Jaya Posts

“The Cottage by the Highway and Other Essays on Publishing: 25 Years of Logos” Edited by Angus Phillips

The cheapening of information has been accompanied by the decline of copyright, the symbol of the writer’s ownership and instrument of his and the publisher’s protection. Readers are no longer wooed so much as assayed. This should give them more power. However, the increase in volume and accessibility of words has led to a decline in the art of readership. Millions of readers are oblivious to both their power and their responsibility. We need a movement for more responsible readership.

Reader Responsiblity is not dependent on education or intellect. Everyone reads, and everyone can exercise responsibility according to his will and capacity. Responsible reading it in the endthe only way to filter the best out of the computer-generated mass of information, to discipline distorted reporting, careless reasoning, special pleading, tendentious arguments and vulgar expression, all of which are more common in communications today than they were twenty or thirty years ago.

In simpler terms, there is a need to increase quality and reduce quantity. The reader has power to influence this.

Gordon Graham “The Responsible Reader”, Logos 21/3-4, 2010, 9-12

Gordon Graham and his wife, May 2008. Taken at their home in Marlow when I went to stay with them at their invitation.

Logos is a highly reputed journal on publishing that was begun by the legendary publisher, Gordon Graham. He had founded the Logos journal in 1990, upon his retirement from Butterworths where he had served as Chairman and Chief Executive since 1974. Before this Gordon Graham worked at McGraw-Hill, as International Sales Manager in New York, and later ran the company’s book business in Europe and the Middle East. But he had also done a long stint in India with the company. Gordon Graham ran the journal successfully for many years. He had some of the best publishing professionals of the world contribute articles, interviews and book reviews. He had a vision to create an excellent platform where ideas and experiences about the publishing world could be shared and discussed. He began this initiative in the days before email and smartphones were even dreamed of! He would commission articles from contributers via snail mail. Later when dial-up modems began to make their presence felt, he would write the commissioning letters which then his secretary would type and send via email. Publishing is a business that builds upon the creative energies and enthusiasm of many individuals but requires at the same time meticulous multi-tasking to ensure that all the scheduled tasks are being completed on time. Gordon Graham was a fine example of an exemplary publisher, a gentleman publisher, whose knowledge and experience of the industry would sit lightly. He was ever so gracious about meeting new entrants to publishing and always willing to lend an ear to their opinions. He was passionate about the industry even though he was most familiar with the academic form of publishing. He was very clued in about the different kinds of publishing in various parts of the world. All of this was remarkable given that he had accrued this knowledge on the basis of his travels, his conversations, his experience and his vast and diverse reading. A few minutes of conversation with Gordon Graham was pure delight. With this insight in the industry he had the vision to create this extraordinary journal. By the time of his retirement he was already an established publishing legend but to create a journal from scratch required hard work and determination. He made it happen. Today Logos is a journal on the publishing industry which is a fantastic repository of information, case studies, views and opinions. It is the gold standard among journals in terms of the rigour and peer review that goes into maintaining the standard of contributions. During his lifetime, Gordon Graham handed the journal over to Brill, a publishing house that had been at the time in existence for nearly two centuries. Brill is an academic publishing firm with a formidable catalogue of journals as well. So this was a perfect match in terms of strengths and expertise. By the time Logos became a part of the Brill stable, the furious debate about print vs digital had begun in publishing. Gordon Graham vision ensured the journal’s survival in the very capable hands of the editor Angus Phillips and support of Brill.

To celebrate the twenty-fifth year anniversary, a special edition, a book of selected essays on publishing were put together. It is a collection of essays worth its weight in gold. Publishing histories of successful firms or rise of authors at the best of time are tricky to document as these are mostly not documented in the moment of time. So to cobble together histories of iconic firms such as the Paul Hamlyn, Thames & Hudson, or Weidenfeld & Nicholson is a remarkable achievement which these essayists have achieved. There is a fine balance of the personal with the professional. While the histories are engrossing; it is also the realisation that certain principles of publishing do not change — it is technology which does. But through the ages everyone is preoccupied with the marketplace and assessing what readers desire. This is a concern that is of paramount importance. And this is exactly why The Cottage by the Highway is fascinating since none of the essays selected veer too far away from the central idea that publishing is a business. It is not always said explicitly but it understood. At the same time there is no denying the buzz one gets being a part of this industry. It is fun. It is exciting. It is challenging. It is creative. It is dependant upon one’s interpersonal skills. It is an ecosystem consisting of publishers, editors, writers, booksellers, distributors, agents, translators, book designers etc. Ultimately it is the coming together of experience, skills combined with business acumen to recognise where the gaps lie in the market and be prepared to put in the hard work required. For every book is akin to a designed product. It requires patience, vision and hard work for every book published.

The Cottage by the Highway is a treasure trove of publishing wisdom. It is applicable across geographies and book markets. It is much in keeping with the vision of Gordon Graham — of cross-pollination of information and experiences while attempting to document critical stages of publishing. A tiny detail that most publishing professionals forget or are too busy to do for themselves or their institutions. Read The Cottage by the Highway. And if you are a publishing professional or aspiring to be one, learn from it. It is absolutely fantastic!

18 February 2020

“Fern Road” by Angshu Dasgupta

Angshu Dasgupta’s debut novel Fern Road is a coming-of-age novel set in 1980s’ Calcutta. It is a quietly paced, gently told story about Orko who lost his mother when he was very young. He as a very kind, loving, understanding father, a University professor, who also readily makes the time to be a single parent. Orku’s father makes a conscious decision to stay on in the official accommodation to fend for his son himself. He prefers the nuclear arrangement rather than take the easy option of moving back to his own father’s home relying upon the relatives to help bring up Orku. Yet, Orku misses his mother terribly and yearns to be like her. His desire to emulate his mother is not restricted to her personal traits but to the clothes and jewellery she would wear. It is only as he grows older and begins to experience bullying, social ostracisation and sexual abuse that he begins to introspect and realise that he is different to the majority of his peers. Despite their best efforts to belittle him, Orku after some emotional turmoil, begins to be more comfortable with who he is rather than be the butt of everyone’s taunts.

