The Gangster’s Gita by Agni Sreedhar is a slim book. It is a conversation between a hit man and his victim. They are waiting for the appointed time of the killing which will be indicated by the hit man’s boss. While biding their time the two men start conversing. The “victim” is a hit man too. So call this conversation a kind of swapping professional notes or just sharing thoughts as the end draws near. Even so the calm and composed manner in which it is narrated, even by making allowances for the written word, the last few pages come as a jolt. At times it feels as if it is two men merely chatting across the lawns of the farmhouse where the hostage has been spirited away and not that the victim is standing on the balcony of a locked room looking down upon the hit man who is sweating it out doing his daily routine of exercises. For inexplicable reasons they start conversing, knowing full well that their breaking their profession’s codes of conduct. It is not advisable to become too familiar with each other in this nasty business.
Set in the Bangalore underworld of the ‘90s, The Gangster’s Gita—published in Kannada as Edegarike is set to become an instant cult classic in English. The writer is an ex-gangster, Agni Sreedhar, who also won the Sahitya Akademi award for his memoir — My Days in the Underworld: Rise of the Bangalore Mafia. His column in a Kannada paper was called “Editorial from Behind Bars” which he wrote while incarcerated in Bellary jail. Apparently in the literary circles of Karnataka it was well known that before Agni Sreedhar strayed into a world of crime, he was a voracious reader and deeply influenced by Albert Camus and Carlos Castaneda. Once he famously asked a friend to get him Camus’ The Outsider to re-read in jail.
It is impossible to share the gist of the freewheeling conversation between the two men except to say that this book is worth reading. Also it is hard to distinguish how much of this is fiction and how much the truth. An extraordinary book. It is a book that will travel well overseas too as a fine example of World Literature. It exists. Read it. Mull over it. You will not regret it.
I have just finished reading Amitav Ghosh’s magnificent novel Gun Island. It is about Dinanath Datta, a rare books seller whose life gets entangled with an ancient legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi. It is a fascinating story that begins in the Sunderbans to New York to Venice. Gun Island has a fantastic cast of characters but it is also a story very relevant to our times for its focus on the situation of migrants and climate change.
At the New Delhi book launch held on 13 June 2019, India Habitat Centre, Amitav Ghosh was in conversation with Raghu Karnad. It was a very special evening as it occurred two days after the untimely demise of the playwright, Girish Karnad. So the book launch morphed into this public memorial for Girish Karnad too. It began with the new Jnanpith winner Amitav Ghosh’s tribute to another Jnanpith winner Girish Karnad. The conversation began with Raghu Karnad, son of Girish Karnad, saying, “My father was a chronicler of Karnataka and of this country, I consider you to be a chronicler of this planet. Interconnecting the countless parts we are in the midst of but miss. They are forces of language, war, or even eco-system.” These opening remarks triggered off a fascinating conversation about “unlikely coincidences” and “meaningful resonances” that exist between space and time. Also what does it mean to try and rationalise events that defy rationalist thinking but at times it is impossible to do so. A significant proportion of Gun Island dwells upon the global migrant crisis. During the conversation Amitav Ghosh commented that “the central literary question is how do you talk about the slow violence that eats itself into peoples lives and never finds its way into newspapers? In the papers every day there are so many reports about violence but this slow violence does not get attention. We have learned to turn our eyes away from it. The issue is how do we find ourselves back to recognise the violence unfolding around us. Poetry is better able to respond to the catastrophe and cataclysm we see around us. Poetry does not have that commitment. Poetry has always responded to every natural event. You see it in Byron and in pre-modern Indian poetry which is not poetry for the sake of poetry — it is devotional. We have to find ourselves back to that…back to being able to talk about other things apart from us.”
Gun Island is an unputdownable book. It will sell well but more so because of the old fashioned word-of-mouth recommendations. At the book launch there were whispers overheard of Amitav Ghosh probably being a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature in the coming years. Who knows?! But for now it would be interesting to see if this book makes it to the shortlist of the more prominent literary prizes around the world like The Booker Prize. It is certainly a book that cannot be ignored!
Of all the books I read in the past week Gun Island was exceptional.
In The Book are a children’s book publisher, established in 2017 in Hertfordshire. They are passionate about reading, and getting people excited about books. They believe that novels provide a fantastic way for children to safely explore their imagination, develop their confidence and improve their understanding of different cultures and societies.
In The Book created this Literary Tube Map of London to get people to engage with novels, because they believe that good pieces of literature have a way of painting places like nothing else can. The books featured on this map have been hand-picked because they have an incredible ability of transporting a person to their London settings.
This map shows where your favourite characters made a name for themselves. From the legendary Harry Potter boarding his train to Hogwarts at Kings Cross, to Mary Poppins flying into the Banks’ family home just off the Central Line. You can vividly picture Ebenezer Scrooge skulking home after work through the streets near Monument station, and Sherlock storming out of his address at Baker Street to solve another case – closely followed by faithful Watson.
