Dear IF readers,

I googled around to find Reeti Gadekar, a celebrated new novelist from New Delhi, India who was on the short list of the Asian Literary Prize Winners. I found this great piece by DNA, http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1133049.

I have cut and pasted the below directly as written by Venkatesan Vembu, for DNA. I am searching for the book to purchse, I understand it is being published. I will share with you its distribution. Here is the review -

New Delhi author opens new chapter with debut novel
Venkatesan Vembu
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 03:59 IST

“Reeti Gadekar’s Families at Home was shortlisted for the Man Asian literary prize. The book has earned her critical acclaim
HONG KONG: Reeti Gadekar is living a dream: the writer from New Delhi saw her debut novel, Families at Home, shortlisted for the Man Asian literary prize, billed as the “Booker Prize for Asia.” And although the $10,000 prize, announced over the weekend, eventually went to retired Chinese academic Jiang Rong, Gadekar is savouring the sweet taste of literary acclaim.
Gadekar, who holds a PhD in German literature from the Jawaharlal Nehru University and has worked as librarian, translator and German teacher, began writing last year “for no reason other than that I would enjoy my love of literature rather more if I got a little more intimately involved with it.” Prior to that, she’d done “no writing whatsoever,” she confessed to DNA in Hong Kong, where she’d come for the prize ceremony.
“I wrote some parts of the novel when I was in Germany,” recalls Gadekar. “But I found it difficult to make the mental switch between German and English… The words just didn’t come.” Families at Home, a work of humorous crime fiction in the Inspector Ghote mould made famous by HRF Keating, begins with the apparent ‘suicide’ of a young woman from a leading family in New Delhi. “But the bigger story — beyond the strands that run through it — is about access to justice, about how different people have access to different kinds of justice,” says Gadekar of her as-yet-unpublished novel. ”

Thank you Reeti. Thank you Venkatesan. Good reading IF Mag, Cat Wayland

Trackback URI | Comments RSS