Defying Conventions: The UEA literary activism symposium

Amit Chaudhuri, the initiator of the conference

How do you engage with people at an academic symposium? Do you dumb down the topics or do you get David Graham (former CEO Granta), Laetitia Zecchini (CNRS, Paris), academicians Peter D McDonald (Oxford University) and Saikat Majumdar (Stanford University), poets Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Amie McKendrick, and professor Jon Cook, to talk about literary value? The three-day international symposium organised by the University of East Anglia, India, in partnership with the Infosys Science foundation in Kolkata, chose to do the latter. And it worked like magic. The HL Roy Auditorium in Kolkata was abuzz with beaming students, journalists and book lovers with lists of hitherto undiscovered masterpieces. “We have made a conscious decision to not emulate celebrity-driven events such as lit fests. Neither is this a dreary academic conference,” says Amit Chaudhuri, the initiator of the conference, which closes today. The focus of the symposium is on literary activism in today’s market-driven world, where publishers create an invisible force on the writer and the reader, to promote a
certain kind of writing.

Micro publishing is the future
A discussion about the future of the book industry is most likely to be a pessimistic in this age of compulsive social networking and micro-blogging, but David Graham,the former CEO of Granta, is not losing hope. “Micro publishers are the future of publishing. Small publishers like Feminist Press in New York are not dictated by popular diktats. They have the guts to bring out books they believe in,” says Graham.

Prize matters
The tyranny of much-hyped literary prizes like the Man Booker Prize is not just a recent occurrence, said Abhijit Gupta, professor of English, Jadavpur University. “I was doing some research on 19th century Bengali literature and I discovered that there was an award for popular Bengali potboilers then too. A princely sum of Rs 100 was awarded to the chosen author. This award was constituted to create a market for books,”says Gupta.

No country for reclusive writers
In the big bad world of publishing, there is hardly any place for writers who stay away from the media glare. Citing the example of little-known South African writer Zoë Wicomb, South African-born British academic Derek Attridge, says, “Wicomb is distinctly uncomfortable with promotions and such events. Which is probably why you haven’t heard of her yet.”