Teamwork, the producers of Jaipur Literature Festival, create JLF in Belfast or thereabouts from 21-23 June 2019. Jaipur Belfast has announced an exciting programme. These are being organised at two venues: The Lyric Theatre (22 June) and Seamus Heaney Homeplace (23 June). Tickets may be booked at the official website for JLF Belfast.
The curtain raiser for the event was organised on 4 June at the British Council, New Delhi. Speaking at the event Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director, Teamwork Arts said, “This is a living bridge — it’s about people, ideas, sport, books and above all, about literature. Today, dialogue is becoming more and more important. We have to continue what we do best that without political affiliation people come together to discuss and disagree peacefully. In Belfast people wear their wounds on their sleeves much as we Indians wear it.” He expanded on this sentiment in an article for the Irish Times, “Jaipur Literature Festival comes to Belfast: celebrating each other’s stories” ( 7 June 2019)
Namita Gokhale, co-director, JLF, said “JLF Belfast looks at shared histories through themes of identity and selfhood. Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter, discusses the nature of non-violence. We ponder the puzzles of identity, the power of poetry, the mysteries of word, the flavours of Asian cuisine, the future of AI by Marcus du Sautoy. We revisit the poetry of Yeats and Tagore and explore the echoes of each in the other.”
William Dalrymple, co-director, JLF, added that JLF Belfast attempts to look at the scars of these different partitions.
At the curtain raiser a wonderful discussion was organised on Kalidas and Shakespeare. It was moderated by translator Gillian Wright. The panelists included academics Dr R. W. Desai and Prof. Harish Trivedi. Here is the recording I made with Facebook Live.
Meanwhile as the weekend draws near Irish writer Paul McVeigh has been posting fabulous tweets on the prepatory work. Here is a glimpse:
Rebecca Servadio, Literary Scout and Managing Partner, London Literary Scouting is an incredible person to meet, crackling with energy, eyes sparkling and speaking rapidly with not an urgency but because there is so much to share about the world of books. No time to waste. She is a powerhouse who is involved with organisations like PEN, World Without Borders, literary festivals, juror for various publishing awards etc. In 2017 she was recognised as one of the Whitefox “Unsung Heroes of Publishing“. Rebecca works for twenty plus publishing houses around the world, for example Riverhead/PRH in the US, Gallimard in France, Einaudi in Italy, Anagrama in Spain, Hanser in Germany, de Bezige Bij in Holland as well as working in film/tv and stage where she also works for BBC Film and the National Theatre amongst others. Rebecca and I met when we were a part of the Visiting International Publishers Delegation, Sydney (29 April – 5 May 2019). The following interview was conducted via email.
How and why did you get into publishing?
The truth is that I love to read, I love literature, I love the thrill of losing myself within a book, the immediate travel. Immediately I am somewhere else, outside of my experience, inside the human experience whether it be emotional, intellectual or a page turner. I was and am still interested in people and in storytelling and in community and collaboration of all types and publishing is all these things. Creative with words. Local, particular, challenging, ever evolving, transformative, international – publishing is all those things and each interests me. I was a lawyer before starting to work in publishing and although I learnt both rigour and determination and other life skills that serve me well with my scouting agency, I found myself weighed down by the monotony and intense focus. Publishing is as varied as there are stories and people and I relish the challenge of connecting these two things with good books.
2. Why did
you choose to be a literary scout and not a literary agent? What are the
differences between a literary scout and a literary agent? Does it help to be
multi-lingual as you are?
I think the real answer to that question is that I am interested in where the dots connect up and how you build bridges and connect people and books in different countries. I love building bridges and networks that surprise and so help books to travel and help the publishers that I work with discover and publish the best writing and author. I also like to communicate and talk in different languages and across different languages and different domestic, national and international realities. I read in English and Italian and French. I work closely with Spanish and have readers that read in the Scandinavian languages, German, and Portuguese. I think of scouting as curation, as gate opening, as intelligence, as the signal within the noise and the world is very noisy.
There are many differences between scouting and agenting
but the primary one is that an agent represents his or her clients – writers
generally speaking and is paid through a commission on the sale deal for the
book of the author. An agent is always incentivised and interested to recommend
an author (and a particular book) because that is the very nature of their job
– their bread and butter consists in selling that authors works and so talking
about them in a way that strengthen the hand and the value of the book. A scout
on the other hand works for a publisher and helps the publisher navigate the
publishing world and marketplace. The scout should be opinionated and recommend
the best books for a particular publisher and again enable the publisher and
their best interests and so advising against a book is as much part of the job
as advising to buy a book more economically or again read/buy something
different all together. A scout should never have a commercial incentive or
interest to recommend a book to their publisher and their loyalty should always
lie with the publisher and not the writer or the agent. A scout should not have
a client – publisher house – in their home country and again work exclusively
in each country unlike agents. Again agents generally work in one territory and
not across territories although this is not true of co-agents or foreign rights
agents in house or in agencies.
