Bibliofile

With India becoming saveur de la saison with the French, publishers here are vying for a piece of the sizeable French market. In fact, some of the French publishing houses now have a special section devoted only to books on India or by Indians. One such publisher, Le Cherche-midi, has just proved it's backed the right trend. Remember Inderjit Badhwar's debut novel with that unfortunate title Sniffing Papa? The book, resurrected by his French publisher under the more saleable title, The Chamber of Perfumes, has won a little-known but 'prestigious' French literary prize: best debut foreign novel of 2004. If his Indian publisher, Anuj Bahri of the Tara-India Research Press, is to be believed, the honour was last given to an Indian 20 years ago—to Salman Rushdie for Shame.

One review's always lit up in neon signs for a writer: the harshest one. For Mark Tully it is The Hindu's review of his book, No Full Stops in India. The critic, Hasan Suroor, castigated him for "defending" the caste system and sati in the name of Indian culture. The words that still rankle: "This is a shameful book." But Mark, unlike most writers, laughs it off: "No publicity is bad publicity. The thing is not to take yourself too seriously."