anuradha roy

" How does a writer compete against the media's invasion of public discourse in all its chattering, hectoring, commercially packaged format?" This is a challenging, but by the same token, very exciting time for the Indian novelist – certainly the Indian novelist who writes in English. In an obvious and easily accessible sense, this has to do with the opening up of the global market. However, there are certain other aspects of this development that have a more direct bearing on the creative situation. The problems of belonging and identity that played such a preponderant role in the first decades – the terrain that was memorably identified by Meenakshi Mukherjee as “ the anxiety of Indianness ” - seem to have lost some of their fascination. It is remarkable, therefore, that two (and arguably, three) of the five novels on our shortlist are set outside India, set as far afield as Guyana and Morocco. This is, unquestionably, a welcome development – Indianness is ...

The results of the Economist Crossword Prize were announced yesterday.   The Folded Earth won the prize for fiction.  The other books on the shortlist were River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil The Storyteller of Marrakesh - Joydeep Roy Bhattacharya The Sly Company of People Who Care - Rahul Bhattacharya

Just back from the Ubud Festival for Readers and Writers (which is a nice way to name a literary festival)-- came back to find that my piece on moments of wonderment that steal upon you at times when travelling is just out in the NatGeo Traveller. There were a few such moments in Bali -- here is the piece. __________________________ It was rush hour for bats, burglars, owls and party animals: about 2 a.m. I was climbing uphill in deep forest, feeling my way over unfamiliar slopes and rocks. Trees took away most of the sky and from somewhere in the distance came the roar of rushing water. It was the dead of night, yet it wasn’t dark. The light was penumbral, as if it was dawn or dusk—for this was a walk through Norwegian woods in the improbable thing that is a Scandinavian summer. The rushing sound intensified into a roar. It turned out to be a fierce little river crashing over rocks and boulders, throwing up high clouds of spray. A frail, two-foot-wide bridge plunged brave...

Someone rang up yesterday as I was cooking dinner to tell me that The Folded Earth is on the Crossword shortlist. I've a powerful sense of deja vu because An Atlas of Impossible Longing was on the same shortlist in 2009, and Amitav Ghosh was on that shortlist too (with Sea of Poppies ), as he is here. That year he shared the prize with Neel Mukherjee's Past Continuous , but what I remember most about going to Bombay for the award ceremony is the rain that lashed the beaches, the high winds that turned umbrellas inside out, and the crisp fried Bombay Duck at Mahesh Food Home. Here's the complete list for fiction in English: River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil The Storyteller of Marrakesh - Joydeep Roy Bhattacharya The Folded Earth - Anuradha Roy The Sly Company of People Who Care - Rahul Bhattacharya

I realised today that it's the last day of August and I hadn't posted anything all this month, partly because there has been too much design work for our publishing house, Permanent Black. Also, unusually for me, I actually did one reading this month and am getting ready for another next month. The first was at SAP, in Delhi. SAP is a giant international software company and believe it or not, one of the perks it offers its employees is a book club. I've never heard of something like this. Perks to employees are usually fancy luggage and smartphones at the end of each year or anything else that can be clearly and easily quantified. But books? Anyway, they have this book club, to which they bring authors to speak, read, meet. I was quite intimidated at the thought of a roomful of bright young computer engineers, but they turned out to be sympathetic and attentive, plus sure of what they  demanded of a book (a gripping story, characters they could empathise with, a sense t...

Novelist ANURADHA ROY’s latest book explores the complex relationships between people and place. Samantha Leese catches up with her in Jaipur ANURADHA ROY SPENDS most of her time in Ranikhet, India, where she and her husband run a small publishing house. The town is a hill station in the Himalayas that, without the renown of the colonial summer capital Shimla, still has the combined feel of Middle Earth and a Fragonard painting in some need of repair, woven through with faded-glory echoes of the British Raj. At least, that’s how it seems in The Folded Earth , Roy’s second novel, which wa slonglisted for this year’s Man Asian LiteraryPrize. Ever since the British built theirmansions and verandas in the 19th century,she writes, “Ranikhet has been made up of memories and stories: of trees laden with peaches the size of tennis balls, of strawberry patches and watercress sandwiches, of the legendary e...

"How's your young lady on horseback progressing?" Tarrou would ask. And invariably Grand would answer with a wry smile: "Trotting along, trotting along!" One evening Grand announced that he had definitely discarded the adjective "elegant" for his horsewoman. From now on it was replaced by "slim." "That's more concrete," he explained. Soon after, he read out to his two friends the new version of the sentence: " 'One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne.'  "Don't you agree with me one sees her better that way? And I've put 'one fine morning in May' because 'in the month of May' tended rather to drag out the trot, if you see what I mean." Next he showed some anxiety about the adjective "handsome." In his opinion it didn't convey enough, and he set ...