3. How and
when was London Literary Scouting established? What are the genres you specialise in?
As Literary Scouts we are interested in and engaged
with storytelling in all its forms. We look for the best fiction and nonfiction
to be published, or published in English, as well as in other major languages,
on behalf of our international Publishing Clients as well as for Film, TV and
Theatre. Rather than thinking in ‘global’ terms, as London-based scouts we can
and do individuate those ‘worldwide voices’ which speak across languages.
London is the most international of cities and we read widely and omnivorously.
Yes, they might be set in other countries, worlds and cultures, but the
challenge is to recognise those singular and particular voices that can cross
latitudes and longitudes. Without being defined or pre-occupied by ‘the new’ we
help find the authors that will build the bridges to readers today, tomorrow
and in the future.
London Literary Scouting was born from a partnership
between Koukla MacLehose, Rebecca Servadio and Yolanda Pupo Thompson. Koukla
MacLehose founded her eponymous scouting agency in 1987, as the agency grew and
flourished in 2012 Koukla founded Koukla MacLehose Associates which then became
MacLehose, Servadio and Pupo-Thompson in 2014. We are now known as London
Literary Scouting and the agency is led by Rebecca Servadio
We read voraciously and widely. We don’t read academic
books nor do we read picture books. We read and have readers who read with us
in most of the major languages. We try and find readers on a case by case basis
in the other languages.
4. What are
the notable successes or even failures of your firm? (There is a learning to be
gleaned from every experience!)
I think our successes are all in the breadth of our
client list – wonderful publishing houses, the BBC, the National Theatre and
production companies and well as the calibre and intelligence and hard work of
our team. In terms of books there are many by SAPIENS is one of which I am
proud.
5. How
important are book fairs, rights tables, and international literature festivals
to a literary scout?
Essential. Meeting publishers, agents – new friends
and old friends, writers and book lovers – new friends and old friends, is
right at the heart of the business. Publishing remains a people business so the
opportunities to meet and exchange are these ones. Reading, listening to and
meeting writers is equally important and interesting. Part of scouting well is
understanding what you have in your hand and who needs to know about it when.
Part of scouting well is understanding your clients – the publishing houses and
their domestic realities and needs and so travelling regularly to their home
offices and country and meeting them at fairs is essential.
6. You are
an active participant with organisations that believe firmly in the power of
literature/words like PEN and Words without Borders. Around the world there is
a clamp down on writers. Literary scouts work internationally with their
clients. With state censorship and self-censorship by writers/publishers
increasing, how does a literary scout navigate these choppy waters?
Carefully. I think network and intelligence and
understanding writing and the value of fact and information has never been more
important.
7. As a
signatory and an advisor to the PEN International Women’s Manifesto you are
very aware of the importance of free speech. What are the ways in which you
think the vast publishing networks can support women writers to write freely?
Do you think the emergence of digital platforms has facilitated the rise of
women writers?
This is a hard question to answer properly. I think
the primary way that vast networks can support women writers to write freely is
to ensure that they are as widely read as possible in as many parts of the
world as possible both so that their writing – their freedom of expression is
more protected in what is a public and international space and again that it
reaches the widest number of people so that change and progress is enacted and
again shepherded and enabled forward. Change and collaboration are radical and
transformative, community in numbers affords some protection for free speech
and again value and visibility. I would agree that the emergence of digital
platforms has played an important and facilitatory role.
8. The
porousness of geographical boundaries is obvious on the Internet where
conversations about translations/ world literature, visibility of international
literature across book markets, evidence of voracious appetites of readers,
increase in demand for conversion of books to films to be made available on TV
& videos streaming services, increase in fan fiction, proliferation of
storytelling platforms like Wattpad, growth in audiobooks etc. Since you are also associated with trade
book fairs like the Salone Internazionale del Libro, Turin, do you think these shifts in consumption
patterns of books have affected what publishers seek while acquiring or
commissioning a book?
I think that most publishers acquire and publish the
books that they have fallen in love with and are interested by and that to some
extent reflect or help us answer or perhaps simply understand questions about
how to live and to be that are essential to the human condition and that the
changes in the world are necessarily reflected in these choices as the
readership too evolves. I think the flip-side of this is true to so for example
the fragmentation of society and the proliferation of niche interests and
communities on the internet has also translated into a strengthened special
interest publishing houses be they neo Nazi publishing houses or Christian
evangelical publishing houses.
9. A mantra
that is oft quoted is “Content is oil of the 21st Century”. Has the
explosion of digital platforms from where “content” can be accessed
in multiple ways changed some of the rules of engagement in the world of
literary scouts? Is there a shift in queries from publishers for more books
that can be adapted to screen rather than straightforward translations into
other book markets?
