@blaft@mastodon.social
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blaft

@blaft@mastodon.social

South Indian indie publishing house. Tamil pulp fiction, Urdu detective novels, & Nigerian soyayya in translation. Comics. Ladies with monster boyfriends. More.
https://blaft.com

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blaft, to random
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Earlier this month we took a trip to Ahmedabad, where we met with veteran pulp authors H.N. Golibar, Bansidhar Shukla, and Ekta Doshi, all of whom will be featured in our Gujarati Pulp Fiction anthology, scheduled for December.

Pre-order here: https://www.blaft.com/products/the-blaft-anthology-of-gujarati-pulp-fiction

The meeting with H.N. "Atom" Golibar and family was especially amazing!
🧵

blaft,
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The highlight for us was learning about the history of the Gujarati magazine and pop culture institution Chakram Chandan--founded as "Chakram" in 1949 by N.J.Golibar, a member of Ahmedabad's Kutchi Memon Muslim community. Before getting into publishing, the senior Golibar began his career selling sweets known as "Goli"; he got his name from his hawker cry, "Ek anna, goli bar" (12 golis for 1 anna).

blaft,
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When N.J. died in 1966, his son H.N.Golibar took over the magazine--at the tender age of 15 (!)--managing operations while he was still in school. In 1970, after finishing his studies, H.N.Golibar added "Chandan" to the magazine's title, and soon started serialising his own science fiction and supernatural thriller novels in the pages, earning the nickname "Atom".

blaft, (edited )
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In 1976, a colleague told him that a weekly magazine could never survive without selling space for advertisements. Golibar took it as a challenge--he stopped running ads and kept Chakram Chandan completely ad-free for another 45 years. (Remember: not monthly, but weekly!!!)

blaft,
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At its zenith, during the serialisation of Golibar's bestselling supernatural thriller Jantar Mantar, the magazine had a circulation of 1,25,000 copies. Chakram Chandan was especially popular in Bombay, where it was championed by Golibar's close friend Abid Surti, creator of the Hindi comic superhero Bahadur. Special orders of the magazine came in from as far away as Khartoum, Sudan, where 30 or so Gujarati families used to congregate in the community hall at the Indian embassy for a group read.

blaft, to random
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Back in stock:

Yukichi Yamamatsu's STUPID GUY GOES TO INDIA

Kuzhali Manickavel's THINGS WE FOUND DURING THE AUTOPSY

Ki. Rajanarayanan's WHERE ARE YOU GOING, YOU MONKEYS? -- FOLKTALES FROM TAMIL NADU

Avakkai & Chukka's PORTALPETTAI

We ship worldwide!

https://www.blaft.com/collections/new-arrivals

blaft, to random
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“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Happy Malcolm X Day

blaft, to random
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Last day for this!

(If you have a pitch for a translation, the translation doesn't have to be complete!)

https://www.blaft.com/blogs/news/call-for-submissions

blaft, to random
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Reprinted and back in stock on our website: STUPID GUY GOES TO INDIA, an autobiographical manga chronicling the adventures of Yukichi Yamamatsu, whose missionary zeal for spreading manga culture inspired him to leave Japan for the first time at the age of 56 to move to Delhi, without knowing any English or Hindi, and try to start a publishing company. Hilarious hi-jinks ensue!

https://www.blaft.com/products/stupid-guy-goes-to-india

Translated by Kumari Sivasubramanian

blaft,
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@sahil Try again with a refresh?

blaft,
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@MidniteLibrary @misty ha!

blaft, to random
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Selling books at IIHS Bangalore: City Scripts today! And speaking on a panel about horror fiction at 12:15

blaft, to random
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We're in Ahmedabad right now meeting authors and researching the history of Gujarati pulp novels & magazines. Having an absolute blast.

Particularly amazing: The history of Chakram Chandan, a weekly Gujarati fiction & entertainment mag which ran for OVER 70 YEARS (1949-2021). Thriller writer HN "Atom" Golibar took over operations from his father, NJ Golibar, at age 15 (!), and ran it with NO ADS for decades.