Fern Road is a pleasant enough read that apparently took the author more than five years to write. Portions of this story are emotionally draining to read, so must have been harder to write. Transiting from childhood to adulthood with the hormones going wild during adolescence is complicated enough but to be fraught with confusion about oneself as Orku is, is nerve-wracking. Setting this novel in the 1980s when conversations about LGBTQ issues were taboo is a brave act as it calls upon the writer to create a story that shuts out the present day narratives acknowledging LGBTQ communities. So to focus upon a story that was more than a grey area in social spaces and was deemed a criminal offence till recently in India must have been challenging. Having said that the dissonance between contemporary literature with its focus on LGBTQ lists and Fern Road are stark and impact one’s reading of the story considerably. While it is unfair to expect the author to write authoritatively a coming-of-age gay novel yet the characters could have been made a little more stronger. Same holds true for the incidents that impact Orku such as the rape by his football coach, the bullying by his peers, his concerned and protective aunt trying to tease out of him his worries and his friends ( inevitably girls) referring obliquely to his sexual orientation. While all of this may be true within the context of the novel and the period it is set in, it comes across as very tone deaf since LGBTQ novels of today have attained a very mature style of writing — there is a sensitive, nuanced understanding of the issues at stake and not necessarily refer to modern literature being more explicit . So while it is absolutely correct to acknowledge the politeness with its viciously violent underpinnings towards those who are different from heterosexual norms, it is perhaps equally correct to acknowledge the literary canon within which this novel will be placed. So the incidents considered for the plot could have tried pushing the limits of writing a bit more without making it sound absurdly out of context. Readers will expect a little more. A nuanced recognition at most of current trends of writing, especially in the LGBTQ YAlit space, rather than sticking to telling an old-fashioned story of 1980s Calcutta. For now, in all likelihood, the story will sink rather than stand out as that of a new voice.

Perhaps with his second novel, which is more often than not the litmus test for new writers, will be the confident note that Angshu Dasgupta will achieve. Till then read Fern Road.

15 February 2020

“The Cliffhangers” by Sabin Iqbal

This is my land, this is my country. No one can come between us. Neither saffron nor green can come in our way.

But, they try to.

Debut author Sabin Iqbal’s The Cliffhanger is about a group of friends Usma, Thaha, Jahangir and Moosa. They are in their late teens and early twenties. Moosa is nineteen years old. The ages of the other friends are not mentioned but it is presumed that they are more or less the same age. They are not very well educated. Inevitably have failed school and are hanging around the cliff near their village. There is little for them to do. They are considered kafirs for their free lifestyle and friendships with foreigners and Hindus like Balannan and Vivekannan. They belong to impoverished homes that rely upon remittances sent home from the Middle East. It is mostly the men of these families that have gone to Dubai in search of work. They occupy the lowest rungs of society abroad as drivers, shop assistants, messengers etc. Work which is unappealing to the younger men in India but who realise that it is a matter of time before they too have to join the expat workforce in the Middle East. It helps bring in a regular income and is any day preferable to the backbreaking task of fishing — the only skill their village of fishermen has known for as long as they can recall.

The Cliffhangers have chosen the middle path. We don’t wear symbols of any faith or religion. We don’t tie threads around our wrists or biceps. We wear trainers, sweatpants or tracksuits or polos, which are brought by our relatives from the Gulf.

It is a village on the coast of Kerala where the population lives in relative peace and harmony though the settlement is distinctly according to communal lines. The Muslims on one side and the Hindus on the other. There are no Christians in this village. This is how it has been; till now.

Our village also has religious and political divisions — though they seem blurred and harmless to an outsider, they are as distinct as right and left, and potentially as harmful to both.

So far, the two communities in our village have lived in peace and harmony. It is a delicate peace, which any moment, could crumble like papadums.

The Cliffhangers is a fictional account of how close to the precipice this village is from being torn apart along communal lines. The simmering hatred that manifests itself in by the police picking up the Cliffhanger boys for questioning even if they are innocent. It is just that the shroud of suspicion falls upon these boys most of the time because of their faith. It is never said explicitly but it is understood. A frightening prospect. The boys most often are seen whiling away their time hanging out with tourists, ostensibly to improve their English. So if anything happens to a tourist such as the rape of a young girl or the inexplicable death of an unapologetic HRS supporter like Vishwanathan Thampi, the boys are immediately picked up for questioning. As the Cliffhangers are well aware that as young men with Muslim names, they are a soft target for the police and primary enemies of the HRS ( Hindu Rasthra Sangh). It is a tough and uncertain life. None of this uncertainty is helped by the harrowing news from North India about the lynching of a man suspected of storing beef in his fridge. The Cliffhanger gang is stunned into a worrying silence. Unable to fathom what to make of this dystopic world where you are condemned for your food habits, you are persecuted for your religion –whether observing it or not as the boys discovered for having being caught eating during the day when they should have been fasting during Ramzan, you are lynched if you belong to the “other” in terms of colour, ideology and faith. It is a peculiar world.

Hatred is when you think the other has to be eliminated because of the difference of opinion in faith, customs and ways of life. Or, being the axis of evil as Bush, one of the presidents of America, said.

The Cliffhangers want to be the voice of sanity, albeit our patchy English, in the cacophony of communal insanity that our state has fallen into. As you know, we are not adequately educated to sound profound but we are glad that we are not wrongly educated either to hate the ones under the rival flag. We bear Muslim names and maybe we go to the mosque on Fridays and on Eid, but that’s it. You can cut our vein anyway, I swear to you, none of us have any strain of hatred in us.

This free will is something that the Cliffhangers are beginning to discover they are unable to exercise freely. So much so even SI Devan who would pick them up routinely for questioning ultimately decided to “help” them out in an unsolved case of the rape of a foreign tourist. SI Devan had uncovered the truth that the perpetrator, Balannan, a vendor who sold lemonade but was closely affiliated to the HRS. So recognising the terrifying consequences of arresting the member of the Hindu shaka and the horrific prospect of ripping the social fabric of the fishing village across communal lines, the SI chooses to take the rap himself by the senior police officials. SI Devan closes the file as “inconclusive”. His parting words to the Cliffhangers is the truth but with sinister underpinnings.

Remember, we are living in strange times . . .and, your identity is your enemy!” he said….

When the impetus for a story is the growing hatred of the “other” and the heightened communal tension it unleashes, it becomes frighteningly tough to articulate those fears. Fiction helps in unlocking some of those unnamed fears. Whether as a writer or a reader. But as a writer it helps to be crystal clear in channeling one’s anger and distress at the rapid turn of events. For instance to witness the political machinations of hardliners to further their interests despite locals recognising the foolhardiness of encouraging polarisation among communities. A recognition of each other’s differences is sufficient but to underline it on a daily basis and enforce it using state machinery is a dangerous thought and development. It finally rests upon the free will of the citizens of a democracy to subvert this self-consuming destructive hatred.

“The Cliffhangers” is a name given to the four boys but it works metaphorically too for the precipitous situation Indian democracy finds itself in — whether to retreat from the life-threatening crisis or to take the plunge into the depths of the unknown waters and be destroyed. Despite sagging a bit in the middle of the novel The Cliffhangers is a powerful story for the issues it raises. It would be fascinating to hear a freewheeling conversation between Sabin Iqbal, Tabish Khair, Amitava Kumar and Rana Ayyub on writing fiction and non-fiction in these times.

Till then read The Cliffhangers.

14 February 2020

“Radical Simplicity” by Ken Allen, CEO, DHL

Focus like a laser . . . .

