Books in Goa: promises and perils of publishing

By Frederick Noronha

Selma Carvalho spent part of her Goa holiday trying to finish a book dealing with stories of Goan migration. The UK-based mother of a three-year-old believes her work has inputs that could help Goans better understand their own complex reality.

Carvalho is one of a growing trend of writers bringing Goa-centric work to the fore. An increasing number of books on Goa is getting into print, here and elsewhere. Goa, the size of an average Indian district, has an amazing set of numbers on its side. Outside of the metros, it is probably the most intensely published region nationwide, given its size.

“Each year, between 200 to 250 books are being published in Goa alone. Out of these, about 70% are in Konkani,” notes Central Library curator Carlos Fernandes.

Fernandes, a soft-spoken man with a reputation for his quiet efficiency, sits at the helm of the oldest public library in South Asia. The Central Library was set up as the Publica Livraria in 1832, but has been overtaken by the metros across India. Formerly with the Goa Engineering College, Fernandes believes that good writers can help sell books in a world where a market exists and technology has made things simple — you can layout a book on your desktop computer at home.

The trickle is turning into a flood. Old-timers remember the situation in the 1980s, when there would be just a handful of Goa-related books visible at exhibitions and sales. Today, there are literally dozens, if not a few hundred books on Goa in print. That is, if you know where to find them.

“Goa is in a unique situation,” avers Vivek Menezes, a Goan expat who returned home while in his 30s. He has published two books, that offer overviews of music and art in Goa. “Yet the market is ridiculed. People make false assumptions about Goa.” His suggestion is that much more is possible.

Miramar-based Menezes, who can be often found in the mornings working hard at writing from his office near Panjim’s municipal garden, sees Goa as a “potentially large and lucrative market”. He points to the tourist purchases of local books. Besides, “Goa is on top of the national food-chain in terms of interest and visibility.”

GoaWriters meeting underway. Photo: from left, Rahul Shrivastav, Willy Goes, Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, Jose Lourence and Vivek Menezes. More GoaWriters below, from left, Xavier Cota, Cecil Pinto, Alito Sequeira, Damodar Mouzo, Jose Lourenco and Augusto Pinto. Women members are absent from photos for some reason!

Menezes argues: “You have all the ingredients in place for huge growth; but we’re told that Goa is too small and cannot sustain! We have a huge captive audience. In the last two to three years, due to the presence of (top national writers like) Amitav Ghosh (who have homes in Goa), the writing community is also getting built up.”

Goa Konkani Akademi directory…

From Joel D’Souza’s news clips:

Directory by GKA: Goa Konkani Akademi is publishing a directory regarding information of Konkani writers, writing both in Devnagari and Roman Script, Konkani journalists, activissits, institutions working for the cause of Konkani language and culture, teachers. The last date to receive the information is September 15. Contact Goa Konkani Akademi, 2437385, 2437920. [GT September 2, 2009]

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Some of my favourite… Goa books

A slightly-edited note of what I recently posted to the GoaWriters group, in response to a question of some of my favourite Goa-related books.

• Goan Literature: A Modern Reader. Peter Nazareth (ed)
• Of umbrellas, goddesses & dreams. Essays on Goa by Robert S. Newman
• Between Empires, Rochelle Pinto
• A History Of Konkani Literature: Manoharrai Sardessai
• Domnic’s Goa by Domnic Fernandes
• Tivolem by Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
• Goa a Daughter’s Story by Maria Aurora Couto
• Parmal, past and present issues. Prava Rai, ed.
• Ethnography of Goa, Daman and Diu Tr: MA Couto. AB De Braganca Pereira
• Fish, Curry and Rice. Claude Alvares (ed)
• Profile of Eminent Goans. J. Clement Vaz
• Sorrowing Lies My Land. Lambert Mascarenhas.
• The Transforming of Goa. Norman Dantas (ed)
• Sinners and Saints: The successors of Vasco Da Gama. Sanjay Subrahmanyam
• The General is Up. Peter Nazareth
• Goa Remembered: Vignettes of Fading Traditions. Agnelo Pereira
• Reflected in Water: Writings on Goa.  Jerry Pinto (ed)
• Goa in the 20th Century. Pius Malekandathil (ed)/Remy Dias

Check the Goa-books sections at http://www.goabooks.com (Broadway) or http://www.otherindiabookstore.com (OIBS, Mapusa). They have fairly elaborate lists of Goa-related (mostly English focussed) books-in-print available with them. For obvious reasons, books are more affordable if purchased (in Rupee prices) in Goa itself.

