Majha House opens literary series with 2 authors

Amritsar, June 15

Majha House opened its new literary series ‘Book People: Talking South East Asia’ with an engaging and insightful discussion between authors Artika Aurora Bakshi, Ameena Hussein and publisher Ravi Singh, founder of the Speaking Tiger Publisher House. The focus of the discussion was the literary culture and discourse in Sri Lanka vis-à-vis India, Both Hussein and Artika, who are from Sri Lanka, shared their views on the subject.

Majha House founder Preeti Gill opened the session by sharing her bit on Majha House organising literary and cultural programmes for the last six years. Many famous writers and artists have been associated with Majha House. “Now is the opportunity for all of us to know the writers and artists of our neighbouring countries their culture. In this initiative, Artika Arora Bakshi and Ameena Hussein from Sri Lanka have joined us,” she said.

Artika, born in Amritsar but currently based in Sri Lanka, is a famous writer of the children’s book series ‘My Little Sikh Handbook’ and Ameena is a writer and co-founder of a publishing house.

Talking to Ravi Singh about her journey, Ameena said when her stories were awarded, she realised that there were many unpublished writers, who were looking for a platform for their stories. “I started my own publishing house, which would keep the expenses to a minimum in an otherwise expensive business of publishing a book,” she shared.

Artika shared how she came to Sri Lanka 25 years ago and found her calling as an author. “Since there were few Sikhs there, I felt that I should write about them and their belief system and raise awareness about it. I was lucky that I soon found a publisher and so far four of my books have been published and the fifth will be out soon,” she said.

Ameena said she usually suggests online platforms to poets as the response is instant and if they get a lot of appreciation, they can get published. “But even now writers want to get published in the traditional way. It is difficult to select a book. Many times I refuse an unknown and new writer but that’s not the case with big publishing houses,” she said. Both Ameena and Artika said that publishing a book in Sri Lanka has become fairly expensive due to heavy taxation.