Yaraana: A bittersweet symphony

It is indeed orchestrated that I succeeded my first brush (R. Raj Rao’s Hostel Room 131 with queer literature, with another: Yaraana, Gay Writing from South Asia, edited by Hoshang Merchant.

A novel exploration of gay sexual identity and men lovestruck by men, Yaraana makes for interesting reading. Only after I put this anthology down, do I discover that Yaraana was first published in 1999. In this extended version, the novel emphasises the timelessness of its collection. Queer themed (and often, not necessarily) pieces in English and translated from Gujarati, and Urdu and Marathi.

Yaraana begins on a comprehensive note, in an introduction by editor Hoshang Merchant. Merchant traces contemporary and past societal notions of everything queer, leaving you to marvel at the expanse of the genre's literature.

Full report here IBNLive

The secrets of a boys’ hostel

Author, academic R Raj Rao needs no introduction. He was associated with India’s first gay film (Riyad Vinci Wadia’s BomGay in 1996) and published the country’s first gay novel (The Boyfriend, 2003). He is also a poet and was part of India’s gay rights movement much before the country was comfortable discussing alternative sexual identities.

As his new novel Hostel Room 131 (published by Penguin) hits bookstores across the country, the author talks about gay writing in India.

Hostel Room 131 is being marketed as a gay novel. This is the politics of minority writing, where the issue is foregrounded. How do you negotiate the issue, and more importantly, what’s the novel is about?

I guess what you mean is that the ‘issue’ is foregrounded, as opposed to the art. This is a view that I have been resisting for years. My training is in literature. Form is much more important to me than content. Anyone who has taken the trouble to go through my entire body of work, will see for himself how much experimentation there is. That my book is a gay love story is only incidental.

Full report here New Indian Express