Bibliofile

Mani’s Table Talk

There will be many people—journalists, politicians, industrialists—judging PM Narendra Modi's one year in office soon. Frequent contributor to Outlook, and the man who first called Modi ‘chaiwallah', Mani Shankar Aiyar, does it in his inimitable style. He is coming out with a book to mark the occasion called...Achhe Din? Ha, Ha!. It's a collection of Aiyar's weekly NDTV blog, which captures the debacles of the Modi government's first year. There will be a discussion too, with star panelists like Suresh Prabhu, Sitaram Yechury, Digvijay Singh, Asaduddin Owaisi, Yog­endra Yadav, Kanimozhi, Pavan Varma, Chandan Mitra and Sugato Bose.

Second First

Neel Mukherjee, who missed the Booker Prize narrowly, has won the  £10,000 Encore Award for the Best Second Novel award for his book The Lives of Others. "The Encore Award is the...most original literary prize in town. It is a burst of light in what is  considered to be dark, damp, bleak territory—the dreaded second novel," says Muk­h­e­r­jee. He is in good company as some of the past winners are Ned Beauman, Julia Leigh and Nadeem Aslam.

Exit’s an Option

After the exits of Chiki Sarkar and some top professionals from Penguin Random House recently, there is one more resignation—this time from Blo­omsbury. Ace editor of many years, the effervescent Diya Kar Hazra, who helped set up Bloomsbury India in 2012, leaves the firm this month. They just shifted to their swank new office in south Delhi's Vasant Kunj, with Hazra getting the coveted corner room, but that wasn't enough. What's next? "I'm exploring many options and possibilities," she says.