Fiction

My Poems are Not for your Ad Campaign

by Aruni Kashyap

Description

In a recently liberated economy characterized by speed, the commodification of women’s bodies and consumerist culture, Bhashwati is an increasingly disillusioned misfit who has, ironically, just started working in an advertising firm. But her life changes one day when she finds out about the mysterious Mohua Roy, a former copywriter with the company, whose desk Bhashwati now uses. The company employees remain tight-lipped about Mohua, who had left abruptly for reasons unknown. On finding a poem written by Mohua, Bhashwati decides to search for her. This takes Bhashwati to Calcutta’s lanes, where she meets people who sacrificed immensely for the same values that she finds eroded in a developing India. Who is Mohua Roy? Why is there a net of silence around her very existence? Will Bhashwati find Mohua? Will she leave her job, just like Mohua?

Hriday Ek Bigyapan, first published in Assamese in 1997, was an instant bestseller, going into tens of reprints in the next two decades. By taking a close look at the newly globalized India of the 1990s from a feminist lens, it poses questions about modern urban life that few Indian novels have been able to-questions that are still relevant today. Aruni Kashyap’s seamless translation from the Assamese makes this book a must-read.

More Information

Rights Information

World rights available (excluding Indian subcontinent), Indian and international translation rights available (excluding Assamese), Dramatisation rights available

Author Biography

Aruni Kashyap is the author of His Father’s Disease: Stories and the novel The House With a Thousand Stories. He has edited a collection of stories called How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency, and also translated two novels from Assamese to English. Aruni is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Faculty Research Grants in the Humanities and Arts Program, Arts Lab Faculty Fellowship, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship for Creative Writing to the University of Edinburgh. His poetry collection, There is No Good Time for Bad News was nominated for the 58th Georgia Author of the Year Awards 2022, was a finalist for the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and Four Way Books Levis Award in Poetry.


Aruni’s short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in CatapultBitch MediaThe Boston ReviewElectric LiteratureThe Oxford Anthology of Writings from NortheastThe Kenyon ReviewThe New York TimesThe Guardian UK, shortlisted for the Armory Square Prize in South Asian Literature in Translation, Best of the Net, and mentioned as a notable essay in Best American Essays anthology 2022. He also writes in Assamese and is the author of a novel called Noikhon Etia Duroit. Aruni works as an Associate Professor of English at the University of Georgia, where he is also the director of the Creative Writing Program.

Bibliographic Information

  • Publisher/Imprint Penguin Random House India / India Viking
  • Publication Date May 2023
  • ISBN/Identifier 9780670096817
  • FormatPaperback
  • Primary Price 499 INR
  • Pages176
  • ReadershipGeneral
  • Publish StatusPublished
  • Original Language TitleHriday, Ek Bigyapan
  • Original Language AuthorsAnuradha Sarma Pujari
  • Copyright Year2023

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