Bibliofile

One writer who felt she benefited vastly from the creative writing course she took in Canada was the young, Orissa-born writer Anita Rau Badami. Her first novel, Tamarind Mem, was entirely the product of that course. "It taught me so many things, like pacing, narrative," she said, confessing however that there is a danger of assembly-line production. Which is perhaps why she didn’t show her second novel, A Hero’s Walk, to anyone till it was done.

Not all great writers are as generous to budding ones as Vikram Seth. Farrukh Dhondy told this anecdote of how Naipaul was once asked to judge a poetry competition in an African country. Naipaul went through the poems in the shortlist and declared that none was worth a first prize or even a second prize. But he did choose a poem for the third prize. When the lucky poet was called up to the stage to receive his award from Naipaul, the intimidating man of letters said, "Before I give you this prize, I want you to promise me something." "Anything," replied the wide-eyed black poet. "Promise me," Naipaul said in his measured, precise way, "that you will never write another line of poetry again."