Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Meeting My Match

Wouldn't it be nice if after finishing a good novel you could somehow hook up with the author and ask all those questions that are burning inside you?

Well, I have the bookholic's dream job. I just finished The Match last night and later this morning will be chatting to author Romesh Gunasekara about it in a phone interview for Starmag. The last time I spoke to him, the book was yet to be launched.

So if you'll excuse me for a while - I have to skip off and prepare my list of questions.

You might in the meantime like to check out Alefiya Akbarally's beautiful pictures of Romesh at Lord's cricket ground here and here.

Related Posts:

Have Pen, Will Subvert 27/11/05
B-Reef Reading 28/11/05
Romesh Revising 25/3/06
String Hoppers 16/5/06

2 comments:

Read@Peace said...

Sorry about being picky, but its Gunesekera without the 'n'. Had organised a reading for Romesh during his whistle stop tour of Singapore and watching him bring the book to life was utterly fascinating. He literally got off the plane, got to the reading and injected so much charm to the pages of 'The Match' that by the time he was done, the buyers queue for the book saw it flying off the shelf.

He made time for my TV slot the next morning and we finally learnt how the idea of 'The Match' was born.

If he didn't get to it, it started with a meeting he had with the British stars of the Indian blockbuster 'Lagaan'. One of the actors suggested that he do a book on cricket, since there "just like movies, there is a lot of hanging around on the cricket pitch."

Romesh thought it was a smart idea, took it to his publisher, who as the story goes was not entirely convinced. After a lot of pushing through, the idea went through, the book in current avataar was born and readers like me were instantly bowled over.

Zafar has done a brilliant post on Romesh's talk on his blog - Dreamink, if you want to find out more about what was clearly a night to remember.

bibliobibuli said...

slip corrected *blush* very many thanks

yes, i saw zafar's blog and plan to link to it ... and thanks for this too

romesh is a thoroughly nice guy and I enjoyed the interview very much. hopefully it will be in the star next sunday (17th)