DHL, the courier company was founded in 1969. Before it, nothing like it existed. The three co-founders — Adiran Dalsey, Larry Hillbloom and Robert Lynn ( DHL) — had decided on a whim to create a system by which the paperwork required for international shipments could reach the destination before the cargo arrived. Thereby helping the smooth passage of shipments via customs. It was a simple idea that was executed brilliantly for many years. Between 1989 and 1999, the company grew by more than 1500 per cent, doubling its customer base to more than half a million — and was operating in 227 countries. In 2002, DHL was taken over by Deutsche Post. At that point it was losing €150 million a year, “having never learned how to effectively manag the financial complexity of a global network and operate as a harmonious whole rather than an affiliation of regions”. But by 2007 the company that had a presence in approximately 220 countries was posting gargantuan losses. By 2008, with the global financial crisis on the horizon, DHL Express made a record loss of € 2.2 billion. In the US it was losing over €100 million every single month. In 2009, DHL was 40 years old but was not as yet consistently posting profits. Ken Allen, a long term DHL employee who had quite literally risen from the ranks, was appointed global CEO. The new CEO put in place such a strict turnaround plan to the extent he was not averse to trimming the fat in the company as long as it was better in the long run. For instance, he removed all together the US domestic operations thereby making more than 12,000 employees redundant. Yet, by redoing strategies and thinking out of the box, especially by being sensitive and understanding to cultural differences and insisting service to the loyal customer is paramount as that was the only sure driver of a Profitable Network, Ken Allen managed to make a remarkable turnaround for the company. It meant that by 2011 the company was producing good results and made €1 billion in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT). In 2017, DHL generated €1.62 billion EBIT, a billion of cash flow as well as investing €1 billion in capex ( capital expenditure). In 2018, the business performed even better, delivering a record EBIT margin of 12 per cent and €1.95 billion EBIT.

Radical Simplicity is about this remarkable change in DHL wrought by the clever steering by Ken Allen. It is a book written in first person that allows for the enthusiasm and excitement of the author be palpable to the reader. More importantly it rises above a classic self-help book that has the tenor of a motivational speaker but plucks general examples from here and there. Radical Simplicity is about actual work done and how it transformed the fortunes of DHL. How did innovation and quick thinking to the new economic circumstances of a global economy impact and help the company. The company had its origins in being a disruptor of the postal service but once it grew, it seemed to lose its way and seemed to have forgotten to innovate. Ken Allen documents brilliantly in this book how he had to learn to manage the company but at the same time ensure that every single employee, especially those at the frontline, knew what the company meant and what it stood for. His clarity of thought is evident in the way the chapters are structured and he recaps his basic advice. He constantly reiterates that tough decisions need to be taken but it can only happen if you know the business through and through. It involves a severe amount of cost cutting and constantly being aware of the input costs. Cost will always be “your enemy” but it has to be factored in. This requires the senior management to more than know, be familiar with, the tasks of those reporting to them. Also to be very simple and direct in your approach of dealing with employees and customers. Be frank. Be transparent. And constantly motivate those around you by role modelling. It is not an easy task since it requires focus, determination and grit to remain on track. It can impact relationships and those that remain are really only a handful. While it is critical to be aware of the employees and look after the well being of the firm, it is equally important that everyone looks after themselves especially their health. Be extremely focused. Set goals. Figure out strategies. And you will achieve success. Today DHL employs more than 100,000 people and is posting profits year on year. After reading this remarkable book, I spotted this magnificent Facebook post where noted Australian author, Susanne Gervay mentioned that she used DHL to take a shipment of books to Rwanda and that DHL very kindly reduced their costs considerably. It made it an affordable cost for the NGO facilitating this shipment. The customer truly matters!

Read the book. It does not matter if you are an entrepreneur or not. It is an excellent book for understanding businesses and managing your goals.

Update: This blog was corrected as Jane Chung rightly pointed out on Ken Allen’s LinkedIn post that “Great review for a great book. BUT, I would like to correct what is probably a typo that has DHL only operating in 142 countries by the end of 1999. According to company records and submissions to regulatory authorities, DHL was operating in some 227 countries by the end of 1999 – 197 of these were in place by the end of 1990. A massive achievement by DHL’s early pioneers!”

13 February 2020

Women writers from North East India

Writing from the north east of India has always had an interesting texture to it. It is distinct. Although the “north east” is clubbed as one region, the variations that exist in the seven states constituting this region are mind-boggling. Much of the writing that is available from this region is a combination of original writing in English and some in translation. Unlike writing in other parts of the Indian subcontinent where there are very distinct literary traditions in the regional languages and those who opt to write in English, this is not always true for the writing emanating from North East India. To illustrate. Writing in other Indian regional languages has a very distinct local cultural feel to it with preoccupations that are understandably of the region. Also the writing is very clear about the local literary traditions. So much of this gets translated as is in to English. When some of these regional writers opt to write in English then they infuse some of their writing with a regional flavour but only mildly so. This is where the differences creep in with the Indian writing in English emulating more of the rules and traditions of the borrowed English literary traditions rather than being confident of their own traditions infusing the English space. Interestingly these distinctions are not visible in these two marvellous collections of writings — The Many That I Am: Writings from Nagaland (Ed. Anungla Zoe Longkumar) and Crafting the Word: Writings from Manipur (Ed. Thingnam Anjulika Samom). These are collections of writings — fiction, essays, poems, illustrations, comic strip — by women from the north east of India. It is not possible to gauge from the tenor of writing which of the contributions is a translation or an original article in English. All the contributions, irrespective of whether a translation or written originally in English, focus upon their local landscape and culture. There is a calm confidence about narrating incidents of the transformation of their society from tribal customs such as head-hunting to becoming Baptists as in The Many That I Am. (“Cut off” by Vishu Rita Krocha) The volume of writings from Manipur throws the spotlight on recent decades of activism by women and many of them being at the forefront of the armed conflict that has plagued the state. The nature of contributions in Crafting the Word is a little more languid and gentler as compared to The Many That I Am which is puzzling; given that Crafting the Word arose out a women’s literary group called Leikol founded in 2001 and so had more time to hone their writing skills. Be that as it may, there is a quiet maturity to the style of writing even if it is not at par with the punchiness seen in most of the pieces included in The Many That I Am.

Zubaan is a legendary feminist press. It is known for its fundamental work on literature by women. Sometimes the contribution of women is expressed in myriad ways. Fiction is a powerful literary form to highlight the position of women and to express their innermost feelings. Many of the stories included in these two volumes achieve this beautifully. The hard labour that women put in to keep their households going as in “Vili’s Runaway Son” by Abokali Jimomi, “Martha’s Mother” by Hekali Zhimomi, and “As Spring Arrived” by Kshetrimayum Subadani ( Translated from Manipuri by Sapam Sweetie) and in many cases helping the next generation fulfil their dreams as in “My Mother’s Daughter” by Neikehienuo Mepfhuo. The essays in these volumes vary from memoirs to fascinating account of the flourishing of women’s writing in Manipur ( “The Journey of Women’s Writing in Manipuri Literature” by Nahakpam Aruna) to how readers access literature — the “outbooks” or the books apart from the Bible and the school textbooks, in a lovely essay by Narola Changkija ( “Outbooks: A Personal Essay, September 2018). An essay in which she reflects upon how her mother banned all outbooks in the home but her father, a police officer, on his travels would fulful his daughter’s wish and buy her the books she desired.

