What books do you have on your radar in 2012?

I’m not very good at predictions. It’s difficult to say what book or writer will resonate with the public imagination at any point in time.

There is always a moment for these things. But it’s comforting to know that there is really good output at both ends of the market, at the popular bestseller end, with Chetan Bhagat, Amish Tripathi and Ashwin Sanghi selling their books in amazing numbers, and the place that more literary voices in fiction and poetry still continue to find for themselves, through little magazines, the internet, niche publishing houses. I think it will be a good year for fiction, and even though the success of narrative non-fiction is clearly an important marker. The novel as a literary form is too important, intuitive and imaginative to ever be left behind.

The novel is something always new, and we will find some excellent fiction, in English and the Indian languages. Also, digital publishing and the e-book will paradoxically restore attention to the book as an object, a beautifully crafted and intimate confluence of ideas. Vikram Seth’s The Rivered Earth is an example of this, combining music, poetry, philosophy, calligraphy and conversation.

India’s publishing industry is growing rapidly, with new writers and publishing houses buying rights for established names. How has this developed for India unlike in Pakistan where we have a few publishers and not many do fiction?

I think the sheer diversity of the Indian market and the need to make sense of the contradictions and rapidly accelerating changes around us have led to the boom in different segments of the publishing industry. As for Pakistan, it’s exhilarating to see the astounding writing coming from there, be it Jamil Ahmad’s The Wandering Falcon, or Mohammed Hanif, whose new book has done really well here.

How has competition helped India’s publishing industry in the past year with well-known international publishing houses opening in India?

The proliferation of publishing houses lead to different areas of interest and different points of view finding an entry point into the market.

There is a pool of highly competent and talented professionals who care passionately about publishing, and that is where the competition works best in raising the bar for excellence in all aspects of publication.

How important and exciting will 2012 be for translations and what sort of development do you hope to see in this genre?

The year 2012 will see a renewed interest in translations. South Asia exists in a constant and on-going state of translation, and the dialogue between languages is important. Also the dominance of Anglophone voices leads to a monotony of thought. It’s interesting to see Chinese writers like Bi Feiyu find enthusiastic audiences in India, although the contradiction is that these are of course in English. I am looking forward to seeing translations of Kai Chand Thai Sare Asmaan, an astounding epic fiction written in Urdu by S. R. Farooqui. I am working with ILA (Indian Literature Abroad) to promote translations of contemporary fiction from the 22 national languages into the six Unesco languages. It’s a project with a long germination period, but we hope it will bear fruit.

Lastly Jaipur in 2012 promises some big names. What major themes are likely to emerge and dominate 2012?

Jaipur in 2012 sees some major international writers, including Michael Ondaatje, Annie Proulx, Tom Stoppard and Richard Dawkins. A range of voices from across the Indian languages include writers from Odisha, Bangla, Kannada, Urdu, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Rajasthani and Hindi. The vibrant multilingualism of Indian writing is as always a dominant theme of the festival. Also there is a focus on theatre with Tom Stoppard, David Hare, Girish Karnad and others. Translations are also the subject of discussion, as also the idea of ‘biblio- diversity’ in publishing. It’s important to resist the lazy homogenisation and flattening out of voices.