JOIN US(1) Easy one to open the innings! Everybody knows Sachin Tendulkar released his autobiography recently. But, do you know the title?
(2) This should be easy — but, is it? When this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature was announced, even literature lovers wondered who this Frenchman was... there, I’ve given you half a clue! So, who was this year’s winner?
(3) Straightforward question: Who won this year’s Man Booker Prize? Bonus marks if you can name the winner’s country & the title of the book.
(4) Literary critics love to hate this Indian bestselling author’s works, and publishers love him for making the cash registers ring. A teacher from Bihar recently accused the author of plagiarism when his latest book was released. Name the author and the title of his latest book. Too easy!
(5) This English author has entertained millions for decades with her whodunits. She created the detective character Adam Dalgliesh, who became hugely popular. She recently passed away in the UK. Name the author.
(6) Another Sunday Herald tribute: this Jnanpith Award winner, who died recently, never hesitated to speak his mind, and was always in the middle of many controversies. Several of his novels and short stories have been made into movies. He was also one of the prime movers for renaming a major Indian city. Name the author, and at least two of his novels.
S Nanda Kumar
Answers
(1) Playing it My Way.
(2) Patrick Modiano. The Swedish Academy praised Modiano’s stories “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.” Modiano’s books centre around the German occupation of France in World War II. Modiano is not very well known in the English-speaking world. But, when the Prize was announced, France’s Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin committed a gaffe when she was unable to name a single Modiano book to a French TV channel after boasting that she had shared a “wonderful” lunch with the author.
(3) Richard Flanagan. Tasmania, Australia, for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The book was described by the judges as a “harrowing account of the cost of war to all who are caught up in it.”
(4) Chetan Bhagat, Half-Girlfriend.
(5) P D James. Phyllis Dorothy James died aged 94 years at her home in Oxford, Southern England, on November 27, 2014. She only began to write at age 40, and that too early in the mornings, before going to work as a civil servant. She had a small but faithful audience until her 8th book, Innocent Blood, made her an overnight international success. She wrote over 20 books.
(6) Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy. His novels include Samskara, Bara, Mouni, Diksha and Avaste. All of these have been made into movies. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. He died in Bengaluru on August 22, 2014. Along with this City, he recommended changing the names of 11 other cities in Karnataka, which was done last month.