What matters is that his reverence for the written word was catholic, in the very best sense of the term. Literary or pulp fiction, any ‘outbook’ was evaluated and read and appreciated for its unique self. I like to think I have, finally, developed a similar catholic patience towards books, and life, and other human beings. At least, I hope I’ve learned how to value the things worth valuing and let the rest be.

Another one is a poem “Secret Library” by Dzuvinguno Dorothy Chase in a section entitled “What Time Told Me in 2018”.

The Many That I Am is a very powerful collection. It is best read from cover to cover. Impossible to dip in to without wanting to read one more and one more and one more. Here is an example of a performance poem. Timely words. Much to dissect here. Perhaps best left as is to be read, to reflect, to share and to perform widely.

It is challenging to succintly conclude about the magnificently magical power that lies within these two collections. It creeps upon the reader to leave a delicious sense of sisterhood and belonging, an empowering feeling to know that one is not alone in the daily grind of being a woman in a society still governed and defined by patriarchal norms. It is a fantastic feeling to come to the last page of the book and discover the comic strip shown. The joy of finding in pictures the exhilarating feeling of surmouning all those metaphorical mountains and emotional claptrap that is used by many to keep women from achieving.

Buy these volumes. Read them. Share them with not just the converted but a wider audience. Appreciate the writings for themselves. The “-isms” will follow, if they have to.

11 February 2020

Hisham Matar’s ” A Month in Siena”

A picture changes as you look at it and changes in ways that are unexpected. I have discovered that a painting requires time. Now it takes me several months and more often than not a year before I can move on. During that period the picture becomes a mental as well as a physical location in my life. …This unveiling of new territory must be one of the most remarkable achievements that an artist can attain. By challenging the imagination they nudge our perception a little and, for an instant at least, the world is remade. …To look closely at their work is to eavesdrop on one of the most captivating conversations in the history of art, one concerned with what a painting might be, what it might be for, and what it could do and accomplish within the intimate drama of a private engagement with a stranger. You can detect them aksing how much a picture might rely on a viewer’s emotional life; how a shared human experience might change the contract between artist and viewer, and between artist and subject; and what creative possibilities this new collaboration might offer.

Pulitzer winner Hisham Matar’s A Month in Siena is an intensely personal memoir. It is about spending a month in Siena, observing the Sienese School of paintings that he first was fascinated by as a nineteen year old. Now these paintings which covered the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and belonged to a “cloistered world of Christian codes and pleasure” somehow against his best intentions made him return over and over again to reflect upon them. A Month in Siena was written after he had spent more than three years researching into his father’s disappearance. Unfortunately it transpired that his father would not be returning home. The grief experienced would be inexplicable. As he says in this interview with Radio National that when his father first went missing, no one in the family could share or speak about their grief, worried that it may mar the prospect of their father returning home. But once the realisation dawns upon the family that there was to be no closure, Hisham Matar’s grief is acute. He needs time to recover. At first he spends most of his lunch hour visiting one paiting at a time at the National Gallery in London. He then decides to spend a month in Italy. It is therapeutic. And with him the reader too is transported, transfixed, transformed and transfigured as should be with any work of art. ” …rediscover our own powers of remembrance, and to finally find the consolation that lies between intention and expression, between the concealed sentiment and its outward shape.”

8 February 2020

Of biographies

Twenty-first century is being touted in publishing as the age of memoirs/biographies. Everyone has a story to tell. People always have. Now with technology making it “easier” for people to share their personal stories, there is a deluge of the “I, me, myself” stories. These shifts in telling narratives are impacting the texture of stories being told. But what continues to stand out are extraordinarily well-researched, brilliantly told, almost meditative narratives that focus upon the particular but persaude the reader to look beyond, to think, to reflect. Two such books that I read recently are: Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper and Samanth Subramanian’s A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane

Historian Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper is a fascinating account of building together biographies of Jack the Ripper’s victims. The canonical five — Mary Jane Kelly, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride and Annie Clapman. For more than a hundred and fifty years it was firmly believed that these victims were prostitutes. With her impeccable research and marshalling of empirical evidence by scouring police records, newspaper clippings of the time, witness testimonies, reviewing of historical socio-economic and political facts and consistently making it available to the modern reader in an immensely accesible narrative, makes Hallie Rubenhold’s book a dream to read. It is packed with information. Each woman has a section devoted to her, giving a birth-to-death biographical account, neatly interspersed with explanations from contemporary accounts of what could be the rational explanation for the woman’s behaviour or what was a reaction to socio-economic conditions prevailing at the time. More importantly Hallie Rubenhold teases out from history the despicable attitudes towards women that probably contributed to the social downfall of these women, ultimately making them vulnerable to criminals such as Jack the Ripper. Interestingly enough, not once, does she ever give a graphic description of the body disovered at the crime scene or shares details of the autopsy reports. Instead there are a few photographs and illustrations tipped into the book along with a seemingly mundane list of the possessions found upon the women’s bodies. A list that in most cases highlights that these were extremely poor women. Nevertheless these women were careful about appearances as is evident from the list of grooming articles found upon their persons. What is truly remarkable is that The Five is not just a historian delving into the past and putting together bits and pieces of information to create a clear narrative, a short biography of the women victims but it is also an attempt to recover the dignity and respect that these women deserved. The only time Hallie Rubenhold betrays her fury is in the concluding paragraph of the book.

It is only by bringing these women back to life that we can silence the Ripper and what he represents. By permitting them to speak, by attempting to understand their experiences and see their humanity, we can restore to them the respect and compassion to which they are entitled. The victims of Jack the Ripper were never ‘just prostitutes’; they were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and lovers. They were women. They were human beings, and surely that, in itself, is enough.

Hallie Rubenhold won the 2019 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction with The Five. It is a prize well deserved for historical research that unearths so many truths that were for so long masked in one-sided, most often imbued with patriarchal perspectives. It is modern day research arguing and bolstering every single observation about the victims by going far back in time and piecing it together meticulously. With The Five Hallie Rubenhold has done a great service not only for the five victims but also created a fresh way of looking at Victorian England and at historical research much in the way that Hobsbawm’s trilogy about the long nineteenth century did. ( Although Rubehold never cites Hobsbawm in her bibliography.) Revisting the past with the tools of the present to investigate and understand and get to the truth by assessing the facts for what they are rather than imposing one’s own modern judgements and reading. Read The Five. An immensely readable history book that reads like an astonishingly well-written nineteenth century novel.

