Indian parents want “soft, pre-digested, danger-free” stories for their children and “if there is an idea in it, they don’t like it”, said author Jerry Pinto while talking about why short fiction in the children’s section hasn’t caught on, at a session titled “The Power of a Short Story”.
“They want the epics retold... I have no issues with that. But do not expect a vital, vibrant life of the (shortstory) market if there is one narrative that you are constantly feeding the child,” Pinto added.
His advice to parents: “Bring home a book of stories in which there is a little boy who lives in a one-bedroom flat like yours. Bring home a book with a boy or girl whose name sounds like your child’s name... Can’t you see, when you read you want your stories on the pages?”
Calling children a “demanding, honest” audience, Pinto added that he gives his best when he writes for children. He, however, joked that the shortcut to becoming a successful short story writer is to be born in America, send those stories to The New Yorker, and win the Pulitzer.
Pinning some accountability on publishing houses for not expanding the short story space, Sri Lankan author and Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka said, “The conventional publishing wisdom, ‘until you have written a novel, you are not quite the writer’, still holds. You can dabble in short stories, but it’s just a thing to jam on, while the serious work is the novel.”
However, he added that short fiction finds space in Sri Lankan papers and radio. “When you are starting out as a writer... it is a legitimate form to get started on.”
Kerala-based author K R Meera said the state has a culture of writing short stories in Malayalam, and some authors refuse to write novels “because they think short fiction is the superior form of literature”.
She said, “there should be another award” for short fiction. “The Kerala Sahitya Akademi has awards for the best novel of the year, and the best short story collection of the year. So, every year, there are a number of short story collections published in Malayalam.”
