How easy it is to be swamped by Big Brother, IndiaInk's Sanjeev Saith's no doubt discovering after he sold his imprint last year to Roli Books. So far only two books have emerged from that famous takeover—No Guns At My Son's Funeral by Paro Anand, a story set in the backdrop of the Kashmir insurgency, and Ramchandra Gandhi's Muniya's Light, which is that unsaleable thing—"a philosophical novel." While Saith will continue to edit and commission books for IndiaInk at his usual pace—2-3 books a year—Roli plans to publish at least 8-10 novels on its own under the imprint every year.
Penguin's hit a unique (at least in India) way to sponsor an unknown author to literary fame, and sales. Starting this month, a few, very few, lucky first-timers will be published under a new imprint—Shobhaa De's Selection. The first of these hits bookstores this month—Girl Alone by Rupa Gulab. The pre-pub release, "a witty narrative about a single woman's adventures in Mumbai", may make it sound like an Indian Bridget Jones, but Penguin's hoping the De name will do the trick.