Award-winning writer and journalist Samanth Subramanian’s biography of geneticist H.B.S Haldane has been long awaited. Every fortnight Samanth Subramanian also ran a podcast called The Intersection that melds culture, science and history in India. ( Shortly the backlist will be made available on Spotify. Worth listening to!) So it is no surprise that A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane melds together cultural and historical contextual references along with Haldane’s scientific temperament. This is a biography that follows the classic definition of a biography of following step-by-step every major development of Haldane. Of course there is a sufficiently long preamble emphasising that Haldane was in many senses the product of the Victorian Age. His curiosity and asking innumerable questions was a trait very similar to that of his father, John Scott Haldane. Haldane Senior a physiologist was known to have gone on madcap experiments in the pursuit of science such as he entered, in the middle of the night, the crowded one-room tenements of slum dwellers where more than six or seven persons lay sleeping in a room holding a vial aloft to collect a sample of the air. Like his father, J.B.S. Haldane was not averse to experimenting upon himself. He had seen his father do it. He had also assisted his father in conducting these experiments such as checking the atmospheric pressure below water wearing a submarine suit. This methodology of self-experimentation became Haldane’s trademark. Some of his more outrageous experiments were to drink hydrocholoric acid or to enclose himself in an airtight space to monitor the effects of carbon dioxide in his blood stream — about which he complained bitterly for it having given him a terrible headache. Haldane was particularly gifted in being able to work with numbers. What comes through very clearly in this biography is that Haldane was known for his irascible temperament and did not suffer fools easily but was quite at peace absorbed in his world, fiddling with mathematical equations. For example Haldane estimated way back that the mutations in the haemophilia gene was equivalent to roughly one mutated nucleotide per 25 million. The full human genome contains roughly 6.4 billion nucleotides. In 2009, a study conducted by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England using sequencing technology showed that there is one mutated nucleotide per 30 million. Incredibly Haldane with his pen and paper scribbles and before the structure of the DNA had been discovered had come within spitting distance of what is now believed to be the true figure.

Haldane was extremely bright. He learnt to read at the age of three, and at four, after injuring his forehead he famously asked the doctor, “Is this oxyhaemoglobin or carboxyhaemoglobin?” And as is the case with exceptionally gifted children, they keep their adults on their toes. Haldane was no exception. He found his stability at home. His mother particularly was his anchor. Later he had his ups and downs with his educational institutions including Eton College. It was evident that he required understanding and sympathetic adults around him otherwise he would lose his keel. He had cleared the Eton entrance exams easily, topping the list of successful candidates in that year. Yet his grades began to take a sharp dip as he was bullied for what was perceived as arrogant behaviour. Later his circle of acquaintances in Cambridge recognised this rudeness as merely his impatience with those around him as Haldane was constantly needy for stimulating conversationalists. Fascinatingly his circle of friends included Julian Huxley, brother of writer Aldous Huxley. While he was young Haldane could be contained and his excessive amounts of energy were (mostly) constructively channeled. In his adulthood he was more or less a loose canon. Doing as he pleased as long as it enabled him to focus on his passion — his work. It did not make him very popular with many people but he did not really care. Perhaps it was this obstinate trait in him that enabled him to believe wholeheartedly in communism. So much so that Haldane’s blind faith in the ideology clouded his scientific temper to see the merit of biologist and plant breeder Nikolay Vavilov who fell victim to Stalin’s purges. Instead as Subramanian recounts in his splendid biography, Haldane in the battle of the geneticists in Stalinist Russia batted for Lysenko, a Stalin favourite, vs Vavilov, a true scientist. In 1943, Haldane was invited to participate in a BBC symposium on the Lysenko controversy. According to Subramanian, Haldane “delicately” handled Lysenko’s primary claim to fame, “the vernalization of wheat” even though it invalidated Haldane’s own research and went against everything that Vavilov had proven via his experiments.

There are many more details in Haldane’s extraordinary life such as being a possible spy, being followed by the MI5 ( the poor suffering agents had to sit through long lectures on the sex life of extinct fungi or a Science for Peace meeting). In 1956 Haldane left London to take up a job as the head of the biometry unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. This was when renowned mathematician P. C. Mahalanobis was the director. Haldane moved lock, stock and barrel to India believing that the country shared his socialist beliefs. After a run-in with Mahalanobis, Haldane moved to a newly established biometry unit in Orissa. He died due to cancer on 1 December 1964 and as a true scientist he donated his body for medical research and teaching.

Samanth Subramanian takes the art of writing a biography to a new level. Packed with information. Detailed, impeccable research, with plenty of end notes and a select biography which runs into a few pages of fine print. A Dominant Character seems to be the new kind of biography where you delve into data as much as you can to recreate a life on paper, with all the highs and lows of the person being chronicled and with no judgement on the part of the author. It is a presentation of facts. It is an interesting balance to achieve as it could not have been easy to put down on paper. In it there is something for everyone — the lay reader, the scientist, the historian, the geneticist, the science historian, researchers etc. It is a form of resurrection in popular forums that is bound to be influential for years to come. In fact it would be fascinating to hear a conversation between Samanth Subramanian and Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee on the science of writing biographies. Till then read A Dominant Character!

Biographies are a useful access route into a slice of history. Through the lens of the personal they enable readers to get their bearings of historical events. It is a pleasurable learning experience if these texts are authenticated by facts as is the case with these two remarkable books.

8 February 2020

Deepa Anappara’s “Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line”

These two are always quarrelling like a husband and wife who have been married for too long. But they cann’t even get married when we grow up because Faiz is a Muslim. It’s too dangerous to marry a Muslim if you’re a Hindu. On the TV news, I have seen blood-red photos of people who were murdered because they married someone from a different religion or caste. Also, Faiz is shorter than Pari, so they wouldn’t make a good match anyway.

Debut author and former journalist, Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is set in an urban slum in a nameless Indian city. The story is told from the perspective of nine-year-old Jai. His closest friends in the basti are also his classmates — Pari and Faiz. They are little children who are mostly left to fend for themselves while their parents work for those living in the neighbourhood’s hi-fi apartments. There is a constant undercurrent of violence that is prevalent in this community. These can range from the the sexual assault upon children in the dark alleys to hurling abuses at each other with one of the more favourite curses being called “rat eater” — a reference in all likelihood to the poorest of the poor, lowest in the social pecking order. It is a slum cluster that has people of different communities living together though as the book extract quoted above illustrates that everyone is very aware of the communal differences as well. Slowly over a period of time some of the children begin to disappear. At first given that they are all Hindus, suspicions are cast upon the Muslims living in the basti. But when the young Muslim siblings also disappear, the case begins to puzzle everyone. Unfortunately the communal tensions are exacerbated by now.

