A past-present continuum

It’s time for the Delhi tome. Old and young authors turn the spotlight on unknown, valiant and humdrum aspects of the Capital

The scales are tilting in favour of Delhi. The Capital’s advantages over Mumbai are being enumerated in drawing rooms and magazine columns—wider roads, fewer slums, migrant-friendly, the Metro, etc. So Mumbaikars and their friends have taken to pointing out how theirs is a real city, the kind an author falls in love with and writes about. They back it up with weighty evidence—Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts in the last few years.

Maybe the Mumbaikar does feel more passionately for aamchi Mumbai. By contrast, many who have been in Delhi for decades still feel they are passing by and are there only to earn a livelihood. The real Dilliwala, some would argue, left the city after 1947, taking the city’s soul with him. Among them was Ahmed Ali, who moved to Karachi and wrote a celebrated novel, Twilight in Delhi.

Be that as it may, it is a truism that art follows money—and so does literature. There are signs that a generation that grew up in Delhi, or came here to study or work and stayed on, sees the city, with all its contradictions, as its own. It is finding its voice. Vishwajyoti Ghosh recently released Delhi Calm, a graphic work set during the Emergency (1975-77), and Rana Dasgupta is working on his Delhi non-fiction book, a foretaste of which was offered in a brilliant essay in Granta about a year ago.

Full report here Mint

India Abroad award for Sonny Mehta

The India Abroad Award for Lifetime Achievement 2009 was presented to Jhumpa Lahiri's publisher Ajai Singh 'Sonny' Mehta, a titan in the world of books and the publisher and editor-in-chief of Alfred A Knopf. Fittingly, writer Suketu Mehta - whose book on Mumbai, Maximum City, was edited by Sonny Mehta - and actress and legendary food writer Madhur Jaffrey presented the award to Mehta, whose wife writer Gita Mehta, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's elder sister, was present.

In his moving speech, Sonny Mehta noted, "I could not have become a publisher if I had not been raised and educated in India. India gave me my love of books and my obsession with reading. When we were young reading was our most important form of recreation. But when I see the proliferation of bookshops, book fairs, and literary festivals in India today, and when I read the extraordinary work coming from the sub-continent every year, I am reassured that books are as important to Indians now as they were in the past, and I am confident that the future of the book is safe."

The litany of successful authors and the battery of bestsellers in Mehta's career are legendary. So, in Mehta's case, when it came time for a congratulatory message, there was no dearth of options. Still, the crowd was positively amazed when, via a video address, former US President Bill Clinton congratulated India Abroad on 40 years of publishing and congratulated Sonny Mehta, who published Clinton's bestselling memoir, My Life, and all the other winners.

Full report here rediff

Dalrymple lauds NRI writing

Each of his books have been bestsellers. Despite that, William Dalrymple doesn’t like people calling him a successful ‘novelist’. He’d rather people call him a ‘non-fiction writer'.

Dalrymple first came to India as a young traveler in 1984 and was fascinated by the sights and sounds of the country. Since then he has made India his home. His latest book Nine Lives, which released late last year, has been another bestseller. Within the first two weeks of its release 35,000 copies were sold in India, the fastest in this country. “For the first time ever I sold faster in India than Britain, which is very nice. If I write about India and Indians don’t recognise that, there’s a problem. It feels wonderful that now I am making a good living as a writer, writing about India. There is a big market for books about India.

However, Dalrymple also feels that there is a dearth of quality travel writing emerging out of India. “Much of the best of Indian writing is happening by NRIs. If I name the top five travel books written by Indian authors, almost all of them reside outside India. Examples being Suketu Mehta, VS Naipul, Amitav Ghosh, Pankaj Mishra and Vikram Seth,” he says.

Full report here DNA