Will be posting some vintage art finds and interviews soon!

2015 Diwali Issue of Chakram Chandan
2020 Issue of Chakram Chandan
Aslam Memon story from a 2000 issue of Chakram Chandan featuring illustration by G. Sandhwani

blaft, to random
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The Museum of Popular Art in Alwarthirunagar, Chennai, is hosting a retrospective of work by Jeyaraj Fernando (who illustrated Pushpa Thangadorai's "My Name Is Kamala" & "Highway 117" starring Karate Kavitha, both featured in our Tamil Pulp anthos).

https://www.newindianexpress.com/amp/story/cities/chennai/2024/May/01/pages-of-a-vintage-sketch-book

blaft,
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Order the books here!

https://www.blaft.com/collections/tamil-pulp-fiction

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, Vol. 2

blaft, to random
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We're looking in particular for translations! If you know of anyone who writes science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, or some related genre in a South Asian language, please let us know!
https://www.blaft.com/blogs/news/call-for-submissions

blaft, to random
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Kumari Loves a Monster: A bilingual English/Tamil picture book about South Indian women enjoying fun times with their monster boyfriends

Available as an ebook or in print, from our site, Smashwords, etc.

https://www.blaft.com/collections/ebooks/products/kumari-loves-a-monster-ebook

https://draft2digital.com/book/1421921#ebook

Kumari bathing in a waterfall with her monster
Kumar paddleboating with her monster
Kumari Loves a Monster

blaft, to random
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Blaft books are in stock at The Buddha Grove, an amazing indie bookshop in Guwahati, Assam! Mizo Myths, Tamil Pulp Fiction in translation, Kuzhali Manickavel's treatise on How to Love Mathematical Objects, and more!

The Buddha Grove bookshop
Bookstore logo

blaft, to random
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Call for Submissions! Poster by the inimitable Priyanka Paul who will be contributing the cover! More here: https://blaft.com/blogs/news/call-for-submissions

blaft, to random
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Call for subs!

https://www.blaft.com/blogs/news/call-for-submissions

#ஜெய்பீம்

Submissions open through May 15, 2024

blaft, to random
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Twitter ads have become soo bizarre... I've got the Raelians telling me how all Earth life forms are descended from space aliens, and then a biology journal that's... paying Elon money?... to announce the discovery of a new genus of nematodes!?!!

blaft, to random
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Read Kuzhali Manickavel's CONVERSATIONS REGARDING THE FATALISTIC OUTLOOK OF THE COMMON MAN

https://www.blaft.com/collections/new-arrivals/products/conversations-regarding-the-fatalistic-outlook-of-the-common-man

Goodreads review by Steven Deobald - 57 reviews - 21 followers Few authors make me laugh, spontaneously and out loud, with nearly every paragraph. Kuzhali Manickavel does. Fewer still can transform that light, insightful humour into the absolute gut-punch that is “The Girl”. The humour isn’t lost, but it is suddenly drawn in relief of a different kind of insight entirely. A four- year-old has to drag us, the adults — with no cooperation from us — through the mud of reality. The best parts of this book are impossible to describe. Each one is something lived, previously or currently, and represents more the sense of something than that thing itself.

blaft, to random
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Annnd here's Homegrown with a write-up of our Gujarati Pulp Fiction project:

https://homegrown.co.in/homegrown-supply/a-new-homegrown-anthology-is-aiming-to-capture-the-wild-world-of-gujarati-pulp-fiction

Not sure about the idea that Indian languages pulp fiction "spilled over" from Hindi... I think the Hindi Pulp novel industry probably developed a bit slower than others? But that's a quibble!

blaft, to random
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I know we post this rather frequently but I never get bored of it

blaft,
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@vfrmedia Yes! It's a fishing cat! (We just learned that last year)

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