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NEW DELHI - Bookshops across India are clearing their shelves to make way for a a newly discovered market: educated, middle-class young women who want to read books written by educated, middle-class young women.
Chick-lit has arrived in India.
Publishers believe the trend has been cemented by a novel that has already gone into four print runs and sold 10,000 copies - alot in the English-language fiction market. Almost Single, by Advaita Kala, is set in a five-star hotel and details the daily twists and turmoil of the life of the protagonist who works there, a young, independent woman making her way in a world beset by traditional values. To Westerners such themes may seem seriously passe. In India, a much more conservative society, it has freshness.
In cities such as Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, young women are living independent, professional lives and often delay getting married and having children. Part of the focus of the new chick-lit novels is on the characters' efforts to balance their new independence with traditional pressures.
Next year will see the publication of another chick-lit book, based on a Sex and the City-style blog by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, a journalist.
- Independent