Jai and his friends decide to embark upon some of their own detective work to locate the kidnapper. Jai in his innocence coupled with a wild imagination is convinced that this is the handiwork of bad djinns. Nevertheless he is prepared to investigate realising that despite being bribed the policemen are really not interested in helping the affected families. It is not an easy task as the children are strapped for resources, especially finances, making their movement limited. Also they are viewed as poor kids who are not easily trusted by others, so information is not easily forthcoming. It is a challenging situation but the children do their best to find the truth. The novel develops at a steady pace with the focus maintained steadily upon the children while the sinister undertones in the background continue to develop. Whether it is petty politicians, opportunistic self-styled godmen, corrupt police officials, no one really cares for the well-being of the slum dwellers or the abandoned and orphaned kids eking out an existence as ragpickers on the garbage dump, being looked after a benevolent Bottle-Badshah. Yet the unexpected finale of the story comes together brilliantly where it seems fiction merges with reality by bringing up the ghosts of the infamous Nithari crime that was perpetrated upon the children living in the neighbourhood.

It is also extraordinary that Deepa Anappara has chosen to tell the story in a manner that she is probably most familiar with. She unapologetically blends desi words in her English storytelling framework. But the beauty of it all is that the non-English words are never italicised nor is the word or phrase explained immediately after its first appearance. It is a joy to behold this absolute acceptance of “foreign” words. A far cry from when Indian writers writing in English first began to publish novels — inevitably a glossary would be produced. No more.

One of the most obvious critiques of this book in coming days will be of it being a classic example of poverty porn and pandering to a preconceived notion of India. Having said that Deepa Anappara is to be commended for her masterful control of a complex subject. More importantly now that she is based abroad she is able to leverage her position as a woman of colour to write about the poverty back home while at the same time cleverly showcasing the distinct identities of the people and the very real preoccupations that govern daily existence. It could be from social ills such as alcoholism, unemployment, runaway or abandoned children, rampant problem of street children addicted to sniffing glue, lack of basic amenities such as sanitation and water, the poor quality of midday meals served in government run schools which the children yearn for as that is probably the only “proper” meal they will get in the day, high rate of school dropouts inevitably amongst the girls as they are required to be at home looking after their younger siblings, the growing menace of bullies, the manner in which women negotiate these spaces to run their households etc. The lives of the families and friends affected by the disappearance of the children is as traumatic a scenario as it is for you and I. These are people. Not necessarily people who can help prop up an exotic story. This socio-economic analysis that is presented in the garb of fiction without it seeming dreary like a pontificating thesis is not an easy task to achieve. Deepa Anappara manages to negotiate this space well.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is the Vintage lead for 2020. It was won in nine-strong bidding auction at Frankfurt Book Fair 2018. In a joint acquisition with Penguin Random House India, Chatto & Windus won the UK and Commonwealth rights after a hard-fought auction with eight other publishers. A portion of this novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award and the Bridport/Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel. This is a greatly anticipated debut that has been endorsed by a galaxy of literary stars such as Anne Enright, Ian McEwan, Chigozie Obioma, Nikesh Shukla, Nathan Filer, Mahesh Rao and Mridula Koshy. Deepa Anappara used to be a journalist in India before moving base to UK. Much of her research for this novel was based on her experience and reading seminal books on urban studies. This book stands apart from many other examples of equally promising debuts in the magnificence of Deepa Anappara’s craftsmanship in creating fine evenly toned fiction — not a mean feat for a debut author. The style of this book is very much akin to contemporary young adult literature. The dark gem of a novel that is Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line fits snugly with much of yalit even with its fairly realistic conclusion. The manuscript may or may not have begun life as yalit which the reading public may never know but it has been positioned as literary fiction. Somewhere the costs incurred in bidding for this book have to be recovered. Despite the yalit genre exploding with an amazing variety of writers, the segment lacks globally recognised literary prizes that will help increase book sales exponentially. But by positioning it as litfic for the trade market, the publishers are ensuring that this novel is eligible for many of the prominent literary prizes in the Anglo-American book market such as the Dylan Thomas Prize for debut writers, the Women Writers Prize for Fiction, the Booker Prize, the Costa First Book Award, National Book Awards etc. By launching it simultaneously across territories too makes this novel eligible for many local prizes. For instance in India there are the Crossword Book Award, JCB Prize, DSC Prize etc to be considered. And as is a truth universally acknowledged that being longlisted or shortlisted for a prize let alone winning it, boosts book sales tremendously. Thereby helping the publisher recover some of their investment costs in winning the auction and spending on the publicity campaign. A win-win situation for the author which in this case is very well deserved.

Do read Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line !

8 Feb 2020

Visiting International Publisher’s delegation, Sydney ( 29 April – 5 May 2019)

From 29 April – 5 May 2019 I was invited by the Australian government and the Australia Council for the Arts as a member of the Visiting International Publishers (VIPs) delegation. It is an annual event organized by the Australian government to coincide with the Sydney Writers Festival. The delegation consists of prominent publishing professionals from across the world, most of whom are associated with well-established publishing firms and agencies. Those interested have to apply for the programme.

It is approximately a week-long event with the intention of giving the visiting delegates a bird’s eye-view of Australian publishing. During the trip, the visitors are taken to various publishing houses, bookstores and interactions are set up with prominent authors and publishing professionals. Two days of the trip are set aside for most of the visiting publishers in the delegation for B2B meetings with Australian publishers. The idea being that for most of the local publishers it is not easy to go abroad for meetings but it is preferable to go to Sydney. It is such a well-managed event by the Australia Council for the Arts where every delegate has a customized programme while certain events such as visits to publishing houses and literary receptions are open to all.

B2B meetings

It is the extraordinary understanding of the Australian publishing landscape that makes this trip so precious. Australia is not an easy continent to reach as it requires many hours of travel from any part of the world. Australia is a very rich and diverse nation with the First Nations people, the descendants of the colonisers and of migrant communities. This makes for a fascinatingly diverse mix of languages, faiths and cultures to be represented through its literature. A statistic that I heard while in Sydney was that now more than 30% of the population does not have English as its first language. These are some of the factors that contribute to making the robust Australian publishing industry. Unfortunately much of the local literature is not easily available across the world as the rights are inevitably linked with Commonwealth Rights. This effectively means that the global sale of the bulk of Australian literature is usually decided by the UK publishers who either represent or license the Australian titles. Of course this does not include well-known writers like Markus Zusak, Richard Flanagan, (now) Coetzee, Alex Miller, Kate Grenville, Charlotte Wood, Aaron Blabey, Andy Griffiths etc. And there are plenty more to add.

We were taken to visit a Gleebooks bookstore where award-winning writers Charlotte Wood and Morris Gleitzman addressed our delegation. They shared their experiences about publishing locally and then taking their works overseas. Gleebooks has a wonderful display of books but they also have a second-hand section where I was fortunate to pick up a 1970s yellow Penguin paperback history of Jonathan Cape.  

Gleebooks Bookstore
Charlotte Wood
Morris Gleitzman

Books in Australia have GST, making them quite expensive to procure. Yet, it was amazing to watch how the tables stacked high with books at the Sydney Writers Festival bookstore disappearing rapidly. An incredible sight was to witness a table piled with multiple columns of first-time author Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universeon the opening night of the literary festival. A day later when he had won a record four Australian Book Industry Awards and the overall Book of the Year crown with his smash hit coming-of-age novel, there were hardly any copies of the novel left on the table! Astounding! Price was no bar. The magic wrought by a literary prize had done its trick. Notched up magnificent sales for the author.

