The Hindu : Vikram Seth strikes it rich

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 18, 2003

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Vikram Seth strikes it rich

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JULY 17. Novelist Vikram Seth is reported to have been paid an advance of £ 1.3 million by Time Warner Books for his next book, Two Lives — a memoir built around his great uncle Shanti who married a German Jewish girl, Henny, he befriended while staying with her family in Berlin in the thirties.

A spokesperson for Time Warner Books, however, refused to comment on the advance believed to be unprecedented for a non-fiction work. "We don't comment on our financial arrangements," she told The Hindu but confirmed that Little Brown, an imprint of Time Warner Books, would be publishing the book.

Seth published his two previous books — A Suitable Boy and An Equal Music — with Penguin which lost the bidding for Two Lives in an auction involving around 10 publishers. His literary agent, Giles Gordon, who pulled off the deal, could not be reached.

Richard Beswick, publishing director of Little Brown, was ecstatic. "I have wanted the company of Vikram Seth ever since bidding for, and losing, his masterpiece A Suitable Boy 11 years ago," he said. Describing Seth as a "unique writer", Mr. Beswick said: "I believe he is someone about whom one can genuinely use the word genius. I have never known a publishing team so deeply affected as we were by our meeting with Vikram."

The book will be published in hardback in 2005.

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