I think that the explosion of digital platforms and
perhaps even more importantly the speed and ease with which the digital world
is able to share information and again upload/disseminate and/or publish has
transformed the mores and publishing reality entirely. Navigating the mass of
content, its breadth, depth and scope is very challenging but equally the fact
that it is now possible to submit a manuscript quite literally to publishing
house around the globe at the same time has transformed the rules of engagement
as has the corporatisation of publishing and the establishment of huge global
publishing houses such as Penguin Random House or HarperCollins. That said I
think the wealth and breadth of content means too that real considered opinion
and curation is more important than ever and so intelligent scouting is ever
more important and interesting. Of course no one can run faster than email nor
should they want too. . . .Re the book to screen market book to screen (and
particularly TV) is booming which is surely a good thing for authors who are
struggling evermore to make a living from writing and a less good thing for
publishing as many interesting and talented writers prefer to write within this
more lucrative medium that write simple books. As someone who remains of the
opinion that what is sort after is excellence in all ways put particularly
storytelling – so in other words the opposite of indistinguishable content – I
continue to feel optimistic about wonderful books and writers finding
interesting and transformative ways to also tell their stories in other medium
and that books will continue to be read and treasured and shared.
10. In your
experience what are the “literary trends” that have been consistent
and those that have been promising but fizzled out? What do you think are the
trends to look out for in the coming years?
I think intelligent narrative nonfiction and popular nonfiction is going and has gone from strength to strength and will continue to do so. People after ever more in need of ways to understand and answer the questions that trouble or times and contemporary societies. A trends that has (fortunately fizzled out) is soft erotica a la 50 Shades of Grey. With regards trends for the future, I look to the environment and the ecological/climate crisis in both fiction – eco thrillers & whistle blowers as well as serious nonfiction.
11. How many hours a day do you devote to reading? And how do the manuscripts/books find their way to you?
How many hours a day…. that is really impossible to answer. I love to read and equally I am interested in people and curious so I meet people which is also how manuscripts make their way to me. How books come to me is that that is the heart of the game. Books can come from anywhere so I work with, talk too and interact with a wide variety of people from agents, foreign rights agents, editors and publishers but also writers and journalists. I read voraciously, online too, longform, short stories, old and new. I love recommendations. Friends. I work closely with both like minded and non like minded people because I don’t see the point of only having a network of people who share your taste. Many agents and foreign rights people send me books because working for a larger family of publishers means it is a way for them to reach a wider audience.
Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me is set in the past in which England lost the Falkand War and Alan Turing was still alive. The story is about Adam, an android, and its relationship with its owners. It is also a novel about Alan Turing and laying down of the theoretical principles of artificial intelligence. Ron Charles writing for the Washington Post ( 17 April 2019) says “…McEwan…is not only one of the most elegant writers alive, he is one of the most astute at crafting moral dilemmas within the drama of everyday life. True, contending with an attractive synthetic rival is a problem most of us won’t have to deal with anytime soon (sorry, Alexa), but figuring out how to treat each other, how to do some good in the world, how to create a sense of value in our lives, these are problems no robot will ever solve for us.” Sadly though this is a novel that has received a mixed reception. It also generated quite a hue and cry when Ian McEwan said in an interview that Machines Like Me was “not science fiction“. Nor did he have time “for conventional science fiction”. A month later in The Wired ( 19 May 2019) he clarified, “…actually I’ve read a fair amount of science fiction over a lifetime…I’d be very happy for my novel to be called science fiction, but it’s also a counterfactual novel, it’s also a historical novel, it’s also a moral dilemma novel, in a well-established traditional form within the literary novel,” he says. “I’m very happy if they want to call my novel science fiction, even honored. But it’s much else, that’s all I’m trying to say.” But by then articles such as “‘It drives writers mad’: why are authors still sniffy about sci-fi?” by Sarah Ditum ( Guardian, 18 April 2019) had been published. As Ron Charles says, “McEwan, who won the 1998 Booker Prize for Amsterdam, is a master at cerebral silliness. His previous novel, Nutshell, was a modern-day retelling of Hamlet from the point of view of an indecisive fetus. In that book and in this new one, McEwan knows just how to explore the most complex issues in the confines of the most ridiculous situations.” Author and computer scientist, Anil Menon, says in his review of the book:
It doesn’t help that McEwan’s alternate world is an implausible mess. Partly this is because McEwan gives many details, unwisely and often carelessly, to establish plausibility. For example, we learn that Charles’ car, a mid-60s’ vehicle, is a “British Leyland Urbala, the first model to do 1,000 miles on a single charge.” Since the novel’s 1940s more or less mirrors our 1940s, it means that in 20 years, McEwan’s world has gone from cars that run 15-20 miles/ gallon to a 1960s’ electric car with almost twice the mileage of a 2018 Tesla! On the other hand, we’re also told that Adam takes 16 hours to recharge on a standard 13 amp socket. Since Charles has already told us that “At thirty-two, I was completely broke,” it can only mean electricity costs next to nothing.
