Dinesh Verma's Blog, page 2

Goodreads Giveaway

The giveaway for my collection of stories 'The Fine Print and Other Yarns' concluded on 15th of April 2017 with participation of 788 readers. The five winners were selected by Goodreads and the process for delivery of the books to the five winners was initiated by me immediately. I am sure that the winners would receive their copies latest by the end of first week of May.

Giveaway: 'The Fine Print and Other Yarns'

A giveaway offer of five copies of CreateSpace paperback edition of my collection of stories 'The Fine Print and other Yarns' started on 1st April on Goodreads. The closing date for the giveaway is 15th April.

CreateSpace Edition of 'The Fine Prints and Other Yarns'

A new Amazon CreateSpace paper book edition of my collection of stories 'The Fine Print and other Yarns' is now available at:
https://www.createspace.com/6893348
The book contains nine stories some of which are more of a novella than a story. For a detailed description of the contents of the book:
http://dineshvermadelhi.com/about/

Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan

It’s great news in a way, though the purists would frown upon it. This year’s Nobel Prize for Literature goes not to a novelist, a dramatist or a poet but to a popular singer. However one must not forget that he is also a lyricist and the author of most of his famous songs. One must also not forget that singing is the most primordial and primeval form of literary expression that mankind knows. Chants, ditties, lays, ballads and songs probably are as ancient as the phenomenon of human being’s power of speech. And whatever part of the world one may talk about, songs are the most appealing and moving form of art form for common men.

As for Bob Dylan, apart from this prize, his fame stands ensured and immortalized just by three songs of his: ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, ‘The Times They are a-Changin’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. The three songs put together embody respectively, the timelessness of certain phenomena which human beings take for granted while yet ignoring a wrong that is glaring them on their face; the knowledge about manifestation of change that takes place in every generation and the human predicament that for the lack of this knowledge and in most cases despite this knowledge, human beings spend their existence on this planet whiling away their time like a rolling stone.

So bravo, three cheers and hurrah to Bob Dylan and let us hope that some more singers cum lyricists get similar honour in times to come.

But does that ring a bell to the purist litterateur? Is the real, genuine poet (in the good old sense) an extinct species or he is there is somewhere waiting to be discovered? I am sure every generation has its own share of great poets. We have to wait now for the one for the 21st Century. And the dramatists? And the novelist?

In this age of a hardcore transition brought in the wake of Indie Publisher, eBooks et al, time only will tell when we will have a novelist, dramatist or poet of the ‘digital-generation’ who will rise to the level to claim a Nobel. One has to come to terms to the fact that every age has to find its own means of expression so far as literature is concerned: so what kinds of literary icons will belong to the digital age is a question that time only will tell. And yet in this nascent stage of the age of digital expression the fact that a signer cum song writer has been awarded the Nobel prize is probably the harbinger of things to come.