And some more additional details:

Manoharrai Sardessai’s Sahitya Akademi-published book is a steal at Rs 160. You can find part of the book free for an online read at Google books:

The General is Up is one of the Goa-related books hidden away at the P. Lal-run Writer’s Workshop of Kolkata. Waiting to be bought and stocked for sale in Goa itself! Available at 25% discount, cash down for wholesalers, but the freight has to be borne by the buyer, Lal told me recently. I think the OIBS at Mapusa also has Peter Nazareth.

When Agnelo Pereira’s hb book was published nearly a decade ago, I thought it was a bit overpriced at Rs 300. Now it’s good value for money. Fascinating illustrations of the Goa that was in the yesteryears. It’s available at the OIBS too.

Goa in the 20th century, another good book (has essays on Emissora de Goa and even the student movement of the 1970s-1990s) can be got from the Institute Menezes Braganza. I don’t know why institutions simply hand over the job of book-selling… to booksellers!

PS: This list is incomplete. Looking for the list of other people’s favourites too…. I have also kept out of the list some of the books which I have been involved with (except Domnic’s Goa and Jerry Pinto’s) for obvious reasons….

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Mando book… in early September 2009

There seems to be some confusion in the date of this announcement, with the date being rendered both as Sept 5 and 6. –FN

Sept. 4, 2009: A well documented prestigious Mando book , a compilation of rare engravings depicting “Ancient Goa’s” cultural aspect and historic journey, coupled with poetic songs composed and harmonised by our ansestors and compiled by Shri C. M. Estibeiro will be released at the hands of Shri Tomazinho Cardozo, President of Tiatr Academy, Goa in the presence of Fr. Domnic Alvares, Nephew of late C. Alvares at Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa on September 6, 2009 at 12.00 noon.

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E-granthalay (library) at Margao, Goa

An official press note from the Department of Information and Publicity (Government of Goa) says:

Chief Minister,  Digamber Kamat is seen inaugurating E-Granthalaya at Margao Municipal Library,on Saturday, September 5, 2009. Also seen are Margao Municipal Council, Chairperson Shri Savio Coutinho, Chief Officer, Shri Y B Tawde and other councilors.

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Absence: what a Goan writer finds when he embarks on a journey (Review by Eusebio L. Rodrigues)

Eusebio L. Rodrigues, who has been at Georgetown University’s English Department, takes a closer look at Joao da Veiga Coutinho’s “A Kind of Absence: Life in the Shadows of History” (Yuganta Press, Connecticut, 1997), and finds the author’s  search has taught him many things. Including the lesson that there is no single way of being a Goan. And that Goans were among the first to experience a dislocating sense of exile that is modern; and that Goans must learn to live without roots, and replace roots with horizons in order to see a world of infinite possibility. Says the reviewer: “I hope this review will trigger questions about what it means to be a Goan.”

Eusebio L. Rodrigues

Joao da Veiga Coutinho, a Goan whose inner depths have been disturbed by mysterious eruptions, writes ‘A Kind of Absence: Life in the Shadows of History’ to understand what is happening to him. He undertakes a painful return to the self he was, so that the act of writing becomes an invitation to a voyage of discovery. A shy sensitive seeker he will exhume his buried self, not to tell all, but to toss out bits and pieces that his reader has to put together before meanings can emerge.

These emerge reluctantly in spurts of meditations, comments, musings. They erupt out of a life that is deliberately not channeled into autobiography — that would be just a construct — but as an erratic, bubbling flow, a random quest crowded with questions.

It is a two fold quest. That of a writer who begins a search for he knows not what, one who sets forth to understand his Goanness, and who insists also that his reader come along with him on a parallel quest. He talks to his reader, but keeps him at the distance proper to art. He offers the reader insights but no explanations, compels him to experience his own hesitancies, his broodings, his speculations. Treats the reader as a kinsman, a Goan frPre, capable of sharing the experience and of understanding its meaning.

The journey opens with a meditation on history in general and on Goan history in particular. No generalizations on history are offered, for the writer will not trap himself in a definition. History, an ongoing process, involves time, and time never stops, it flows. Our writer is a Bakhtinian with a dialogical imagination.