The real technical problem is that McEwan does not want to use a near-future setting. So he sets his novel in an alternate 80s’ world similar to our world, except for an accelerated development of technology after World War II. Turing is trivialised into a totalising genius responsible for practically every advance in computer science. The robot’s existential dilemmas were new in the 1940s, when Asimov wrote his tales, but McEwan seems to think they’re brand new. Turing sombrely informs Charles that “we don’t yet know how to teach machines to lie,” but didn’t robots supposedly pass the Turing test in the 1960s?
My criticism is not about “getting the science right”. It is about getting the psychology right. The Great Chain of Servitude — slave, serf, servant, employee and devotee — now includes a new subaltern: the robot. The stories we tell about robots are stories about our evolving understanding of personhood and servitude. History matters. By disrespecting history, McEwan reduces this understanding to a caricature.
Alas, Machines Like Me, is a dull book. In all likelihood no publisher would have taken it, if it hadn’t had McEwan’s name on it. Oh well!
Nothing — said Professor Stein — it tells us a great deal about Saudi Arabia.
Professor Stein, as you know, the Hanson robot, Sophia was awarded citizenship of Saudi Arabia in 2017. She has more rights than any Saudi woman. What does this tell us about aritifical intelligence?
…
Will women be the first casualties of obsolescence in your brave new world?
On the contrary, said Professor Stein, AI need not replicate outmoded gender prejudices. If there is no biological male or female, then –
…
She says, Professor Stein, you are the acceptable face of AI, but in fact the race to create what you call true artificial intelligence is a race run by autistic-spectrum white boys with poor emotional intelligence and frat-dorm social skills. In what way will their brave new world be gender neutral — or anything neutral?
…
Even if, even if the first superintelligence is the worst possible iteration of what you might call the white male autistic default programme, the first upgrade by the intelligence itself will begin to correct such errors. And why? Because we humans will only programme the future once. After that, the intelligence we create will manage itself.
And us.
Jeanette Winterson’s Frankisstein: A Love Storyis a modern retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankstein. The story begins at the Villa Diodati (1816) on the shores of Lake Geneva a well-known scene for it is the one in which 19-year-old Mary Shelley conceived of her novel Frankenstein. Two hundred years on Frankisstein is about Ry, short for Mary, Shelley, a transgender medical professional self-described as “hybrid”, meeting Victor Stein, a celebrated professor of artificial intelligence, during a visit to a cryonics facility in the Arizona desert — a setting that exists in reality called Alcor Life Extension Foundation but is never mentioned by name in the novel. there is a professional and a sexual attraction between the two scientists.
The novel makes this overarching connection between Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with modern science advancing sufficiently to enable those who wish to, to have a sex change to the application of AI. Frankisstein starts off really very well but after a while fizzles out particularly when The Romantics are clumsily described. Byron and Polidori come away nowhere like the characters one has known them to be and the Shelleys too are an odd couple. The descriptions of Mary Shelley come across as too modern or more as if a twenty-first century interpretation has been imposed upon her character.
Nevertheless artifical intelligence is gaining significance by leaps and bounds every single day. Real life is rapidly morphing into something out of a science fiction story. AI research is helping these initiatives in many, many ways. Some more apparent than others but AI is most certainly here to stay. “The world is at the start of something new,” Winterson writes, “what will happen … has begun.” It is a brave new world but with its many challenges. The crux of Frankisstein is well articulated in the conversation quoted above. It is an unnerving thought when expressed so clearly to have a new world created by a handful of AI scientists propogating their own biases — knowingly or unknowingly, we will never know!
Jeanette Winterson explores her pet themes in Frankisstein of gender, sexuality, and individual freedom. These issues are gaining importance in a technologically driven world. It is rapidly transforming the reality as we know it into something that is increasingly unpredictable as the evergrowing and controlling presence of computers increase in the human world.
Frankisstein is a curious novel that some may find readable and others a tad alarming. But it is a novel meant to be read.
‘If one lives in a foreign country,’ he said with some pride, and felt as he had felt when they championed the cause of his conchie son, warmed by the experience of tolerance and sanity. ‘My country,’ he repeated. ‘I feel at home in it, more so than I would in my own.’
‘All the more reason not to offend,’ she said bluntly.
…
‘Which country?’ demanded Abdul.
‘Well, England,’ admitted Srinivas.
‘England! What’s the matter with you, man, you can’t think about anything else?’
‘I suppose I could, but why? This is where I live, in England.’
‘It’s your country like?’
‘It’s become.’
‘You think so? You think they’ll let you?;
‘Yes.’
‘Then you better stop,’ said Abdul, ‘because they won’t. the British won’t allow it. First thing that goes wrong it’ll be their country, and you go back, nigger, to yours, back from where you came from.’