It is fascinating to witness how diverse Australian publishing is in terms of the lists that were showcased in each publishing meeting. There are distinct lists with emphasis on creating titles before the holidays and looking specifically at Christmas sales. While the big multi-national publishers like HarperCollins Australia and Hachette Australia exist with an impressive stable of authors and illustrators, it is equally important to note the presence of many indie and university publishers. Some of the university presses have been in existence for decades. Unlike rest of the world where such presses would be associated with only academic publishing, the Australian university presses have distinct trade lists catering to a general reading public. These lists consist of very distinct local voices that are representative of their society. For instance, there is some literature now being publishing looking specifically at the Stolen Generation. This refers to the time when aboriginal children were removed by governments, churches and welfare bodies to be brought up in institutions, fostered out or adopted by white families. But it is the indie presses and literary magazines that are representing the diversity which exists in Australia today. Perhaps, as happens with such initiatives worldwide, there is the enthusiasm to make available a wider range of stories as well as nurture local literary talent. So there are magazines for literary prose and others for poetry. There is literature representing the immigrants who are now Australians and see Australia as home while being acutely aware of their or their parent’s country of origin. In fact, at the Sydney Writers Festival, the Western Sydney Literacy Movement launched Sweatshop Women, their first-ever collection of short stories, essays and poems developed exclusively by women of colour from Western Sydney. It was a privilege to witness this launch as was evident by the exuberance of the contributors on stage. The range of writings in the issue are worth looking at too!

The Sydney Writers Festival is currently spread across some venues in the city while their regular venue is being renovated. There is such an exciting mix of speakers, a wide range of topics being discussed or being able to watch Richard Flanagan in conversation with Jenny Erpenbeck or even Roanna Gonsalves in conversation with Fatima Bhutto are treats. In fact, many of these conversations are available as podcasts on the festival website. A good literature festival is synonymous with sparkling, thought-provoking conversations, and this festival is definitely amongst the top-rated litfests. It began with the stupendous opening address by writers Max Porter, Meg Wolitzer and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. There were unexpected moments of joy of meeting literary stalwarts like Booker winner George Sanders, interviewer and curator Paul Holdengraber and other writers like Omid Tofighian, Alexander Chee, Max Porter etc.

L-R: George Saunders, Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Paul Holdengraber
Omid Tofghian, translator of Behrouz Boochani’s “No Friend but the Mountains”

A significant moment of the trip was to attend a dinner hosted in my honour by the Australian Council for the Arts to meet an energetic, creative, bunch of writers, filmmakers, poets, playwrights, and novelists who were mostly of South Asian origin. It was one of those very thrilling moments to discover that there were like-minded individuals equally enthused with publishing as I was. There were so many stories to share and familiarise oneself with regarding Australian literature. The one strong memory I have of all those many months ago was the electrifying energy around the dinner table while all of us chatted. The interaction around the dinner table that night confirmed was that the definition of “Australian literature” is far more diverse than what is made visible globally. And it is precisely through such active engagements by the Australia Council for the Arts that these very clear distinctions in literary trends are made visible.

During the short and intense trip to Sydney I met some very interesting people and was fortunate to be able to interview some of them for my blog. For instance, literary scout Rebecca Servadio and Susan van Metre, Executive Editorial Director, Walker Books. I also met librettist Tammy Brennan who was bringing her international production Daughters Opera to Delhi from 3- 5 January 2020. We ended up collaborating on the programme.

Tammy Brennan

Later I was invited by the Australian Council for the Arts to address the visiting Australian delegation on “The Art of Interview”.  The delegation was visiting India in Jan 2020 to attend various literature festivals. The delegates included sports journalist Gideon Haigh, writer and academic, Roanna Gonsalves, performance poet Manal Younus, poet Mindy Gill and literary festival director and artist Jessica Alice. It was an exciting and slightly daunting thought to be invited to address such eminent and experienced interviewers themselves but the evening went off swimmingly well. We were able to discuss the nature of interviewing in the modern age, how to use technology, is it helpful or intrusive, how to manage the tenor of a conversation, what is the nature of a public interview — is it like a theatre performance or a genuine interest in knowing the person, how does the written interview differ from the spoken interview, how much is enough to reveal in an interview, how much research is required to conduct an interview etc. Later in the evening we were joined by poet, writer and 2020 International Booker Prize jury member, Jeet Thayil.

L-R: Roanna Gonsalves, Gideon Haigh, Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Manal Younus, Mindy Gill, Jeet Thayil. Front row: Jessica Alice and Nithya Nagarajan

The visit to Australia was a transformative experience. Suddenly a lot of pieces in the puzzle regarding the business of publishing in Australia became crystal clear. For facilitating this trip and actively encouraging me to visit their country I have am ever so grateful to the Australian High Commission in India, especially to the High Commissioner, H.E. Harinder Sidhu. In recent years the High Commissioner and her team in India and the Australia Council for the Arts have been actively promoting bilateral cultural ties between the two countries. Here is hoping that in future there will be more opportunities to make Australian literature available in India and vice versa.

6 Feb 2020

Interview with Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India on publishing Enid Blyton’s books

For some time now I have been seeing some wonderful new editions of Enid Blyton’s books published by Hachette India. Sometimes collections of short stories that I did not even know existed. Sometimes rejacketed versions of old faithfuls. At other times newly put together anthologies of extracts from Enid Blyton’s books or well-known children’s writers selecting their favourite extracts. And then there are the recipe books appealing to the adults who are nostalgic about the delightful eats Blyton mentions in her books while at the same time catering to the young readers who are fascinated by popular cooking programmes on television. Finally, there are examples of Enid Blyton’s stories being used to create grammar books for school children in the subcontinent.

Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India kindly agreed to a Q&A on publishing Enid Blyton’s books.

Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India

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  1. How did the tie-up with Enid Blyton’s literary estate and Hachette happen? 

There is no tie-up. Hachette is the estate now, having bought up the rights in March 2016. So Hachette now owns the copyright to all of Blyton’s work, except I think Noddy, because that was pre-sold by the estate earlier. Just like rights to the adventure series are pre-contracted to PanMacmillan… so those will remain in place for contract validity. How it began is from our history. We were Blyton’s first publishers in the 1930s and have published her continuously since then.

2. Is the contract meant only for the revival of the backlist? 

No it’s for whatever we want to do. As mentioned, we own the copyrights from the signing of the agreement with the estate where we are the new copyright holders in an outright buy out.

New copyright answered below would depend on what the authors chose—one-time fee or royalties and assignment or transfer. I don’t know that offhand, but the copyright page of any of the new books will state that.

