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Bibliofile

you could probably hold a modest litfest of all the publishers and authors from Delhi who didn’t go to Jaipur this year

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Bibliofile
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Local Support

With publishing houses in the West in a slump, literary agencies have begun to eye the booming Indian market. One of the best-known British agents in India, Gillon Aitken, has just opened an office in India. But that million-dollar advance may still not happen—as yet. The idea is to provide “local support” to the existing list of 14 Indian authors, which includes Pankaj Mishra, Manju Kapur, Aatish Taseer and Tarun Tejpal—but not V.S. Naipaul, who broke up with his long-time agent last year. And to tap the creative hub that India is fast becoming, churning out new authors by the minute. Shruti Debi, ex-editor of Picador India, will head Aitken Alexander Associates’s India office. She plans to add at least 20 new authors this year to the existing list. So happy signing to all of you aspiring authors.

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Missing in Jaipur

With the Jaipur litfest exploding at the seams, it seems to be no longer the networking hub it once was. You’d think the first thing Aitken’s India agent would do is take herself to Jaipur, where all the aspiring authors are headed. Instead, she stayed in Delhi, saying: “I don’t think literature is a by-product of networking.” In fact, you could probably hold a modest litfest of all the publishers and authors from Delhi who didn’t go to Jaipur this year.

Tropic of Cancer

Even before the five-day Jaipur litfest finally closes, authors are trickling into Delhi for events. The first was Siddharth Mukherjee, whose “biography of cancer”, Emperor of All Maladies, has been hailed in the West as having ushered in a new genre. It has just been shortlisted for the National Book Critics Award.

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