will also talk about the limitations and pressures, such as, censorship that creators face. Making comics more inclusive, multilingual and multi cultural, Comix is all for crafting an equal opportunity environment.”

Here is hoping that future editions of Comic Con India, COMIX and any future grouping that may emerge ultimately work together in strengthening the comic culture in India. Maybe existing platform could only be made more robust and relevant to the local audience, market and readers by bringing together diverse voices under one roof much as in the world of book publishing — the World Book Fair organised by the National Book Trust brings together a wonderful and wide variety of publishers and opinions.

Postscript: As I was about to upload this article on my blog, I received an email from Comic Con India saying: “We regret to announce that artist Paul Azaceta has had to cancel his visit to the Bangalore Comic Con. He had been looking forward to coming down to India but due to an urgent personal reason he had to cancel his trip. He sends his best wishes to all the fans and is looking to forward to attending the show in future.”

2 April 2015

April 2015 Posts