So 2022 is off to one helluva start for us in India. In January, the third wave of Covid hit us and everyone heaved a sigh of relief that it was “mild” (by which we meant the dead were not piling up on pavements, hospitals weren’t running out of beds, and crematoriums were not running out of fuel and space the way they did during the second wave in 2021). According to Reuters, the average number of Covid deaths reported each day in India has risen by more than 670 over the last three weeks (this is despite fewer tests being conducted, which means many undetected cases and deaths). But it’s mild, guys, so yay.
(If you’ve watched this Boba Fett thing and are aghast because you feel this gif is wildly out of place, I apologise. Much like everything else Star Wars, I have no idea what’s going with the show, but I am highly appreciative of the gifs its generating.)
Then, on February 1, we learnt Amazon India had decided to shut down Westland, the publishing house it had bought back in 2016. This means a lot of physical copies of books will be pulped between February and May this year, by which time Westland will have shut shop. For any author, this is heart-breaking to contemplate. For authors with Westland, it must be terrifying. There’s something particularly violent about the thought of books being pulped — not just because it’s a physical act that literally rips books apart, but also because of the finality of the action. It’s like your work and that part of you that’s nestled between the covers is being erased.
Realistically, of course, not all the books that Westland published and wasn’t able to sell will suffer this fate. Hopefully, the publisher will offer copies at discounted rates to libraries, which is a great way to make sure the books survive and are read.
(I don’t know if they would be open to giving them away for free to community libraries like The Community Library Project, but logically speaking, Westland shouldn’t mind. Also, The Community Library Project does great work, so do consider donating if that’s possible for you to do.)
The books by famous/ celebrated writers will definitely be picked up by other publishers and in this way, they’ll remain in the market. With the rights being reverted to them, authors who don’t find other publishers or feel intrepid enough to go forth on their own, can opt for self-publishing. This is neither as easy nor simple as most people imagine it to be, but it is an option that gives the author more control — and more work — than a traditional publishing deal.
My real hope is that someone in Amazon will do everyone a favour and deliver a middle finger salute to the capitalist enterprise by uploading pirated versions of all Westland titles as ebooks. Which is probably horrifying to any author reading this, but aside from being staunchly in favour of open access to cultural stuff (this is a free newsletter, y’all), I really do think books stand a much better chance of being preserved and finding readers through piratey networks than in a marketplace.
And yes, it’s true that I also dream of world peace, universal income for adults, as well as free healthcare and housing for all.
In the absence of all of the above and faced with the certainty of Westland publications being pulped from end-February onwards, the best way to show some love to the authors who have been dumped by Westland is to buy their books.
To this end, I have been through the 75 pages of titles that Westland has on Amazon.in, and I can tell you that those pages are not a comprehensive compilation of all Westland titles. So the list that I’m going to share with you may well be missing some good books because I didn’t remember them and/ or Westland forgot to add them to its list on Amazon.
Let’s start with the poetry reccos because it’s the tiniest of the lists. Poetry is considered one of the least marketable of literary genres, so there’s a very real chance of these books genuinely disappearing from circulation. (It won’t be the first time that this will have happened to a book or a work of poetry, but that doesn’t make things any less tragic.)
POETRY
1. Run for the Shadows/ Sridala Swami. Gorgeous cover, beautifully-designed pages inside and some profoundly moving poems.
2. Love Without a Story/ Arundhathi Subramaniam
3. Over and Under Ground in Mumbai and Paris/ Sampurna Chattarji and Karthika Nair (illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet and Roshni Vyam). This book is basically a poetic dialogue between the two poets, two cities, and two train networks (Mumbai’s local train network and the Paris Metro). It’s such a beautiful idea.
I confess, I haven’t read Love Without A Story but Arundhathi Subramaniam generally writes like a dream.
Moving on to another neglected beauty of literature — translated works. Westland actually had a separate imprint for translations, Eka, which did excellent work, I’m told. Since I haven’t read anywhere close to enough, some of these picks are blindly chosen on the basis of authors, translators and in case of number 2, the artwork.
