It’s been a while since the dust settled on author and former Penguin Canada president David Davidar’s sexual harassment case involving one of his employees, Lisa Rundle, who had launched a $523,000 suit against him. The episode took the publishing world by storm as Davidar has a formidable reputation. Many of his erstwhile colleagues rallied in support of the writer-publisher. Davidar resigned on June 8 to pursue his “writing career” and the lawsuit was settled out of court in July.
In an interesting move, HarperCollins India has acquired Davidar’s new novel on publishing, Ithaca. To be published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, the novel will be out in India in mid-2011. The auction for the book, which will be set in the world of international publishing, was conducted by Davidar’s literary agent, David Godwin.
According to V.K. Karthika, publisher and chief editor, HarperCollins India, the novel will be an inside-out account of the publishing world from someone with “authority and insight” and someone who has a perspective of and understands that world only so much better.
“There were enough publishers from across the world who were interested in acquiring the rights to publish this novel,” said Karthika, talking about the keenly contested auction. “Anyone who has the marginal interest in the publishing world will be interested in the book,” she said.
Karthika said that Ithaca will be completely different from Davidar’s two other previous novels, The House of Blue Mangoes and The Solitude of Emperors. “You will see Davidar in his elements,” said Karthika about the “breezy, confident and racy” novel which will have an altogether different narratorial voice.