Kamala Markandaya’s The Nowhere Man is about an ageing Brahmin Sriniwas who emigrated to Britain in the early part of the twentieth century. Later his wife, Vasantha, joined him. His two sons were born and brought up in the country. He was a spice trader. During the second world war, he “lost” his sons. The younger one, Seshu, literally when he died in a bombing attack. The older one, Laxman, found himself a wife and moved to Plymouth where he preferred to be more “integrated” than his own parents had ever been able to achieve. Soon after the war Vasantha succumbed to TB. And then the story continues about how Sriniwas the lonely widower tries to navigate the changing socio-political landscape of this country where he has spent nearly half a century.
I re-read The Nowhere Man in complete disbelief. When I read it at first many years ago, it was a story about an Indian immigrant growing old in UK facing some racism and being shunned by his own son. Published in 1973, set in Nov 1968, a few months after Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech and a year after the Beatles song “Nowhere Man”. By all accounts that I have dug up on the Internet it was not exactly well received yet the book paved the way for a manuscript like Rushdie’s Midnight Children to be accepted. But reading Nowhere Man now makes it seem so prescient. No wonder it is being republished by Pete Ayrton, formerly of Serpent’s Tail, now at Small Axes in August 2019. Some of the dialogues in it are sharp — much like the racist slurs one hears being shared on social media. Kamala Markandaya did not mince any words when it came to writing about the immigrant experiences in the early 1970s. It is a novel that sweeps through the twentieth century. For us now it will be considered a “classic”, a “historical” novel but at the time of publication it was most certainly a contemporary novel. There is a whiff of the old given the time it was written in too. Writing today is edgier, faster paced, many more details about etched in but this is a cross between the nineteenth century novel and the emerging modern novel. Also upon reading it at in 2019, years after the aggressive promotion of immigrant voices, diversity and inclusivity, our reading sensibilities are little dulled. We no longer seem to expect “English Literature” to be all white but to be inclusive of diverse voices. There is colour. There is Women’s Prize, BAME, Jhalak Prize, Kit de Wal promoting publishing and encouraging new writers etc. And this is a radical change in publishing in the last decade or so, not much earlier than that. So within this context to be re-reading Kamala Markandaya is quite an eye-opener about the immigrant experience. Of course after that there have been many more but this particular book is a great example! Here are two fabulous links about The Nowhere Man: Paris Review( 2018) and London Fictions ( 2013, 2018).
On the day the winner of Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019 is to be announced in London, perhaps it is befitting to remember this extraordinary novelist who would have probably won such an award hands down, if it had existed then!
“We must support our country, especially now, in time of war, and that means supporting our leaders.”
So goes the conversation between teenager Helmut Hubner and his stepfather, a Nazi. Helmut Hubner is a Mormon like his mother and is horrified at the transformation of Germany. He also listens to the BBC on an illegal short-wave radio and with the help of two of his friends circulates pamphlets trying to counter the propoganda in Nazi Germany. He fights for free speech and is against the injustice being perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews. He is also against the gagging of free press, indoctrination, the concentration camps etc. Unfortunately he is captured by the Gestapo and executed.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti has taken one episode from her Newbery Honor Book, Hitler Youth, to create The Boy Who Dared: A Novel Based on the True Story of a Hitler Youth. For this book the author spoke to relatives like Helmut’s half-brother Gerhard Kunkel and other friends and acquaintances who knew the boy. Though this book is historical fiction, it is done so for the ease of writing the narrative, but the author has a detailed bibliography, photographs and a Third Reich time line. The Boy Who Dared can easily be used as a study text in schools. Although this book was first published in 2008 it continues to be in circulation.
It is a must read.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti The Boy Who Dared: A Novel Based on the True Story of a Hitler Youth Scholastic Press, New York, 2008, rpt 2019. Hb. pp. 210. Rs 495.
On the first Sunday of the year I publish an article in the Asian Age on the books to look out for in the year. This article was published on 6 January 2019. Here is the original url. I am c&p the article as well as the portions in red that for the lack of space had to be removed.
India is one of those rare markets that has registered a steady growth rate in book consumption.
In 2019, heavyweights like Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, Elif Shafak, Marlon James and Elizabeth Gilbert will be back with exciting literary fiction titles. Chitra Divakurni’s The Forest of Enchantment, is a retelling of the Ramayana as told by Sita a story of her joys and sorrows, heartbreak and resilience.
Jnanpith awardee Amitav Ghosh’s cli-fi (climate fiction) novel, Gun Island, is about a Brooklyn-based rare books dealer on a visit to his birthplace, Kolkata, where he gets entangled unexpectedly with an ancient Indian legend about the goddess of snakes, Manasa Devi. Cyrus Mistry’s The Prospect of Miracles promises to be a masterpiece of psychological characterisation.
