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Fictional worlds
Rumina Sethi
SOMEHOW the year 2009 did not seem
remarkable for fiction (or perhaps I fell into a black hole). The
previous year was marked by a literary explosion: Salman Rushdie’s The
Enchantress of Florence burst upon the scene in its first quarter;
Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies followed in the summer.
Interspersted between these literary giants was an excellent
collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth.
Such literary ancestry, understandably, is hard to chase. But for the
London Book Fair, at any rate, it was the year of the Indian novel. In
one sense it is, as the young debutante elbows out the old,
established brigade.
What children are reading
Jay Mathews
I share this secret only with recluses like myself who lack the imagination to conceive of any gift better than a book. If you are buying for a child—particularly if you are in a last-minute Christmas shopping panic—go to
renlearn.com/whatkidsarereading and scan the list compiled by a company called Renaissance Learning.
Punjabi literature
Old horses still going strong
Ashok Sharma
THE year 2009 has witnessed a
satisfactory inflow of books published in Punjabi. Books on literary
criticism or analytical appraisal or based on M.Phil dissertations or
Ph.D theses outnumber creative writings in various genres of
literature. The budding writers are enthusiastically coming to the
fore with their publications and seek recognition. Yet, it is a matter
of great satisfaction that our old horses are still stronger.
Non-fiction 2009
Odes to Obama & Oriental rule
Harsh Desai
Five books have been
selected for you this year and each deserves a place on your shelf.
One is a book about the historic Obama election; one is the biography
of the greatest American short story writer, one is a travelogue
through the heart of Islam, another a search for the sacred in India,
and the fifth is a book about the wizards of finance.
Famous 10
Author
of Famous Five series Enid Blyton makes it to 2009 list of
best-selling writers, along with J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown
Late
British writer of children's novels Enid Blyton has been included in
Amazon's list of best-selling authors along with J.K. Rowling, Terry
Pratchett and Dan Brown. Though Blyton belongs to the past decade, her
books have remained as popular as ever, and her entry into the Top 10
was based on sales at amazon.co.uk, the online retailer. Her stories,
including the Famous Five and Noddy series, are still
popular and bought by parents and grandparents, who remember the books
fondly from their own childhoods.
Women’s words
Humra Quraishi
No, I’m no Lady Rip Van Winkle. It’s not that coming out of some sort of hibernation, I’m into this offloading mood. In fact, each time a book lands or makes its presence felt, it nudges me hard enough for me to quip that, at least, on this one front, we seem to be striding ahead. Books are coming out as never before.
And the number of women taking to writing could well stretch beyond those rigid parameters. Bringing in offshoots and a whole array of queries: Do women writers focus on a different set of issues? Do women writers carry that baggage of emotions? Do women sense things differently and and so on...
Hindi
LITERATURE
Tales of two
cities and more
Harbans Singh
Many followers of Indian
literature, especially Hindi, find it frustrating that while Indians
routinely write good literature that is also recognised as such by the
international market, Hindi has been steadily lagging behind. After
the seventies of the last century, there have been fewer and fewer
books in Hindi that have generated debate and compelled people to
think. Year 2009 has not been any different from the preceding years
and yet there have been authors and publishers who have toiled to
bring good literature to the readers.
Launch
note
Changes are coming about
not just on the writing front, but also in the way some of the books
get launched. Earlier, of course, there was nothing called a formal
book release. It just about hit the stands. Then, came along that era
when it became a huge tamasha, as this or that minister or bureaucrat
would be hauled or called to be there on the dais and a fairytale
reading took off. Those who could afford five-star settings indulged
in that, with the choicest cuisine, cheese and wines flowing… big
names and bigger designations trying to outdo each other.
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