Journalism of Courage
With Shoma Narayanan’s ‘Monsoon Wedding Fever’ Harlequin India takes the Indian brigade of Mills & Boon global.
The settings are contemporary urban India. Or as it is in this case,the over-exposed city of Mumbai. While the Mills & Boon family has found a new readership with their Indian markets and Indian authors they are taking it a step further. Their latest Indian entrant ‘Monsoon Wedding Fever’ written by Shoma Narayanan has become the first book in their series written by an Indian author to go global. Put across as a carefully planned decision Harlequin India will be distributing the book to their international markets to give them a taste of Indian writing.
The growth in the Indian publishing industry,says Singh,has given an impetus to Indian authors. India is ready for the global market and even global reading audience too is interested in Indian cities,the work culture,the urban and the rural population. Promoting them globally means giving an impetus to Indian writing too, she adds.
The risk of typecasting India and its culture is something was inherent but times have changed,points out Singh. The dynamics are reflecting the societal changes on both sides and the books are only a medium to highlight this change,she says.
Narayanan,on the other hand is cheerful about the book going global. It’s a typical Mills & Boon tale,and the reader is assured of a happy ending. Of course I had to tweak the style of writing by using less Hindi sentences and words for audiences in the West, says the author.
