Three new titles have set off buzzes in the book bazaar. One of them is Shackle the Storm by retired director general of Madhya Pradesh Police Shailendra Srivastava. Only a few from Bhopal have tried their hand at scripting a crime thriller in English – though there are many who have scripted biographies, autobiographies, memoires, history and political stories. They have emerged from the personal experiences of Srivastava. Rupa Publication released the book this month.
It begins with the story, Lucky Baton. Each word of the story turns into an image from the beginning, leaving a permanent imprint on the mind of a reader who encounters the stories of two young girls. A lust-driven man preyed upon two minor girls whom he bumped off after forcing himself upon them. The girls did not live to tell the tales of their misery, though. Yet the story is there to tell you how cruel are the people you are surrounded by; and how such people are sent behind bars.
The reader comes across infamous Dawood Ibrahim who kidnaps the son of an industrialist. The man is rescued from the clutches of Dawood’s henchmen. It tells the portrait of a crook who rapes his own granddaughter and eliminates her. He is sent to jail where he dies. The reader will take pleasure in the novella packed with such thrilling accounts.
Until August by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s, En Agosto Nos Vemos (Until August) is another novella that has cornered the limelight. In his final years, Marquez suffered memory loss which diminished his ability to write as fluently as he was doing. Yet the magic touch of Gabo, as Marquez was called by this endearing sobriquet, is present in each page of this novelette.
The Nobel laureate set aside the manuscript of the novella, saying it was not up to the mark, but he had re-worked on it for a few years since 1997. Despite this, he said he had not been satisfied. Ergo he left it incomplete. As he was down with memory loss, he could not follow the plot. His family also decided not to publish it.
In 2002, his sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha read the manuscript and found its literary value. They edited the work and decided to publish it – though their father told them to ensure its destruction. The manuscript was published posthumously on his 97th birth anniversary on March 6 this year and available in Indian market sometime in mid-April.
The preface to the book written by the author’s sons says that their father once said, “Memory is at once my source material and my tool. Without it there is nothing.” The protagonist of this novella, Ana Magdalena Bach, who lives with her husband, goes to the island every year, where her mother was buried; but, despite leading a happy life, she takes a new lover to the isle she ferries to. Anne McLean translated the book and Penguin published it.
Beasts of England by Adam Biles
Another novel is Adam Biles’s Beasts of England. It speaks about a Manor Farm that reinvented itself as the South of England’s petting zoo where humans and animals are treated alike. The visitors come and take a ride on the inmates of the farm. The novel has a plot within the plot, which covertly progresses. The condition of the inhabitants of the farm is not as good as it appears to be. The plot of the novel is an extension of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and limns a real portrait of modern politics where elections are rigged; a community is plugged by factions; and quotes from sacred tomes are cited. Picador India released the novel last year but it was available at the beginning of this year.
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