Now you can read books by Obama, Clinton in Hind

Want to read Asha Ka Savera by US president Barack Obama or Bache Hamara Bhavishya by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton? Then walk into American Centre's library in the national capital.

Aimed at "reaching out to a larger audience", a new Hindi section was inaugurated today at the library which has a collection of books in the language written on and by Americans.

Asha Ka Savera is the translation of Obama's The Audacity of Hope while Bache Hamara Bhavishya is Clinton's It takes a Village.

Besides these, the library also has Bahadur Tom (Tom Sawyer) and Antariksh Pari written by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who is of Indian origin.

Full report here DNA

REVIEW: Roadrunner

REVIEW

Roadrunner: An Indian Quest In America   
Dilip D'souza
HarperCollins
Rs 399
ISBN: 9788172239060
Paperback

Blurb 

What do we learn when one great democracy looks at another? Alexis de Tocqueville's seminal Democracy in America answered the question 1800S. Today, India is the world's other great democracy, and maybe the answers are different. 

Through stories large and small, this book shows us America as refracted through the eyes of an Indian who is critical but not intolerant, understanding but not starry-eyed. From gawking at wall murals by German World War II POWs in Texas to getting to know the bikers for Christ at the annual bike carnival in Sturgis, from charting the history of immigrant Icelanders to driving a fire truck in a quiet mountain town, D'Souza travels American roads, discovering old cultures and new concerns in one of the most revered and reviled nations in the world today. 

More important, he explores the lessons in that process, for India and for readers everywhere, as he searches for meaning and nuance in ideas like patriotism and being liberal, in a country's sense of self.Passionate and perceptive, wry and empathetic, this book is ultimately about what it means to belong. Wherever you are. 

Reviews/ Interviews

India, Indiana Hindu 

And that is what makes Roadrunner interesting: the fact that, for a change, it is a “Man goes on long journey” story. It is the United States, seen from the outside in, by an Indian like you or me. Someone who could be an old friend: intelligent, sensitive, observant, and above all, sharing a similar world-view. It is a reversing of the gaze, as it were. 

Death Ends Fun India Today 

D'Souza confines himself largely to his American experience, only occasionally using a comparative compass, to try and make sense of post-9/11 America and its impact on Americans in general. He doesn't always succeed but it is not an easy task. He finds, predictably, bigotry and tolerance, hatred and love, tragedy and triumph in equal measure. Where he scores is that he hires a car to touch base with towns and places few people have heard of. Like Greenwood near Selma, the origin of the Blues and the civil rights movement, where he arrives a a charismatic Barack Obama is chasing an impossible dream: to become the first Black President of America. This is Alabama where white racists savagely subdued black civil rights marchers. Today, they hand out cards saying "Bama for Obama". 

One for the road Hindu

The Indian subcontinent has been an endless source of exotica for travel writers of all times - from the colonial to the present when the remotest corner of the world is just a Google search away. Those of us who are feeling a bit exhausted by being the constant target of this gaze may be enthused by the very idea behind Dilip D'Souza's "Roadrunner: An Indian Quest in America".

Not that Dilip started his travel writing project with any agenda of "reversing the gaze", to borrow an esoteric phrase from post-colonial literary criticism. "I didn't think of it like that when I was travelling there at least. Having lived in America for more than 10 years, I felt the need to understand better what has become my second home," says Dilip. "But I guess it could be read like that," he adds after a pause. Through a series of stories about people and places from across the United States, the book offers a view of the vast country that is not inspired by awe, and yet is not dismissive. The stories are sometime funny (check out the chapters "Opening Lines" and "Fifth Wife"), sometimes poignant and sometimes even insipid. 

Country road took me home Mint 

...the Roadrunner template is simple: Hit the American highways, meet the American people, find the Indian parallel and there you have it, a compilation of 36 essays that traverse the breadth of the US. Steering clear of run-of-the-mill parachute journalism but not quite going the regular travelogue way, Roadrunner is perhaps best read as a highly individual account of a country and its people and everything in between, from politics and pedagogy to garbage disposal and the Grateful Dead.

Obama inks new book deal, earns big from writing

US President Barack Obama has signed a new book deal worth $500,000.

News about Obama's new book plan was revealed in a disclosure form filed on Tuesday which showed that the 47- year-old President had signed a new $500,000 book agreement five days before taking office on January 20. Aides said Obama would receive $250,000 of that for an adaptation of his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, for young readers. The other $250,000 will go to the publisher in the deal, the New York Times reported.

Obama had earned a whopping $2.46 million in royalties last year as an author.

Obama has written two best-selling books, Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, published in 1995, and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, published in 2006.

Obama nominated for UK literary award

It's a politician who leads the nominations for this year's British Book Awards. US president Barack Obama leads the nominations for this year's British Book Awards by making the shortlist for both author and biography of the year.

Both The Audacity of Hope, and his life story, Dreams from My Father, became UK bestsellers during his 2008 run for office. Dreams from My Father was originally published in 1995 and tells of his early life as a black boy growing up with his white grandparents and is frank about his drug use and flirtations with the Black Power movement.

Obama's biography faces competition for biography of the year from memoirs by JG Ballard, Dawn French, Paul O'Grady, Julie Walters and Marcus Trescothick.

For author of the year, Obama's competition includes Stephanie Meyer. The four volumes of her teenage vampire saga, Twilight, are currently the four best selling children's books in the UK according to industry magazine The Bookseller. Others to get best author nods are Rose Tremain, Diana Athill, Costa prize winner Sebastian Barry and Aravind Adiga, who picked up the 2008 Booker prize.

Also nominated are Tom Rob Smith's thriller Child 44 for both the newcomer and the crime thriller categories. While Kate Atkinson's When Will There Be Good News is nominated for crime thriller and in the best read category which will be voted for by the public.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on April 3.