Book Reviews
Blending Tradition With Modernity.
- eFiction India
What do you say about a literary online journal which has songs and attempts sincerely to convert poems into songs? This is only one aspect of eFiction India the literary journal which publishes short fiction, poetry and now is also recording songs. Moreover, it is also establishing the credentials of a developing literary form - the flash fiction.
eFiction India is the off shoot of the parent journal eFiction published from the USA and which boasts of excellent short stories. I have had the fortune to review some of them.
However, eFiction India is a class apart as it also publishes short stories of very high standards and some excellent poems. It's attempts at converting poetry into songs is a daring innovation in literature and the arts. Poetry and music have distinct affinities and I have always felt that a good poem is song like and lyrical. Similarly a very good song can be unfettered poetry at its height. The latest issue of eFiction India experiments with uploading a song on the theme of eFiction. I have heard it and it will certainly give to the journal an exquisite piece of literary talent and a new genre in today's daring world of innovation and experiment in literature, music and the arts. Many professedly literary journals both online and print are publishing a melange of literature, the fine arts and extracts from popular songs. But the distinction of eFiction India is that it is attempting towards original song composition and actually putting it to music online. This is not only an extraordinary venture but is a fusion of music and poetry in their finer senses. The manager of eFiction India is to be congratulated for radicalising the very concept of literature and music and bringing it to popular, mind you, not populist levels of aesthetics.
The short stories of eFiction India deal with a range of themes such as: social exclusion, poverty, the big city syndrome, humour, post modernist 'values' such as lesbianism, the holocaust of living in the city, the travails of living in a metropolis, folklore etc. It also provides paraphernalia for exploring human behaviour and pattern which are at once tragic, comic or serio comic. The idea of transformation of a good poem into a song will further enhance the already established credibility of this online journal. Moreover, the effort to convert stories to films is also being mooted. The Editor Nikhil Sharda is himself a film maker and has over thirty short films to his credit.
Again, eFiction India is undauntedly trying to establish flash fiction, which is short short fiction into a full fledged literary genre, though it is still in its formative stages. But the very fact that eFiction India is publishing flash fiction attests credibility to this new style of fiction.
Moreover, eFicition India has thrown open a new wealth of talent in the Indian literary scene of writers writing in English. It has in its editorial board two young under-graduate women one from Pakistan and the other from Sri Lanka as well. Both these women are exceptionally talented writers. In fact, we also have to watch out for writers like Michelle D' Costa and Richa Mehta who are regular contributors.
I feel eFiction India has radicalised literature and the arts in many ways and subverted many literary norms. In fact, it has reworked both definitions of tradition and modernity. By publishing poems in regular rhyme and meter eFiction India has certainly re-defined modern and contemporary poetry.
Again, eFiction India will also go into the print mode very soon on a regular basis. At present it has printed limited copies of the first three issues. In short it is an excellent literary journal providing ample literary fodder.
12-Feb-2013
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Ananya S Guha
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Amazingly said...! eFiction India is undoubtedly one of the best platform through which writers can reach out to the world and it is progressing by leaps and bounds. I am more than glad to be a part of it..!! |
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