{"id":76294,"date":"2026-02-09T14:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/feb\/09\/books-india-literature-festivals-readers"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T05:00:51","slug":"most-indians-dont-read-for-pleasure-so-why-does-the-country-have-100-literature-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76294","title":{"rendered":"Most Indians don\u2019t read for pleasure \u2013 so why does the country have 100 literature festivals?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With their carnival atmosphere, music and Bollywood stars, books often take a back seat. But that doesn\u2019t mean writers and their works won\u2019t make a lasting impression<\/p>\n<p>Sounding amused, publisher Pramod Kapoor recalls the reaction of the Indian cricketing legend Bishen Singh Bedi when he learned Kapoor was printing 3,000 copies of his autobiography. \u201cOnly 3,000?\u201d he protested. \u201cI fill stadiums with 50-60,000 people coming to see me play and you think that\u2019s all my book is going to sell?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kapoor, the founder of Roli Books, explains that Bedi\u2019s legions of admirers were unlikely to translate into book buyers. \u201cThat was in 2021. Nothing has changed. The average book in English sells only around 3-4,000 copies. If it tops 10,000, it\u2019s counted a bestseller.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/feb\/09\/books-india-literature-festivals-readers\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With their carnival atmosphere, music and Bollywood stars, books often take a back seat. But that doesn\u2019t mean writers and their works won\u2019t make a lasting impressionSounding amused, publisher Pramod Kapoor recalls the reaction of the Indian cricketing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[511,71,59,62,3502,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-culture","category-global-development","category-india","category-literary-festivals","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76339,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76294\/revisions\/76339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}