CHENNAI: How important is a Sahitya Akademi Award to a recipient? Does it translate into the author’s works flying off the shelves besides bringing recognition? Or awarded translators getting more assignments? A day after two writers from Tamil Nadu got the prestigious awards,
Express tried to do a reality check on the celebrated pen pushers and found interesting responses.
R N Joe D’Cruz, who bagged the award for his novel Korkai last year, says the sale of his books did go up immediately after he got the honour, but the graph won’t stay up for long if the quality of writing is uneven.
“Winning award and events connected with it create a buzz, which result in spurt in the sale of books. But people continue to buy a book based on how it is written,” he observes.
S Venkatesan, whose historical novel Kavalkottam won him the award in 2011, feels that winning it has helped increase the sale of the work. “The media highlights the book, which in turn, reaches a wider audience. Literary magazines and bloggers in the social media also spread the word,” he says.
When Kavalottam was first published in 2009, the book was received well. “We reprinted the book in 2010 and within two years, around 3,000 copies got sold.
But after the book fetched the Sahitya Akademi award, its demand soared. Till date, around 20,000 copies have been sold. Every week, at least one new reader calls me over the phone and discusses the book. That became possible only because of the award,” says Venkatesan.
For Tamil writer D Selvaraj who received the award for his novel Thol in 2012, the sales depend on the style of writing. “I have been in the field for nearly 40 years and come across many people getting awards for their works. But the sales of the books depend only on their quality. One good thing in the recent past is that the Sahitya Akademi Award Selection Committee has been recommending quality literary works for the award,” he says.
According to Kalachuvadu publisher Kannan Sundaram, the market demand for Cruz’s book Korkai was tepid after it went on print for the first time. “His book is a bit expensive, so we could sell only 1,000 copies. But, immediately after the author received the Akademi award for the book, the sales increased to nearly 4,000 copies,” he said.
Murthyraju from BookConnect, online bookseller of Indian books, says immediately after the government announcement of the awards, lots of people across the country gave feedback online for Korkai.
“People are attracted to the book that bags an award, and the media’s focus on the work also facilitates the rise in the sale,” he adds.
Bharathi Puthakalayam south zonal Manager A Krishnamoorthy says that after announcement of the award, many educational institutions invite the awardee-writer to address the students and also place orders for the college libraries. This could be one reason why there is a spurt in sales.