TRANSLATIONS
1. Qabar/ K.R. Meera and Nisha Susan. I was actually going to write about this weird and wondrous novella with its sensual politics, violence and magnificent women in the January newsletter. But January turned into February without warning, and then I was trawling through 75 pages of (incomplete) Westland titles. Anyway, the point is, it’s very good.
2. The Lesbian Cow and Other Stories/ Indu Menon and Nandakumar K
Enough said.
3. Imaan/ Manoranjan Byapari and Arunava Sinha
4. The Runaway Boy (Book 1 of the Chandal Jibon Trilogy)/ Manoranjan Byapari and V. Ramaswamy
5. Poonachi: Or the Story of a Black Goat/ Perumal Murugan and N Kalyan Raman
6. Estuary/ Perumal Murugan and Nandini Krishnan
7. Amma/ Perumal Murugan, Nandini Murali, et al. This is a collection of essays about his mother. Basically, if it’s written by Perumal Murugan, buy it. And then make sure you have some chocolate and or a happy K-drama (like Into the Ring or Dali and the Cocky Prince) to pull you out of the glittering darkness into which you will be plunged by Perumal Murugan’s writing.
8. Harbart/ Nabarun Bhattacharya and Arunava Sinha
9. Hellfire/ Leesa Gazi and Shabnam Nadiya This one reminded me of the stories like The Yellow Wallpaper and Wide Sargasso Sea, which explore how some women snap when straitjacketed by convention or circumstance.
Going through Westland’s list, you can see how the publishing company had started to develop a distinctive character in the past few years. The literary fiction list was an important part of that project, I think. While Westland pushed the commercial fiction that should have been its mainstay, the imprint Context published some of the most enjoyable and accomplished fiction writing from India. Over the last three(ish) years, the covers improved dramatically too. You’d think that all this would have helped establish Westland as a prestige publication and save it from the fate that looms before it now, but no.
Anyway, here are my picks from Westland’s fiction list. I’ve written about some of these in previous editions of the newsletter, but you’ll have to trawl through the archives. Having gone square-eyed thanks to Westland’s 75 pages of titles, I just cannot bring myself to look for links.
FICTION:
1. Funeral Nights/ Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih This was another book I was going to write about in the January newsletter. At 1,007 pages, it’s somewhat literally a monumental work and kinda sorta reminded me of ye olde fireside tales like Decameron and The Canterbury Tales. The research that has gone into this book is truly awe-inspiring, but the language is often dry and awkward. If only the writing had just a little more poetry and cadence, this could have been a perfect book.
2. Milk Teeth/ Amrita Mahale
3. Bombay Balchao/ Jane Borges
4. The Begum and the Dastan/ Tarana Husain Khan
5. Exquisite Cadavers/ Meena Kandasamy
6. Etudes: 1/ Aseem Kaul
7. Principles of Prediction/Anushka Jasraj
8. The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories/ Nisha Susan Books 6, 7 and 8 are all collections of short stories, which as a genre doesn’t get enough love from publishers in India. This is mystifying to me. Particularly since the pandemic has shredded our ability to concentrate, short stories seem to be the perfect reading material. The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Storiesis my favouritest of this lot and not just because I adore Nisha Susan as a person. She’s such an insightful observer and when it comes to beautiful use of language, she’s craftier than a fox made by Wes Anderson.
9. Tell Her Everything/ Mirza Waheed
10. What We Know About Her/ Krupa Ge
11. The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali/ Uzma Aslam Khan Apparently, Khan got some basics wrong about the geography of the Andaman Islands, where the novel is set. This is a shame because otherwise, the story is very moving and well-told.
12. If I Could Tell You Hardcover/ Soumya Bhattacharya
13. Valmiki's Women/ Anand Neelakantan Ok, this is definitely not literary fiction, but it was a fun read and I’m all for looking past Sita and Ahalya when looking for interesting women in the Ramayana. Neelankantan would have us meet Bhoomija, Shanta, Manthara, Tataka and Meenakshi instead.
And finally, the jewels in Westland’s crown of thorns — the non-fiction list.
