Hardluck Counter
The Mumbai terror attack has bombed Penguin’s grand plans for the launch of their biggest ever gamble: Nandan Nilekani’s Imagining India. Everything was in place: a record 50,000 hardback copies printed (although they don’t say so), a promo tour of six cities (the equivalent of a 21-gun salute in writers’ circle), and with an author who is one of the best-known faces in India. And then the bombshell, just as he arrived in Bangalore for the launch on Nov 27. As they say—the best-laid plans of publishers can go awry.
A Plague On Patrick
Talk about "an extreme form of literary criticism", as V.S. Naipaul once described the fatwa on Salman Rushdie for his The Satanic Verses. On a recent visit to a witch doctor in Kampala, he wanted to put a curse on Patrick French, author of his official biography, The World Is What It Is. What the world took for his "act of self-lacerating honesty" turns out to be seething rage at his "two-timing" biographer.
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Imported Explosion
There were no prizes for guessing who would win the new Shakti Bhatt award for First Book, although the judges tried to keep it a secret till the announcement. As one of the six contenders, Amruta Patil, shortlisted for her graphic novel, Kari, put it: "When a writer flies in from Pakistan for the award ceremony, you know who’ll win." She was right: Mohammed Hanif walked away with the Rs 1 lakh prize money for his A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Among the missing contenders for the prize—Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger), Pallavi Aiyer (Smoke and Mirrors), and Namita Devidayal (The Music Room).