3. Some of the more popular series such as Secret Seven are being expanded with modern storytellers. Why? 

That’s common for most very successful brands, not just Blyton. From Bourne to Bond, to Asterix, to Sidney Sheldon, Margaret Mitchell, Jane Eyre…further extensions through sequels, prequels, and line extensions have always been there. And it’s not just Secret Seven, Malory Towers has extensions too. The Naughtiest Girl and Malory Towers had them over 15 years ago. As to why—simply to contemporize it for current readers…reflecting today’s realities and cultural milieu. So Malory Towers now has an Indian writer with an Indian girl student joining the school. And no this was not done for India—this is to mirror British society which is much more multi-cultural today.

4. Who holds the copyright for these new stories? The commissioned author or the literary estate? What have been the immediate impact of this collaboration between Enid Blyton and Hachette? 

This will be the choice of the new writers—they could opt for one-off copyright sale, or royalties. (So it may vary and I’m not sure, but a look at the copyright page will tell you)

5. a. Enid Blyton’s stories are representative of the age she wrote in. So her references to “Golliwog” or her sexist representation of gendered activities would not be appreciated in contemporary times. Yet she has made a surprise comeback with many appreciating her books.

Perhaps because too much has been made of that bit is my belief. Almost every single English reading adult has grown up on these tales, and they haven’t turned out racists. This comes up from time to time, but is definitely not true when blanketed together like that. Let’s take them one by one.

There is certainly no sexism in her books… seen in the context of today they may not be stridently feminist (Anne being a homebody, is equally complemented by George being the main heroine of the Famous Five series; and the school series all have strong protagonists). Yes, there are stereotypes which existed in that time (of roles boys and girls play) and are there in most books of the era whether adult or children—from Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie. The racism question arose because of the golliwog toy in Noddy being analyzed in that context, which has since in the wave of political correctness been removed as I understand it, but certainly there is no derogatory text anywhere that can be called racist. Our current Hindi mass market cinema is far more racist, misogynist and xenophobic. Coming to xenophobia — hardly any of the books have foreigners, and if they appear as villains (Adventurous Four, the Adventure, the Secret Series) that is because of the setting and character; and inevitably there are balancing good characters from the same country. And statistically there are obviously more British baddies. Snobbery is shown as a clear negative in most of her didactic books, and those snobs always get their come-uppance.

It’s not as though there are not issues or problems… but they are issue of the time they were written in and do not I believe have any sort of impact—given the millions across the world who have grown up on her books. In fact, her books are very strong on the whole ‘moral values’ of the time—almost to the point of ‘preachiness’—which may be one reason they are so popular in India. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, bravery, courage—a veritable textbook of moral values. No matter that some of them like ‘British pluck’ may be outmoded. But what makes her still relevant and in demand is that she is one of the greatest storytellers in the world with an amazingly prolific output and makes children happy.

5 b. Have the Enid Blyton books been edited for a newer audience? If so what are the principles governing the editing of Enid Blyton’s backlist? 

Yes, or updated rather. Plotlines have not been interfered with; and Blyton is fairly timeless. Her stories stay universal because there isn’t too much datable about them. she doesn’t for instance name brands in her detailing. Cars for instance may be described as a “big black car, with a powerful engine” not a Rolls or Morris which would immediately date it. so what has been tweaked is very archaic usage—pinafore for uniform tunics, pullover for jumper etc. In fact the reverse happened when the Famous Five were experimented with…in almost a classic coke vs New Coke backlash the new text was not welcomed; and the old one was reinstated.

6. Do you have cultural sensitivity readers for Enid Blyton’s stories before releasing them? Do different markets have different teams supervising the release or is there a specific team overseeing the global release of Enid Blyton books and product lines?  

A mix of both—it’s primarily central in the Blyton Estate team based at Hachette UK, and we are asked for input when needed. And we create new product for our markets. In India we’ve begun a new non-fiction stream for instance. Essentially the legacy is continued as classic children’s fare with not much being done to change existing stories. New stories are done factoring in multi-cultural societies of today. And the continuations of her series—there are new secret seven, wishing chair, and Malory Towers stories in contemporary settings which are much more multi-cultural… the latest one even written by Narinder Dhami and featuring an Indian character.

7. Some of the new and fascinating array of collateral from this tie-up have been the cookery books and the English comprehension and grammar books. Why and how did Hachette decide to diversify the Enid Blyton portfolio? How have readers’ responded to the new range of books?

The grammar, vocabulary and other educational collateral was our idea and exists only in India. I felt that since we owned the brand and the fact that Blyton was one of the best teachers of English you could have…it would be remiss of us not to publish a breakaway stream of non-fiction using the texts. The series were just released last year. It’s early days, and this series will require school channel distribution not just trade, so we’ll know in a couple of years how they fare.

8. Do Enid Blyton’s imaginative stories translate well into other languages? If so, which are the languages that are most receptive to her books?  

Because the storylines and plots are so good, they certainly would translate well just on those terms. Yes, the amazing use of English language which is the other great part, would be lost. Yes, she’s been translated into over 90- languages. So they are all over including Sinhala.

9. Will Hachette ever republish Enid Blyton’s autobiography The Story of My Life

Not on current schedules which is in the first instance republishing all her fiction output. The non-fiction and memoirs will follow.

10. Indians enjoy reading Enid Blyton’s stories. But ever since the revivial of her backlists, has there been a noticeable surge in sales? Also is it possible to discern whether the newly commissioned stories are preferred to the original Enid Blyton stories or does that not matter? 

Enid Blyton has always been a huge seller. The famous Five sell over half a million copies every year, of which India’s share is about 35%… so while that is fantastic, it should also correct the erroneous impression that she sells predominantly in India. The newly commissioned stories join the others so get similar sales, but the original canon still sells just that bit more.

The UK is a very front list market (meaning new books), so while she sells very well (her sales there are still higher than sales in India) she may not rank in the current top five children’s authors for instance. But even recently in a UK poll, she was voted as the most popular children’s author of all time beating Roald Dahl and JK Rowling.

India is still a throwback market, relying on traditional favourites and backlist (older books) is very strong. And Enid Blyton here is still in the top three after recent bestsellers Geronimo Stilton and Jeff Kinney. And this is over 70 years after these books were published.

For context it must be understood that the core and basic readership in the UK or USA is very wide, unlike India where it is minuscule. We also react to the top trends in the world, so Harry Potter, twilight, Hunger games, wimpy kid will make it big here too. But the next level or a wider range of books gets very little exposure—whether they be international books or home grown books.

11. Are any film / TV adaptations of Enid Blyton’s stories to be expected soon? If so which ones are the most likely to be created first? 

Yes, there are a couple in the pipeline though I don’t have details. From the 1940s, every decade has seen a movie or TV series made of the main series. Next year will see Malory Towers from the BBC.

12. How significant is the audiobook market for Enid Blyton’s books? 

Not very significant. The audiobook revolution was in the adult market. I’m not aware of the children’s segment audio. There the experimentation is in book and sound formats. very few standalone audiobooks that I know of.

20 Dec 2019

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