There’s a lot of speculation that these titles have played a big part in Westland being shut down because they’re considered provocative and stand opposed to the current Indian administration. This presumes that those in power read or at least have officers who keep themselves updated about new book releases. That’s…optimistic?
First of all, unless you really make it your business to chase Westland’s PR team, you’re not going to find out what the non-fiction titles are. Plus, I have trouble imagining anyone associated with the current government reading anything more than a WhatsApp message.
Truth be told, these titles should be on a shelf labelled Books I Flaunt But Don’t Read Because They’re Too Damn Depressing, but you’ve got to admit they all sound interesting.
These titles may seem to be Westland’s problem children, but I suspect they are most likely to be picked up by other publishers. That said, maybe I’m underestimating both how fearful the publishing industry is in India and how frightening the Right-wing and the government are.
1. Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy/ Christophe Jaffrelot
2. Despite the State: Why India Lets Its People Down and How They Cope/ M. Rajshekhar
3. Undercover: My Journey into the Darkness of Hindutva/ Ashish Khetan
4. Our Hindu Rashtra: What It Is. How We Got Here/ by Aakar Patel
5. Elusive Nonviolence: The Making and Unmaking of Gandhi’s Religion of Ahimsa/ Jyotirmaya Sharma
6. Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism/ Jyotirmaya Sharma
7. Ascetic Games: Sadhus, Akharas and the Making of the Hindu Vote/ Dhirendra K Jha
8. The Anatomy of Hate/ Revati Laul
Westland also brought out some good history titles. Here are my picks:
9. Lady Doctors: The Untold Stories of India's First Women in Medicine/ Kavitha Rao
10. The Courtesan, the Mahatma and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History/ Manu S. Pillai
11. Kabir, Kabir: The life and work of the early modern poet-philosopher/ Purushottam Agrawal
12. Hicky's Bengal Gazette: The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper/ Andrew Otis
13. Where the Gods Dwell: Thirteen Temples and their (hi)stories/ Manu S. Pillai, Trisha Gupta, et al
More books about contemporary India:
14. The Case for Reason: Volume One (Understanding the Anti-superstition Movement) and Volume Two (A Scientific Enquiry Into Belief)/ Narendra Dabholkar and Suman Oak
15. The War That Made R&AW/ Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket
16. Midnight's Borders: A People's History of Modern India/ Suchitra Vijayan
17. Last Among Equals: Power, Caste & Politics in Bihar’s Villages/ M.R. Sharan
18. Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands/ Jane Borges, S. Hussain Zaidi
19. Rivers Remember: The Shocking Truth of a Manmade Flood: Lessons and stories from #Chennai Rains/ Krupa Ge
20. Leopard Diaries: The Rosette in India/ Sanjay Gubbi
And some cultured non-fiction:
21. It's All in Your Head, M/ Manjiri Indurkar
22. The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan/ by Namita Devidayal
23. A History of Islam in 21 Women/ Hossein Kamaly
24. The Suriani Kitchen/ Lathika George
Finally, these books are bestsellers according to Amazon, so I imagine they don’t need any plugging. Still, here we go:
1. Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India/ Rukmini S
2. The Silent Coup: A History of India's Deep State/ Josy Joseph
3. Price of the Modi Years/ Aakar Patel
4. India's Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance/ Arvind Narrain
5. The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party: The Remaking of the World's Largest Political Party/ Nalin Mehta
Usually, when I mention a book in the newsletter, I link to Amazon because it’s the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to get hold of books, particularly if you don’t live in a big city. I haven’t done that this time because it feels wrong to make it easier for Amazon to earn moolah from shutting Westland down. Instead, perhaps you can ask an indie bookstore to send you the books you want to buy? Most of them will ship across India and some will also send internationally, so do look up an indie bookstore near you before resigning yourself to buying books off Amazon.
And that’s all I’ve got for you in this newsletter. I hope I don’t have to do something like this ever again. Here’s to stories finding homes and surviving, despite everything.
This is so great and thank you for the shout out to both books! 💛 Means so much, especially now.
excellent list, thank you