Sonny Mehta became a legend in the publishing world by daring to publish Germaine Greer when she was still collecting rejection slips. But that was several decades ago. Now he is not so averse to following the trodden path in publishing: seduce A-list writers from their present publishers. The latest author he's wooed into his stable is America's shining star and Pulitzer winner, Jhumpa Lahiri. Clearly he is worried about adding to the Random House's non-existent India list. After Manju Kapur, it's now Jhumpa's turn to desert HarperCollins India. Her latest collection of short stories, some of which have already appeared in the New Yorker, will hit bookshelves here as a Random House book.
American, August
Upamanyu Chatterjee dug his heels in refusing all invites to read in bookstores here with that standard line: "I am not Sonu Nigam". But the rule, it seems, does not apply for the West: his US publisher, the New York Review of Books, has planned a punishing schedule for him when he goes there to launch the American edition of English, August on April 26. He'll tour bookstores in Boston, Washington, Berkeley, San Francisco, Chicago, besides an 8-10 minute reading in NYC as part of PEN World Voices Festival. Small price to pay, especially since he's waited 16 years to be published in the US.
