At IndiaTV Vineeta Kumar wonders Is Chetan Bhagat the Salman Khan of literary world ? -- to which the vast majority of even dedicated readers in the US/UK likely would answer: "Sure ... ?" not recognizing either of these names as 'stars' who are "are uber successful in their respective fields".
There have been any number of domestically incredibly successful Indian authors who have failed to find anything like that success in the US/UK, but they've pretty much all written in languages other than English (I recently posted a review of Sankar's Chowringhee, and US/UK reactions don't seem to have gone beyond yet another shrug ...). Those who have had success abroad have been the ones who wrote in English -- and generally with strong US/UK ties (education, work, domicile), from Salman Rushdie to Vikram Seth, Vikram Chandra, etc. etc (R.K.Narayan being the outlier in the US/UK-ties regard).
But writing in English, incredibly successful in India -- and practically unknown in the US/UK ? That's been a rare combination. There have been individual titles (The Inscrutable Americans ?), and there has been Shobhaa De, but Bhagat's success domestically is in a whole different league.
Is it a sign of a maturing market and readership -- that books which are so ... well, to put it bluntly, bad and basic -- can succeed domestically but don't stand a chance of international success ? (There have been US/UK editions of some of his work -- at least the offensive One night @ the call center -- you can see why they went with that one, but it probably wasn't the right choice to try to introduce him to US/UK markets.) I'm tempted to think of Bhagat's success in India -- coming hand-in-hand with the local advances in publishing, English-literacy, online coverage, etc. -- as a good sign, at least. Of course, when I look at the books themselves .....
Anyway: a fascinating case study that I'm sure I'll return to again.
There have been any number of domestically incredibly successful Indian authors who have failed to find anything like that success in the US/UK, but they've pretty much all written in languages other than English (I recently posted a review of Sankar's Chowringhee, and US/UK reactions don't seem to have gone beyond yet another shrug ...). Those who have had success abroad have been the ones who wrote in English -- and generally with strong US/UK ties (education, work, domicile), from Salman Rushdie to Vikram Seth, Vikram Chandra, etc. etc (R.K.Narayan being the outlier in the US/UK-ties regard).
But writing in English, incredibly successful in India -- and practically unknown in the US/UK ? That's been a rare combination. There have been individual titles (The Inscrutable Americans ?), and there has been Shobhaa De, but Bhagat's success domestically is in a whole different league.
Is it a sign of a maturing market and readership -- that books which are so ... well, to put it bluntly, bad and basic -- can succeed domestically but don't stand a chance of international success ? (There have been US/UK editions of some of his work -- at least the offensive One night @ the call center -- you can see why they went with that one, but it probably wasn't the right choice to try to introduce him to US/UK markets.) I'm tempted to think of Bhagat's success in India -- coming hand-in-hand with the local advances in publishing, English-literacy, online coverage, etc. -- as a good sign, at least. Of course, when I look at the books themselves .....
Anyway: a fascinating case study that I'm sure I'll return to again.