BENGALURU: Mani Rao says she would rather meet friends in person and authors in books, Per Bloch loves superheroes
Mani Rao, Bengaluru
A book you keep going back to
The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley
A book that you think makes a perfect gift
A blank notebook
A book you would love to have written
If I could have I would have..
Guilty pleasure
None, just pleasures
Now reading
Devdutt Pattanaik’s My Gita
Ebooks or paperbacks?
Paperbacks
Three authors you would invite over for tea
None! Authors are best met in their books, and friends in person...
Per Bloch, Denmark
A book you keep going back to
With a vast list of books I’d like to read, I tend to read books only once. Some might find that an error, but I have to prioritise. One book I have read twice, though, is Hemingway’s Garden of Eden but the second time was mainly for professional reasons: to learn from the master.
A book that you think makes a perfect gift
Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time which will be a present for life for the recipient. Because of the size of the work and because of the array of details to plunge into. I’d need some kind of vehicle to deliver it, but it would be worth it.
A book you would love to have written
Kafka on the Beach by Haruki Murakami. Besides the Danish author Suzanne Brøgger, Murakami is probably the author I have read the most. And the fastest. His universe is so elaborate and so imaginative. His skills of creating narrative and characters are exquisite. So elegant and colourful.
A childhood favourite
I’ve always loved superheroes, but that doesn’t count as literature, does it? And cartoons – Donald Duck, Asterix and Garfeld. Sorry, can’t help it. If you insist: my mother used to read The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren to my little sister and me, and my father read Karlsson-on-the-roof to me, also by Astrid Lindgren, after their divorce.
Guilty pleasure
I refuse to feel guilt for any of my pleasures! And how much space do we have? Well, let’s narrow it down to some of the pleasures I’ve discovered here in India – the warm red soil, your chutneys and toppings, the bindies, the chai (I thought I’d tasted chai in Europe!) and the most impactful until now: the Odissi dance that I had the overwhelming pleasure of seeing at Nrityagram in Hessaraghatta. I attended their rehearsals and it made my cry. What will happen when I see their performance?
Now reading
During my writing process – and that is why I’m here in India, to write my next novel – I prefer to read magazines and graphic novels. I brought a few novels from Denmark, but they remain closed. Right now, I’m reading Scenario Magazine, an international magazine produced in Denmark on trends, ideas and possible futures. A perfect stimulus for my writings.
Ebooks or paperbacks?
Print! No doubt and always. Screens are body snatchers that keep invading our lives. As a worrier of the Real World, I prefer tactility and paper.
Three authors you would invite over for tea
Dare I invite Ernest Hemingway, and would he come if I only served tea? Would I have the French skills to make Marcel Proust try my Japanese matcha tea instead of his usual lindenfower tea? And then I’d invite my late grandmother, who was a writer and painter. She’d keep Hemingway on a short leash and since she died before I made my debut, I’d like to hear her opinion on my scribblings and sounds.
Zac O’Yeah, Bengaluru
A book you keep going back to
The Guide by RK Narayan
A book that you think makes a perfect gift
Hari, a Hero for Hire by Zac O’Yeah
A book you would love to have written
In An Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh
A childhood favourite
Ice Station Zebra by Alistair Maclean
Guilty pleasure
Reading absolute pulp fiction. Ah, I better admit it. The pulpier the better.
Now reading
Buddha in Central Asia – A travelogue by Sunita Dwivedi
Ebooks or paperbacks?
Paperbacks any day.
Three authors you would invite over for tea
Only three? And can we make it coffee instead – I’ve got this stash of great Coorgi Arabica beans. And I’d invite the scholar Professor Harish Trivedi, the poet K Satchidanandan and one of my many favourite novelists, Vikram Chandra.