The Young Writers’ Guild

Before Dhamija,the country’s most well-known “ethical” hacker Ankit Fadia was out with his first book Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking when he was all of 14. “Though most publishers dismissed it as gibberish,it was after much persuasion that I could get it into print,” reminisces Fadia who was in Chandigarh recently to release his 15th book in the series titled How to Unblock Everything on the Internet (Vikas Publishing House/ Rs 150). Fadia is 26 and is of the opinion it’s never too early or late to write a book. “Today things (in publishing) are different. Manuscripts are accepted a lot more easily and readers are more than willing to read new authors,” he says.

Agree final year B.Tech students Sanchit Goel and Prateek Verma who co-authored their first book The Bachelors Theorem (Cedar Books/ Rs 150) which was launched in June last year. The response to their book is debatable but the authors feel there’s space for everyone. “We feel ours is a generation of readers that likes to read books that are easy to relate to and represent the present times — about call centres,hostels,college love stories that are expressed in a simple language,” says Goel who counts Erich Segal’s Love Story as his all-time favourite.

Most of these young authors write sans any literary pretensions and Chetan Bhagat,who can be credited for spearheading the “college-romance-action” books tops the list of role models. “Chetan Bhagat is inspirational,an icon for many of us. He has given youngsters a new genre of writing — that of campus novels,” says Nikhil Mukhija,a third year student of engineering at Kurukshetra University,who is set to launch his first novel You and Me and Our Relationship (General Press/Price undisclosed) on February 14. The title gives the story away and Mukhija says it’s inspired from his life on campus and a friend,who,heart-broken in love,was about to commit suicide. Terming it as a “self-help book on psychology of attraction”,the novel will make for a quick read at 180 pages. “I was watching the movie The Ugly Truth and realized,many like me had made blunders in relationships and this one book aims to assist youngsters with it,” says Mukhija as he goes on to add,“Though the market is flooded with self-help books,few are written in a simple,fun way that youngsters can relate to. That’s where I decided to play author and reach out to the young reader.” ‘Young’ might need a new definition.