Amnesty by Aravind Adiga is set in Australia and its central character is a Sri Lankan illegal immigrant. Novelist and essayist Mirza Waheed’s dazzling new novel, Tell Her Everything, is a heart-breaking story about medical and human ethics, and the corrosive nature of complicity.
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh
Saikat Majumdar’s The Scent of God is set in an elite, all-boys’ boarding school run by a Hindu monastic order in late-20th century. Uzma Aslam Khan’s The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali is a well-researched, ambitiously imagined historical novel set in the Andaman Islands, used as a prison first by the British and then the Japanese. Malayalam writer Paul Zacharia’s first novel in English, A Secret History of Compassion, is scheduled for release, as is journalist Jane Borges’ historical fiction, Bombay Balchao, which is set in South Bombay and spans eight decades.
Debut novels by dancer and literary critic Tishani Doshi, Small Days and Nights, Joanne Ramos’ The Farm about a luxurious surrogacy facility, Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s I, Anupam and a posthumous publication, Babu Bangladesh! by Numair A. Choudhury are the other titles to look forward to.
Translated literature promises rich pickings this year, especially Krishna Sobti’s majestic feminist novel on the aftermath of Partition, Gujarat Here, Gujarat There (trans. Daisy Rockwell). Historian Upinder Singh’s Political Violence in Ancient India is also being translated into Hindi. Journalist Poonam Saxena is editing and translating an anthology of The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told, while screenwriter Nasreen Rahman will translate all of Manto’s short stories.
There’s also Ship of Sorrows by Qurratulain Hyder (translated from Urdu by Saleem Kidwai), and My Life and Struggle: The Autobiography of Abdul Ghaffar Khan (trans. from Pukhto by Imtiaz Ahmad Sahibzada).
Nowhere People by Sabari Roy, translated by Adrita Mukherjee, set in turbulent post-Partition Bengal, tells a story of refugees, uprooted ruthlessly from old East Bengal, who struggle resolutely to forge a new life in an alien land. Five Harry Potter books are to be released in seven Indian languages.
Interestingly the translation landscape is maturing rapidly but the preference seems to be for books from Indian regional languages into English rather world literature into local languages.
Translations of popular international titles, like the Harry Potter novels into seven Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam and Bengali and Steig Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy into Malayalam are most welcome and speak of the growing clout of regional languages.
Non-fiction literature has immense variety. A Mouth Full of Blood: Essays, Speeches and Meditation by Toni Morrison spans four decades of her work interrogating the world around us. Suketu Mehta’s In This Land Is Their Land explains why the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by the fear of immigrants. Gunjan Veda’s A Museum of Broken Teacups: Postcards from the Margins consists of stories of dalit communities that are keeping their indigenous art and craft alive against all odds.
Books on politics score high in 2019, especially with the imminent general elections.
Psephologists Dr Prannoy Roy with Dorab R. Sopariwala are co-authoring a book, while Ruchir Sharma will distil the wisdom of his observations and experiences of 25 years in Democracy on the Road. At 150 million, the 2014 general elections saw the highest number of first-time voters. The Young and the Restless: Youth and Politics in India by social activist Gurmehar Kaur follows the journeys of nine youth leaders.
Democracy on the Road by Ruchir Sharma
Equally relevant is Back to School: A Look at India’s Broken Education System by educator and political activist Atishi Marlena, and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan’s Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave Society Behind, which discusses the socio-economic effects of globalisation on the state and people.
With the rise of the rightwing, it’s natural that writers are turning to investigate and interrogate not just its genesis in India, but also its impact. Vikram Sampath’s biography of Hindu Mahasabha president Veer Savarkar is in the works, as is the first English translation from Marathi of Spotlight on the RSS (Zot) by Raosaheb Kasbe. First published in May 1978, it was publicly burned by RSS activists. Constitutional expert A.G. Noorani’s RSS: A Menace to India examines why the RSS, the world’s largest fascist organisation, was set up.
My Son’s Inheritance: The Secret History of Lynching in India by Aparna Vaidik will examine mob violence in India and the world. Ziya Us Salam’s Lynch Files: The Forgotten Saga of Victims of Hate Crime will document stories of lynchers and their victims.
Lynch Files: The Forgotten Saga of Victims of Hate Crime by Ziya Us Salam
Mental health activist Amrita Tripathi will publish three books on depression, anxiety and the mental health of youth, while An Anthology of Voices on Mental Health, edited by Jhilmil Breckenridge and Namarita Kathait, focuses on survivor accounts. Lies We Tell by Himanjali Sankar is a novel about mental health, teen relationships and the challenges of friendship, while psychiatrist Shyam Bhat’s as yet untitled debut novel is about the pressures of modern life, depression and finding a reason to live.
