It’s time to market India’s rich literature

For a decade or so, April 23 has been World Book and Copyright Day. But through centuries, this has been a significant day in the world of literature. It is, for example, the day of Shakespeare’s birth and death, the day Miguel Cervantes died, the day Vladimir Nabokov was born. And now it is the day that celebrates books and copyright laws that protect writers and their work.

As I write this, on the eve of the Book and Copyright Day, this year’s London Book Fair is wrapping up. A bit ironical, given that this fair is all about selling and buying rights of books. I guess serious business doesn’t need tokens.

This is a trade fair, where business is transacted in hushed tones in dignified settings, individual books are not bought, only the right to publish or distribute them in different regions of the world, or in other media, are acquired. Unlike our bustling book fairs for readers — especially the Calcutta Book Fair — here there are no boisterous families having fun, no whining kids demanding comic books from a stoutly protesting parent, no lovers shuffling along the stalls browsing, teasing, impressing each other, no elderly readers wielding a list and diligently searching for that one book that they can’t find, no youngsters bent over untidy stacks trying to trim their desires to suit their pocket. This is a business zone.

But this year the London Book Fair is focused on India. And apart from the 80-odd publishers engrossed in trade, there are almost 50 Indian writers engaged in public discussions and readings. Organised by the British Council, with the Sahitya Akademi, National Book Trust and other partners, these cultural programmes give a clearer glimpse of the Indian literary landscape mixing heavyweights like UR Ananthamurthy, Girish Karnad, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Vikram Seth with less exposed writers like Varsha Adalja, Bolwar Mahamad Kunhi and Salma. It’s an interesting mix, from lyricist-scriptwriters Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi to playwrights like Satish Alekar, poets like K Satchidanandan and Prayag Shukla, novelists like Amit Chaudhuri and Sankar. 

Of course, like in most such international fairs, there are far more Indian writers in English represented than writers in the other Indian languages, but there is a discernible attempt to interest the West, focused on easy-access writers in English, in good but inaccessible writers in other Indian languages. And an attempt to bring into the mainstream authors from the Northeast.

This effort to focus on less known and newer writers is perhaps what makes this fair different. We have seen Indian writers descending in droves on foreign book fairs, tirelessly hopping from one event to the other and finally coming away with small gains to their personal publishing profiles. Sahitya Akademi had flown down a bevy of writers (including a disproportionately large group of Indian writers in English) during the India-focus Frankfurt Book Fair of 2006. It didn’t really change the way Indian literature is viewed in the rest of the world. Hopefully, the London Book Fair will leave a more tangible effect. 

It would be naïve to believe that in a recession year the western publishing industry will plunge into the deep end of Indian language literatures. These days, sensible publishers try to steer clear of such leaps of faith. But the sheer presence of all these Indian language writers has its merits. Hearing them, talking to them, learning about their work, watching them brave the wind-chill in their dhoti kurtas, sarongs and colourful regional attire cannot but trigger an interest in the literature they produce. 

For just producing good literature is not enough. We need to market it too. And for
our many Indian literatures in two dozen languages, that has remained the stumbling block on the road to global access. Even in the age of globalisation.