The world's only novel with its own soundtrack

Indra Sinha may be the world’s only novelist whose website invites his readers to submit, via You Tube, their performances of songs featured in his latest novel. The novel is “Animal’s People”, which last week won the distinction of being included on the long list of 13 novels for Britain’s most prestigious literary prize, the Man Booker, worth £50,000 Sterling.

Sinha [pictured below in 1999, with Holly], who is originally from Mumbai, went to school in India and England, and read English at Cambridge University. He worked as an advertising copywriter before leaving to become a “proper” writer, and now lives in the South of France. In 1999 his first book “Cybergypsies” appeared, followed in 2002 by “The Death of Mr Love”.

The songs referred to in “Animal’s People” are mainly from Indian films, plus Edith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose”. Sinha is still seeking performances of the songs ‘Kaun aayaa mere man ke dvaare’ and ‘Main nashe mein hoon’. He prefers those contributing songs to record their own versions because recordings of film songs posted on You Tube often cease to be available, presumably after copyright complaints from distributors.

“Animal’s People” is set among the victims of a chemical leak catastrophe, modeled on the December 1984 Bhopal disaster. It is set in a fictional town called Khaufpur, afflicted by a gas leak one night from an American-owned chemical plant. The book’s nineteen-year-old central character Animal walks on all fours as a result of the events of That Night. A young female American doctor, Elli Barber, comes to the town to open a clinic for those affected by the gas, and Animal becomes involved in a web of intrigues, scams and plots.

Sinha dedicates “Animal’s People” to the Bhopal survivor and activist Sunil Kumar. Kumar travelled the world to try to mobilize support against the 1989 settlement between Union Carbide and the Indian government. In July last year he hanged himself at the age of 34.



Sinha says the novel owes much to Kumar and the stories he told him about his life. Kumar was 12 when gas seeped from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and killed all but two members of his large family. He became wholly responsible for looking after his younger brother and sister. Kumar suffered severe mental problems, which Sinha attributes to the effects of the gas.

The Bhopal disaster continues to blight lives. In addition to the 20,000 who have died so far, more than 120,000 continue to suffer ill effects. In 1994 Sinha advertised in the London-based Guardian newspaper for funds to set up a free clinic for Bhopal survivors. The Sambhavna clinic opened two years later, and has so far helped around 20,000 people.

The Man Booker is open to novels written in English from the Commonwealth nations, plus Ireland. The shortlist of five books will be announced on September 13, and the winner at a dinner on October 16

This year’s Booker judges have produced a longlist full of fresh talent, including a substantial proportion of names that are as yet little known. Four of the books are by debut novelists. The chairman of the judges is Howard Davies, the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The other judges are poet Wendy Cope, journalist and author Giles Foden, biographer and critic Ruth Scurr and actor and writer Imogen Stubbs. The judges considered 110 novels. “Slightly to my surprise, only 39 of the athors are women, while 38 are from outside the United Kingdom,” Davies writes in his Booker blog. “Even more surprisingly, 14 of the entries are either wholly or substantially set during the Second World War.”

There has been a predictable outcry over the omission from the longlist of some of the biggest names in fiction. Among the novels to be left out are Doris Lessing’s “The Cleft”, and novels by former Booker winners Graham Swift, Thomas Keneally, Michael Ondaatje and JM Coetzee (winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, and two-times Booker winner).


Susannah Tarbush
Saudi Gazette August 13