Indian English Authors discussion

When I walk into any bookstore, walk directly to the literary fiction section, skipping the entire Indian writing section for reasons that RV has made very clear; the quality of writing is unbearable. I stick to amitav ghosh, anita nair, shashi deshpande and few other Indian writers.

these pyramids of badly written books is a disincentive for those brilliant writers who dont have a publisher. don't you think that they'd rather never publish than to termed as 'those authors'?

Good perspective.. there is a plethora of books in Indian market which are being only published to be picked as scripts by a bollywood director to be made into a movie. It has to be a publishers job to bring in the quality and do a good job with editing. After all what is publishing.. its not mass printing. I blame the editors - if they cant make out the difference between good and bad writing (even grammatical formations) then they are just useless and should not even be considered as editors for inhouse magazines.

Kevan wrote: "Asha wrote: "When I walk into any bookstore, walk directly to the literary fiction section, skipping the entire Indian writing section for reasons that RV has made very clear; the quality of writin..."

I agree with Kevan's comment. Being a new author myself, I am experiencing first hand, how this general perspective becomes a disadvantage for folks like me. One cannot blame anyone either because frankly many of the so-called best-selling books are pretty much unreadable. The publishing houses need to be a little more discerning and maybe an author should also try to showcase her writing skills more as part of the marketing strategy. That will give the reader an idea of her work and can help to create a good impression that might go a long way in establishing her as an author to take notice of.

An author according to me is driven by the story.. he wants to just write down and share his creation.. I have hardly seen any author writing for the sake of language which is only a medium not the end. He can indirectly serve the language and influence it considerably. And publisher, editor come here to guide the author with a story to tell..

Hi everybody. As I am from India, I joined this group to find some like minded readers :) Have to agree with what you all have to say, being a reader (not author) myself, I generally tend to skip the Indian Writing section, its full of 100-150 pages badly written romance stories. The task of finding a gem in the weed feels too much to take up. Its only once in a while when a Indian author's book feels compelling enough to invest the time and money in it. Don't know what's amiss with Indian writing.

Mr. Raman, love your effort and zeal of supporting Indian author's. Every once in a while there do come along some worthwhile authors. I recently came across by a 1st time Indian Author Arefa Tehsin , and found her work to be very refreshing.

While the book could have had done with some more crisp editing, I did find her effort worthwhile. Reading such authors, makes one feel all is not lost wiht Indian authors still.

True that there are some excellent books by Amitav Ghosh, Anita Nair, Padma Vishwanathan and others, but what I have seen in the bookshops (in this case Landmark) is that they place books by these authors in the 'Literary Fiction' section and the entirety of other Indian writing in the section where there are glossy, pink covers with extremely cheesy titles about failed love.

This does make it difficult for good Indian writers to come to the fore!
What surprises me is that, there is a demand for these 'popular' books

Hello Mr. Raman, it is a young adult fiction book, I did enjoy it myself :) Im sure kids can relate very well to it as the protagonist is a 11 year old girl, who lives in a hidden world known as 'Twitterland'.

Author has created a whole new world, and it is somewhat similar to Lewis Carroll in its characterization, and maybe I can draw some parallel to the Series. I found it to be a commendable effort by a Indian author, specially as the book also has wonderful underlying messages conveyed in subtle form about 'friendships, conserving forest, and much more'.

Definitely agree with you that there's a severe dearth of good children's books in India.