Bibliofile

Gali Proof

Publishing houses are working hard to remove the smell of bad translations Akademi books were once infamous for. With Krishna Sobti's The Heart Has its Reasons up for a Crossword prize for translation, publisher Katha decided a book launch was in order. What better way to do it than organise a heritage walk in Purani Dilli where excerpts from the book were read aloud in the streets of the novel's setting.

Literary Lambast
A veteran reporter recalls his first brush with literary criticism, a la Khushwant Singh style. Soon after Raja Rao won the Akademi award for his Serpent and the Rope, Khushwant was apparently called to preside over a book reading. Khushwant kept it short: he read aloud a single para, only to comment tersely: "This is how a writer makes ch***as of his readers."