Read: "A novelist responds: ‘More interesting to map the sensibilities of diasporic (Indian) writers’
Vivek Pinto
"Novelist Amitabha Bagchi reacts to Girish Shukla’s viral article which contends that almost all Indian writers of significance live outside India."
Anthony de Sa
I had the pleasure of interviewing (a sort of 'being in conversation with') Amitabh Bagchi in Bhopal at a literary event, talking about his then recently published novel The Night is Half Gone. That led to a correspondence of sorts, and I sent him the manuscript of my first book, "The Disrobing of Draupadi and Other Stories", for his comments. He was kind enough to invite me to his office in IIT Delhi, for a long conversation about my stories. He also willingly wrote a fine 'blurb' for it.
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Frederick Noronha
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Frederick Noronha
https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/why-almost-every-major-indian-writer-lives-abroad-and-what-it-has-done-to-indian-fiction-article-154065511
Frederick Noronha
Why almost every major Indian writer lives abroad and what it has done to Indian fiction (Girish Shukla):
https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/why-almost-every-major-indian-writer-lives-abroad-and-what-it-has-done-to-indian-fiction-article-154065511
- The writers the world associates most closely with Indian fiction are, almost without exception, people who left [India].
- This is not an accident. It is the defining structural fact of Indian English literature, and it has shaped not only who gets published but what gets written, how India is described on the page, and whose version of the country reaches the widest audience
- Some reasons on why they left... including: "The sheer difficulty of sustaining a literary career in India, where advances are lower, and the physical demands of daily life can grind down a writer's working hours in ways that rarely make it into interviews. Distance, for some, is not exile. It is oxygen."
- The consequences are literary, not just biographical. Expatriate Indian writers tend to write about India from a position of memory rather than immersion.
- The criticism is not that these writers are untalented. It is that their dominance has created a bottleneck through which a wildly diverse country is funnelled into a narrow set of narratives, most of them shaped by the distance from which they are composed.
- When the most internationally visible fiction from a country of 1.4 billion people is written primarily by a handful of authors living in Brooklyn, London, and Rome, the version of that country that reaches the global reader is inevitably partial.
- First, it can be pointed out that the great prominence of overseas writers could be counteracted, at least in India, by the Indian media giving prominence (and column space) to Indian writers living in India.
- The earlier writer seems unaware of Indians-in-India writing English fiction.
- All the Indian writers staying abroad are not one monolithic whole.
- Staying on in India can throw up challenges of its own
Frederick Noronha
- Literary infrastructure: agents, prizes, residencies, MFA programmes and review ecosystems are still concentrated in London and New York.
- Visibility and consecration: being published and reviewed in those centres often leads to global recognition, translations, prizes.
- Historical and linguistic factors: Indian writing in English has long been tied to British and American publishing circuits.
- Mobility and careers: many writers move for education or work and then build literary careers there.
Jeanne Hromnik
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sheela jaywant
On 23 Apr 2026, at 05:08, Jeanne Hromnik <jeanne...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Frederick Noronha
A counterpoint would question the assumption that low book prices and anecdotal impressions of reading activity necessarily indicate a “lively” reading culture.
First, low book prices in India can just as plausibly reflect constrained purchasing power, aggressive price competition, and cost structures (like cheaper paper, lower royalties, and high-volume print runs for textbooks), rather than widespread discretionary reading. In fact, a large portion of India’s publishing economy is driven by educational materials—test prep, schoolbooks, and guides—rather than trade books. That kind of demand inflates circulation numbers without necessarily signaling a culture of habitual, pleasure-oriented reading.
Second, the idea of “low book sales” is not as simple as it seems. India’s market is highly fragmented linguistically and geographically. This is why aggregate numbers look smaller and more diffused. A bestseller in a regional language may sell strongly locally but remain invisible in national or English-language reporting. Conversely, English-language titles often dominate formal retail channels and media coverage. This creates a skewed perception of relative scale. So the issue may not be low sales itself, but poor visibility and lack of consolidated data across languages.
Third, readership and sales are not the same. In India, books circulate through informal channels. This includes libraries (public and private), book-sharing (as Sheela points out), even photocopying, second-hand markets, and increasingly via unauthorised digital copying. A single purchased copy may be read by many people. This weakens the link between sales figures and actual readership. Measuring readership independently is difficult. Surveys, library lending data and digital platform engagement can offer part insights. Access and affordability, not lack of interest, shape reading behaviour.
Fourth, the fiction vs. nonfiction divide is also more complex than it seems to be. Non-fiction (like practical, religious, or educational) tends to have steady demand because it is tied to utility or cultural practice. Fiction, particularly literary fiction, may have lower sales but still holds some cultural significance and a dedicated readership. Meanwhile, genre fiction (romance, crime, mythology retellings) can sell very well. The Konkani romans of the era of Reginald Fernandes etc is a case in point. It is also true today with English and some regional languages. This challenges the notion that fiction is uniformly weaker.
Finally, the comparison with countries like South Africa may not be apt here. Pricing differences arise from currency values, import costs, market size and distribution infrastructure. There is a wide variation between these two regions, I'd guess. Also, India's trajectory in its post-1947 years, especially the first few decades of "nation building" are relevant here. It may be simplistic on my part to say so, but I get the impression that South Africa trajectoried from post-Apartheid to rampant-corruption (with some help from the Zuptas, et al) in a much shorter period of time. Things might have been different if the country had the time to build its own book ecosystem, with publishers et al. Parts of India have done this well (especially the big cities), but as I see it, Goa is still struggling. It has quite some way to go. Lower prices in India may expand access but don’t automatically imply a broader or deeper reading culture—just as higher prices elsewhere don’t necessarily indicate weaker engagement. Probably this depends on how the economics of the region play out.
Rather than concluding that India has a vibrant reading culture despite low sales, it may be more accurate to say that the country has a complex, uneven, and often undercounted reading ecosystem. Affordability, informality (in the market) and linguistic diversity obscure the true scale and nature of readership. (It has been a frequent complaint that book figures in India, including ones like Nielsens, don't seem to be very accurate.)
But the point initially raised was why some of the biggest names in Indian writing in English (fiction) tend to be based outside India. The same is true for Africa as a continent. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (US), Teju Cole (US), Taiye Selasi (US/UK), Dinaw Mengestu (US), NoViolet Bulawayo (US) show us how many influential African pens operate within global literary hubs rather than from within their countries of origin.
_/ Frederick Noronha फ्रेडरिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا
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Jeanne Hromnik
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Jeanne Hromnik
Jeanne Hromnik
Frederick Noronha
Even among writers based in India, a small set of names tends to get repeated. That's because literary “canons” are shaped less by output or "quality" (whatever that means) and more by visibility networks that reinforce themselves over time. International publishers, prize circuits, university syllabi, and media reviews often concentrate attention on a handful of breakthrough figures. A dozen (or two dozen) names in a country of 1.4 billion, you've got to be joking!
Once writers like R. K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, or Arundhati Roy become globally recognised, their continued circulation crowds out newer or less internationally marketed voices. This creates a feedback loop: scholars teach them, publishers reprint them and critics reference them because they are already widely known, which further entrenches their status. You can see the same thing happening at the regional level too.
But sticking to English: at the same time, India’s publishing ecosystem is fragmented across regions, languages and markets, so many strong English-language writers remain less visible (or even invisible) outside niche circles or domestic/regional readerships. The result is a concentration of recognition driven by institutions that prefer a stable, familiar set of representative “Indian voices”. Regional ones are mostly ignored. FN