…for winning the Man Booker. The Inheritance of Loss wasn’t my favourite among the three books on the shortlist that I’d read (and I much preferred a few others that didn’t even make it to the final six anyway), but that’s hardly the point here. Competitive awards, as we have oftentimes noted on this blog, are inherently silly, self-indulgent and meaningless things, best appreciated for their entertainment value (the “let’s rank the nominees” games widely played around Oscar-time and Booker-time are a lot of fun, but they also rank somewhere alongside Orkut scrapbooking on the Pointlessness Scale).
So here’s why I’m pleased for Kiran: she’s one of the nicest authors I’ve met, as I mentioned in this interview a few months ago. That’s as good a reason as any to win the Booker.
(Another excellent reason: my site traffic went through the roof last night because of Google searches for “Kiran Desai”.)
I think this could be just the boost that Indian Writing needs today. The timing couldnt have been more right!
ReplyDeletetrue, your site traffic may have gone up through the roof, I myself came to your website via google.
But we all know Jabberwock, dont we ;)
Now please tell us which the other long and shorlisted ones were and what you thought of them. Maybe do digested reviews?
ReplyDeleteYeah good for you man - i know what you mean re: the whole prize thing. unfortunately thanks to all the media hype it means big sales for authors -so then of course adds to the whole competition..
ReplyDeletekiran sounds like an interesting woman.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to ask you a question but not over blogger! Could you please email me?
newyorkmimi@gmail.com
Anonymous: my ID is on the Profile page.
ReplyDeleteThe following article should be of interest. As the author points out, in Kiran Desai's India, the domestic helps talk in Hindi and translate that into English. How else would the western world understand her?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1061012/asp/opinion/story_6857011.asp
my site traffic went through the roof last night because of Google searches for “Kiran Desai”.
ReplyDeleteyeah.. I saw that as well.. got in to work that morning and googled kiran desai, your post was the no. 3 result. I was quite thrilled that I'd read your post long before it became such a hot property :p