Express Features Service
The Indian Express (Mumbai), January 11, 2005

The best known Indian face in the UN
talks about his latest book, Bookless in Baghdad

Walking through Baghdad's book souk, Shashi Tharoor, author and UN secretary general for communications and public information, couldn't help being moved.

"There were so many well-educated, middle-class people selling hooks on the pavement in Baghdad," says the 48-year-old author. His stroll across the souk led to a compilation of literary essays, titled Bookless in Baghdad.

Published by Penguin Viking, it will be released next month.

The essays have been published as columns in newspapers over the past 12 years. "I do a lot of hook reviews, but none of them are in this book," said London-born Tharoor, 'They're essays about reading and writing - they're reflections of life."

The collection also includes some of his travel travails, “hunting for a location in Spain, based on passage from (George) Orwell’s book. There's a range of reading material, since there's even an essay based on attending a literary function."

While the west may be fixated with Bollywood, now more than ever, Tharoor feels his one book on Bollywood (Show Business) was quite enough.

"One moves on and, right now, there are three different ideas for books bubbling away in my head, completely unrelated to each other," he says.

In the city as a speaker for an Indians-overseas gathering, he feels he's always been a part of India.

"There are so many Indian writers who identify with the country, even though they don't live here," he says. "I haven't made another passport for myself."