Agents of Change

In far simpler times, “literary” was followed by “criticism” rather than “agent”. And then a young woman called Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize — and we got familiar with the legend of Rahel, Estha and David Godwin. It was a Cinderella story — of how Godwin, awed by Roy’s manuscript, booked a flight to India, signed her up and got her a million-dollar advance. The literary agent as godfather dawned on the scene and everyone with ink stain on their forefinger wanted one. Godwin was recently in the news after he snapped up this year’s Man Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga as a client, even as the media reported a fracas between Adiga and his former literary agent. Adiga said he was unhappy with the way he was represented by Jay Mandel of William Morris, the world’s biggest literary talent agency.

A literary agent is slowly becoming a norm in Delhi, and writers are increasingly looking for one who would change their fate of Rs 25,000 advance. The Capital’s busy ones are Red Ink by Anuj Bahri that has been in the business since October 2006, and Osian’s — The Literary Agency that is 17 months old. Both of them get 15-20 per cent of the book deal between the author and the publisher.

Renuka Chatterjee, senior vice-president of Osian’s — The Literary Agency, who has a list of 21 writers, says the first part of being an agent is pretty much the same as being an editor in a publishing house. “An agent is the author’s first reader. We do the first editing of the work. Once the manuscript is ready to submit, then we send it to various publishers. Rights are sold territory-wise, so we would send it to four-five publishers in India, and to publishers in the UK, US and countries in Europe and elsewhere. The decision of which publisher to give it to in a particular territory, depends on whether the advance and royalties they are offering are fair. So unless an author trusts you to do your best for him or her, it’s not going to work,” she says. Bahri and Chatterjee each receives over 100 manuscripts every month. Chatterjee, however, rues that 99 per cent of unsolicited work that she gets cannot be published. “But there is still that 1 per cent that might turn out to be brilliant, which is why none of us can afford to ignore the slush pile,” she says.

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