In Outlook India Shashi Tharoor reviews the new novel by that ... phenomenon of Indian publishing, Chetan Bhagat, Revolution 2020 (see also the Rupa publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.com -- paperback or Kindle (!) -- or Amazon.co.uk, or from Flipkart in India)
(I haven't been able to get a copy of this yet, but two other Bhagat titles are under review at the complete review -- One night @ the call center and The Three Mistakes of my Life.)
Tharoor argues:
There's also some interesting data here, as Tharoor notes that:
(I haven't been able to get a copy of this yet, but two other Bhagat titles are under review at the complete review -- One night @ the call center and The Three Mistakes of my Life.)
Tharoor argues:
To judge Bhagat by the yardstick of the quality, rather than the effectiveness, of his prose is to miss what he is trying to do. He is saying something to young Indians that hasn't been said before in quite that way; he is reaching an extraordinarily large number of readers; and he is seeking to use his reach to bring about a change in the country, starting with the mindsets of young Indians. This is why he must be read.I don't know if one can give Bhagat quite that much credit, buy, yes, he (or rather his work) certainly can't be ignored.
There's also some interesting data here, as Tharoor notes that:
The typical Indian literary "bestseller" sells between 3,000 and 5,000 copies; a true success is one that remains in print for years, with successive reprints of 1,500 copies or so every nine or twelve months. (Thus my Indian publishers tell me that my The Great Indian Novel, now in its 36th printing in India, has only sold a grand total of 41,000 copies in all of 22 years.) In this modest market, Bhagat's novels reportedly sell over 1,00,000 copies in the first month after publication, mainly in small towns where literary fiction is rarely found, and keep selling