Bibliofile

India, Abroad
Aravind Adiga’s unexpected win at the Booker this week is not the only sign of how big desi writers have become internationally. Last week, at a ticketed literary event ($100 per person) in NYC, a star cast of IWE went on stage to rally support for US presidential hopeful Barack Obama with a short speech and a reading. At the ‘Writers Speak Out For Obama’ were Booker dada Salman Rushdie, Booker princess Kiran Desai, Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer finalist Suketu Mehta, Akhil Sharma (one of Granta’s best under-35 novelists) and Manil Suri (Time magazine’s Person to Watch).

Spirit Set Free
A convict sentenced to life imprisonment is causing a stir in Tamil publishing circles. Dr L. Prakash, an orthopaedic surgeon sentenced for, among other counts, Internet pornography, has spent the last seven years in prison churning out 80 books on every subject under the earth— thrillers, prison diaries, Vedic wisdom, the Mahabharata, short stories, self-improvement... His publisher claims his prison diary alone—Other Side of the Prison Bars—has sold 1.4 lakh copies in Tamil translation. But the biggest triumph for the doctor: his publisher claims Playboy has accepted his short story!

Alpha Bet
Did Mira Nair start something when she compered the benefit event, ‘Writers Speak Out For Obama?’ Throwing caution to the wind, she brashly announced that the writers would speak in "alpha order". She called Kiran Desai to the mike first. Then Jhumpa Lahiri, Suketu Mehta, Salman Rushdie, Akhil Sharma, Manil Suri. A new lit hierarchy here?