A 1500-word excerpt from my novel Arzee the Dwarf appears today in Mint (if you live in Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, or Chandigarh, you can buy the paper off your news-stand). The link to it is here, and the cover, designed by Pinaki De, is right before you. The book should be in shops early in June.
Meanwhile, while Arzee is roasting in the Bombay heat, I am having a marvellous time travelling in the north-east, journeying under overcast skies through hill and river country; eating large quantities of fish in mustard, chicken in sesame-seed gravy, duck-egg omelettes, and lychees; and occasionally putting up posts from little cybercafes like this one.
18 comments:
I woke up today morning and was pleasantly surprised to find the excerpt of your first novel in today's MINT...Definitely made for good reading... Will be looking forward to its release..Do update the date of release..
Who designed the cover?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, now I go to read the excerpt.
Congratulations!!!
About the rest of that NE stuff,
JEALOUS.
Enjoyed reading the excerpt and looking forward to the book.
On a different note, have you read Roy Jenkins' biography of Winston Churchill? If so, then what do you think about it? I want to read the book but wanted to read some opinions about it first.
Cheers!
Super! Looking forward to reading the book.
read the expert...Guess i'll buy the book..
btw, amazing cover..one thing, isn't the cigarette in the right hand. I know it doesn't makes much difference but to be on the right i guess left hand must have been used, would have looked neat..Or was it intentional to create such intrigue?
You lucky bum! It seems you writers really do live on love and fresh air. I've always wanted to visit the North-East and judging by your descriptive lines, it will be exactly as I've imagined. All the best with your book. And you owe us readers much free alcohol and appetisers at one of those posh book launches, if you deign to have one
Kudos! Will wait eagerly to possess the book.
Arbitblogs, Swar, Dingdongbell, Aayush, Sundeep, Driftwood, A Bit of Company, and Suroopa -- Thanks very much for your kind words.
Swar - Th cover is designed by Pinaki De (http://www.pinakide.blogspot.com/).
Driftwood - Excuse the pun, but I don't quite get the drift of your question, other than the sense that there's something wrong with the placement of the cigarette. Perhaps you'll have to try again.
Auyush - I haven't read the Jenkins biography. But if you want to read books on politics, why don't you try some home-grown ones, like Rajmohan Gandhi's biography of Gandhi, or Mukul Kesavan's last book of essays, or even Anand Teltumbde's book on Khairlanji?
A Bit of Company - I'm afraid I won't be having any posh book launches, only plain old readings. Perhaps I can buy you a drink separately? I have (reaches out and touches wood) a bit more money in the bank these days than I used to.
Oh so your book events will feed the mind alone. Not a bad deal. And the amount of money you had in the bank earlier was good enough for me. A good coffee and scintillating conversation at the end of a long day is all one needs. Btw, we should consider switching to Costa, I'm a fan. And your choice of place for the drinks.
Great cover - front and back. Especially the high rises, which give you the illusion of them towering over very high, or the illusion of you falling through to great depths. The link to Pinaki De's site led to a bigger picture, in several ways :) .... and such a cute goat!
Will you have a hardback edition? And do update us if a Bangalore read is on your itinerary. Maybe you guys should do a limited poster edition of your book cover (both front and back). Thanks for the link. I went and saw the bigger version - Extraordinary. And Congratulations on a book that many of us are genuinely looking forward to reading.
Youprat - Yes, we wanted a cover that suggested the protagonist's unusual point of view, and also a sense of the world as slightly ominous and strange. I think all the credit goes to Pinaki for thinking the idea through.
Swar - Yes, the book is in hardback. I'll be in Bangalore to read from it in the last week of June or else early in July, so I look forward to seeing you then, and more so to hearing what you think of the text.
For years in my life I would get up in the morning and either write a bit of Arzee or else polish some part that I had already written. Now that it's all done and put to bed I feel enormously good and relaxed: I take day-trips out of town and week-trips to distant places, read books that I hadn't managed to in the last couple of years, and spend the afternoons fiddling over email. But I guess it's time now to practice my reading aloud.
That's a very good passage. I'm keen to read the book. When is the book releasing in Delhi?
It is all for the benefit of humanity that you travel then. Your writings on travel experiences, big and small, are a joy to read too. One can say, artworks are like prisms - though not the artist herself/himself, because there might be accusations of making people imagine them in terms of odd geometric shapes, the amount of light they let through, and how many and what angles they are at, and also best way to be beyond reproach is to denounce any kind of depiction, all smart people will agree - that we look at the world through, to get those unusual perspectives. All the best for your reading-alouds.
Anirudh - Very glad you liked it. It should be in the shops in ten or twelve days, and my reading in Delhi will be around the last week of June.
I am still unable to locate your book in Bangalore. I have visited most of the major book stores but have not been able to locate it. I am told that it has not yet arrived. Help please!
Arbitblogs - This is impressive persistence! I'm very sorry you're having to go through all this trouble - Arzee was always meant to be a slippery character, but this is too much. Just give it another few days please. I am in Bangalore on the 26th of June to read from Arzee, so there's no way it won't be in the shops by then.
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