Hey kiddo! by Jarrett J. Krosoczka is a phenomenal memoir as it recounts the upbringing of the author by his grandparents, his parents who skipped a generation, as his own mother was a heroin addict and an absent father. The tenth anniversary edition of Siddharth Sarma’s award-winning novel The Grasshopper’s Run is set in Kohima in 1944. Grenade by Alan Gratz is set in Okinawa of 1945 between the Americans and Japanese before the base was established.
Books on gender, such as Fearless Freedom by feminist activist Kavita Krishnan, explores the autonomy of a woman in personal and public spaces, as does Fearless: Stories of Amazing Women from Pakistan by Amnesh Shaikh-Farooqui.
Fearless: Stories of Amazing Women from Pakistan by Amnesh Shaikh-Farooqui
Biographies of successful businessmen always sell like hot cakes. Tim Cook: The Genius who took Apple to the next level by Leander Kahney will in all likelihood do extremely well. Books about travel are steady sellers. Two prominent titles are by Dom Moraes and Mark Tully, respectively.
Pankaj Mishra’s How Not to be a Man is about masculinity, young men and the age of anger. The Life and Times of Rukhmabai: Child Bride, Physician, Revolutionary is a definitive biography of Rukhmabai Raut. One of the first practicing women doctors in India, her landmark case about her marriage as a child bride in 1884 eventually led to the Age of Consent Act in 1891.
An exciting biography to look forward to is The Begum: A Portrait of Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, by Deepa Agarwal and Tahmina Aziz Ayub. It tells the story of Pakistan’s First Lady who began life as Irene Margaret Pant, a Christian, in Kumaon.
There’s also Rani of Jhansi: A Story of Courage, a good accompaniment to the movie, Manikarnika, starring Kangana Ranaut.
Science narratives seeping into lay literature is a recent publishing trend that is very exciting. In Superior, Angela Saini explores the concept of race, both past and present. Nandita Jayaraj and Aashima Dogra’s 30 Fantastic Adventures in Science profile Indian women scientists, while Samanth Subramanian’s The Last Man Who Knew Everything is a highly anticipated biography of J.B.S. Haldane.
Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Letters from an Astrophysicist covers everything from God to the history of science, from aliens to death.
Celebrity publishing is a certified money-spinner. Scheduled titles include two books on Amitabh Bachchan, Kaveree Bamzai’s The Three Khans which focuses on Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan while simultaneously examining the Hindi film industry. Other books include Sanjay Dutt’s autobiography, memoirs by model-turned-athlete Milind Soman and Bollywood doyens like Deepti Naval, Rakesh Omprakash Mehra and Danny Denzongpa.
Apart from economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s Montek Remembers, lawyer Prashant Bhushan’s My Life in Movements, fashion designers Manish Malhotra and Masaba too are writing the story of their life and work.
Shahbaz Taseer has written an account of his nearly five-year-long captivity by Taliban and the ISIS. Lost to the World is the remarkable true story of Taseer’s time in captivity, and of his astonishing escape. The late journalist Kuldip Nayar’s ringside view of history in his memoir On Leaders and Icons From Jinnah to Modi is eagerly awaited.
Books on sports is an ever expanding genre. Mihir Bose’s The Nine Waves: The Extraordinary Story of Indian Cricket is bound to become the go-to history book on Indian cricket. Speed Merchants: The Story of Indian Pace Bowling (1888 to 2018) by Vijay Lokapally and Gulu Ezekiel is a good addition.
The Patient Assasin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj by Anita Anand
Pakistani batsman Shahid Afridi’s Game Changer is expected to be a candid memoir, as is Sanath Jayasuriya: A Biography of the legendary Sri Lankan cricketer. India’s Football Dream by Shantanu Gupta and Nikhil Paramjit Sharma traces the journey of Indian football, while journalist and filmmaker Sundeep Mishra’s Biography of Dutee Chand is about one of India’s greatest sprinting stars.
Books on Indian history are a rage. India: A Story through 100 Objects by Vidya Dehejia promises to be a visual treat. Which of Us Are Aryans? co-authored by Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel, Jaya Menon, Razib Khan and Kai Friese will be a seminal book. Journalist Sudeep Chakravarti’s Plassey: The Battle that Changed the Course of Indian History argues that the battle turned the fortunes of not one, but two countries. William Dalrymple’s The Anarchy charts the East India Company’s takeover of India and the birth of the British Raj. Sarbpreet Singh’s The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia and other Stories of the Lahore Court is an examination of Ranjit Singh and his times that focuses on a wide array of colourful characters who populated his court.
Political journalist Anita Anand’s The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj is an account of Udham Singh who swore to take revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. The Delhi Map Book by historian Swapna Liddle will deconstruct the map of Shahjahanabad made in 1846-47. The Deoliwallahs: Stories from the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment by Joy Ma and Dilip D’Souza is based on interviews with survivors when India imprisoned 3,000 Chinese-Indians and sent them to a disused World War II POW camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. Vivek Agnihotri investigates the death of former Prime Minster Lal Bahadur Shastri in The Tashkent Files.
