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Literary Review
The art of making a book
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Chennai-based Tara Publishing has just won an international award for its book Antigone. MURALI N. KRISHNASWAMY finds out more about the project.
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CHENNAI-based Tara Publishing was started about seven years ago by Gita Wolf, when she realised that there was a gap in the production of children's literature. In 1997, Wolf met Christopher Hudson, Director of Publications, the Getty Trust, at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Hudson had apparently seen Tara's Hungry Lion, and it was soon to become the catalyst of an exciting, and new, project. Hudson, fascinated by what he saw, told Wolf that he wanted "something" in screen-print for the general market.
That "something" (it has bagged two awards) took four years, where back in Chennai, a team decided to look at Greek myth, generally bloody and difficult affairs. More specifically, it meant the Greek play "Antigone". The team also zeroed in on Indrapramit Roy, art historian at Baroda.
"The Getty wanted to interest a wide range of people, an audience not necessarily interested in the `the myth'. So we decided to focus individually on the conflict of the individual and the state," says Tara's Editor Sirish Rao.
"It was about a single strong woman versus a single king, in a format that kept a very dramatic style. Editorially, it meant trying to be economical with the language and subjecting the text to severe editing in order to keep the dramatic tension achieved, to some extent, by showing it to colleagues who tried to be critical."
According to Wolf, the team had been faithful to the original. "We changed the plot, but stuck to the world-view of the Greeks. We have kept to the play format. We had looked at `Medea', but it was `Antigone' that struck us. We didn't simplify."
Also, scholars at the Getty museum had to have their standards met. In the end, it passed muster.
Production, apparently, turned out to be a complex, and interesting, process. Printing was by A.M.M. Screens, Chennai, and was subject to the Getty's stringent tests — Was the paper handmade? Were the paints non-toxic screen-printing inks, mixed by hand? Was the glue used in binding a water-based resin adhesive? The first sample was subject to tests as there was the core issue of toxicity.
Roy too was busy researching. As colours are limited by screen-printing, he decided to fill in the book's stark graphics in colours of pottery, for which he pored over material at the Getty Centres of Pottery Collection. In creating the illustrations, major dramatic points were chosen as the points of tension.
After running 8,500 copies, Hudson's faith in the exercise was allayed. The Getty has now acquired its worldwide English rights and recently released the book in the U.K.
As the Getty's aim has been to "preserve the arts", Tara has compiled a slide show on the entire process. In a wider sense, this has been viewed as an exercise in "art" — the "art" of making a book. The Getty now sells the book in all its museum shops, as it wants to spread the word about art.
Finally, Hudson has moved forward with step two. Tara has now been commissioned to work on a series of Roman myths.
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Literary Review
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