Book Buzz

It’s tittle-tattle time – time to check in on the scuttlebutt…
A new and upcoming book by Chitra Divakaruni, with a historical twist, very different from her previous works. While the movie version of her book, Mistress of Spices is being released in the U.K. she is busy rewriting the great epic - Mahabharata with a twist and a feminist perspective. That should be an intriguing read!!!
Expected to be published in early 2008, is “Zoom: The Race to Fuel the Car of the Future” by Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, both correspondents of the magazine - The Economist. The book will focus on forthcoming innovations in automobiles and energy, explaining how Toyota's rise to the top of the global car industry will transform Detroit, affect Big Oil and lead to the creation of clean cars. Vaitheeswaran is the author of the recent book on energy, Power to the People (FSG).
For those of you, who like me, have been wondering whatever happened to award winning writer of “Video”, Meera Nair, she is thriving and well and busy teaching fiction at NYU. The murmurs are that she is also working on a new novel set in Kerala in the 50's, when the world's first democratically elected communist government comes into office. Another award winning book in the works?
Jhumpa Lahiri’s fiction is resurfacing again. She is working on another collection of short stories. Her agent tells me that it will be published sometime in 2007, probably the fall. Her new short story in the May 8th 2006 issue of The New Yorker magazine came as a pleasant surprise to many. As I was reading the New Yorker I suddenly ran into her byline. No one could be happier. Titled “Once In A Lifetime” it starts like this – “I had seen you before, too many times to count, but a farewell that my family threw for yours, at our house in Inman Square, is when I begin to recall your presence in my life.” A fantastic quick read you must not miss.
Wondering what the current drift is looking like? Wondering what is on the market right now? Read on…
Along with India becoming an economic world power, the reach of India based writers is also extending farther and wider than ever before. Besides there are the Indian American writers who are continuing to write about and fictionalizing contemporary Indian American life and experiences as it gets more and more complex and entwined with western society. Then of course is the steady flow from those non-fiction authorities like Amartya Sen who analyze issues and draw interesting conclusions. Amy Lowell, an American poet of the imagist school, who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926, best describes the Indian American works in the market, “All books are either dreams or swords, You can cut, or you can drug, with words.”
It’s time to forget and forgive those who plagiarize, bootleg and package and disrespect the god of writing – unintentionally or not, you know whom I am talking about. It’s time to hope that she is coping well and I for one am convinced that she will be back with a vengeance. Whether Malgudi or Madna, Swami or August, lets focus on those skilful wordsmiths who strive to make our reading a pleasurable and satisfying experience.