Namita's Yatra

Author Namita Gokhale on her association with the Penguin-Yatra venture for a series of works in Indian languages:

"The literary movement in India has been ongoing in several languages where you will find two or three outstanding writers. The predicament has been our failure to match the vernacular writing energies with proper publishing energies so far. This will breach that and ensure that new markets and proper marketing strategies open up a whole new world for them."

It sounds like a laudable venture, but her comments seem straight out of a publishing marketer's handbook. And then she goes on to fall into the trap of pigeonholing Indian writers in English in a cliched manner: "Today there are English writers who have become interpreters of Indian culture before an international audience, making Indian culture accessible to a global audience through their works like Jhumpa Lahiri."

The whole thing here.