January 21, 2010

Roadrunner in Hyderabad

Two events around my book Roadrunner in Hyderabad this weekend. I realize the Jaipur Literature Festival offers a degree of competition, but my suggestion to you is to give up on Roddy Doyle, Alexander McCall Smith, Wole Soyinka and so on and make a beeline instead for Hyderabad.

1) Friday January 22, 615 pm. I'll be speaking to Manthan. My subject is "Find our own Shiloh", and that will be an entry point into the book. Saptaparni, Road 8, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.

2) Saturday January 23, 630 pm. A reading of the book. Introduction by Anvar Alikhan. Reading by The Little Theatre. Akshara Bookstore, Road 3, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.

See you there, or not!

***

Postscript: Great news! Added attraction! Immediately on putting up this post, I got a note from Sridala (Space Bar of The Spaniard in the Works) saying she will be reading with The Little Theatre on Saturday 23rd.

So all you fans of Sridala, please drop your Jaipur plans immediately and come.

Thank you Sridala. I look forward to it.

8 comments:

Space Bar said...

what kind of a plug is that for your book?! and woyinka and others are finding it difficult to make it to jaipur, so yes, hyderabad is sunny, cold, and lovely!

see you sat!

Space Bar said...

(that is not a typo, btw. see nilanjana's blog for details).

kaprasanna said...

I had requested Landmark (Forum mall) Bangalore to arrange for your book after reading about it in TOI but even after 3 weeks, when I was told it isn't available I drove to uptown Jaynagar's Sapna book house in search of Road Runner and found it. :-)
So I have started reading it since last night. As I am a rather slow reader it's going to take some time for me to finish.
For the last many years I had this thought in my mind as to how US manages to stay united and democratic although being geographically such a huge country?
And then I used to draw comparisons between India and the US thinking although the technological advancements and economic might of America is there for everyone to see, poverty and jobless school dropouts must be there too. The filth and dirtiness I see in some parts of B'lore must be there too.
Then I had thought I would one day travel to the US and take a long trip by road / rail / whatever and compare the two countries and write my own experiences although I am not an author.
But I see you have already gotten there. Your book is *exactly* what I had envisaged!
So I am going to live my US-India comparison fantasy through your book.
Will send feedback as and how I make progress reading it.

Thanks.
http://twitter.com/kaprasanna

gaddeswarup said...

Dilip,
I am not familiar with the modern practices in book publishing but I have been wondering why so much fuss about a book. From your blog posts about travel, it seems that if you have sustained similar standards the book must be good. By now enough people know about it and it will reach those who want to read it. I do not understand these efforts.

Dilip D'Souza said...

Space Bar, you read brilliantly. More about that via other channels.

kaprasanna: thank you. I would love to hear what you think whenever you feel like. More when I hear from you.

Swarup sir: put it this way. I put a lot into this book -- time, finances, emotion, time away from family, sweat, sleep, on and on. When it came out, I felt like I had to make every effort possible to get some kind of word out about the book. I haven't always succeeded at that (my facebook efforts are stuck in the mud, for one thing!), but that's what I felt.

Again, I'd love to hear what you think if/when you read it.

Apologies for the word verification, it's because of a flood of junk comments over the last 2-3 weeks. As on this page too, which I am about to delete.

gaddeswarup said...

I was wondering about how to get a copy here in Australia. I have noplans to travel soon to India or USA .My e-mail address is anandaswarupg@gmail.com
If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

gaddeswarup said...

Article in Telugu on the Hyderabad function:

http://pustakam.net/?p=3576
Sreedala appears in the third photograph from last.

Dilip D'Souza said...

Thank you Swarup. The person who wrote that page sent me the link this morning. Unfortunately I don't know Telugu, so I don't know what it says. Can you tell me?

did you hear back about shipping the book to you?