Looking forward to more interaction here.

No, you’re right. Some of the choices are indeed odd and have nothing to do with the genre. I’d intended a Whitman’s sampler of titles, and needless to say, that always translates to a nutty mix.

Look forward to reading your book. There’s a real need for something definitive.

Anil

The list by Anil above is a mixed one, some odd choices with some very good ones–if you don’t mind my saying so, Anil. Also, several of them are already published in the UK and USA. If I had to make a list of genre writers who aren’t published in the USA or UK (and not even widely in India, or in English in India), it would be far, far longer and a very different list. In fact, that’s a list I am actually compiling–originally, I began doing it several years ago for John Clute who had asked me to contribute to the new edition of his Encyclopaedia, but I later decided it merited a book unto itself. Still in the research stage, but I am continuing to track that strange nameless beast that shambles through this ‘dark’ subcontinent, roaring in a melange of Sanskrit, Gujarati, Urdu, Thamizh, Malayalam, Oriya, and so many other tongues. We are many; our name is Bharat!

All the best,

Ashok

I wish you the best.

Vandana

Ref: “a selection of English language books”

Here’s a list, in no particular order.

Raja Rao — Kanthapura.
This is told from the p.o.v. of an old village woman about the consequences of a cool new technology called nonviolent civil disobedience.

Aravind Adiga — The White Tiger
Adiga’s debut novel is often described as being amoral, but no book-burnings yet, so I’m assuming it appeals to people on some moral level.

Mahatma Gandhi — My Experiments With Truth
A great piece of fiction. Truly.

G. V. Desani — All About H. Hatterr
Written with the best butter. A major influence on Rushdie, and the blurb notes with satisfaction that T. S. Eliot couldn’t make head or tail of this book.

Qurratulain Hyder –A River of Fire.
A great book for colonialist readers in mood for some abuse. According to Wikipedia, “Quarratulain” means “eyeball” and as if this unfair advantage isn’t enough, Hyder is bloody brilliant too.

Kiran Nagarkar — Cuckold
What if God’s having an affair with the missus? Nagarkar’s novel is told from the perspective of Raja Bhoj, the husband of Meera-bhai, the real-life Rajputana princess who at an early age fell into Krishna and never fully emerged. This is not about Meera-bhai though. It’s about her husband. The Cuckold of India.

Upamanyu Chatterjee– English August: An Indian Story
This book really pissed me off when I first read it. It has the kind of John Cusak protagonist who wanders through a graveyard wondering about all the women he could have laid. But once I set aside the moral yoke, not only was I lighter, the book was also a lot more fun. There’s a scene with a Mahatma Gandhi statue that’s particularly memorable.

Premendra Mitra — Mosquito and Other Stories : Ghana-Da’s Tall Tales
This is a set of translated stories, but utterly wonderful.

I’d include Dalyrymple, Allan Sealy, Samit Basu, Sarnath Bannerjee, the sampler anthologies of Rushdie and Chaudhuri and so on, but this list is already too long.

Anil

I’m one of those people who believe that reality is reality and perception is perception. I have faced racial abuse, bigotry, religious prejudice and bias, and those are not forgivable. Nor are they the only treatment I’ve received from American SFF publishers, authors, writers, bloggers and reviewers–I’ve had my share of good treatment too. But the fact that I experienced such bias, prejudice, bigotry and abuse cannot simply be wished away by blaming it on perception and I think you do me and all sufferers of such abuse a great disservice by attempting to deny that any such abuse occurred at all.

This being your blog, I’m sure you will have the last word but let me say this clearly: There are bigots and racists in the SFF field in the USA and they appear to be somewhat more vocal, numerous and tolerated than in other publishing genres or even in the SFF genre in other countries. Your comments only underline the root of the problem itself, which is, in three words, ‘Denial, denial, denial’.