What happens when a boy who loves to talk falls in love with a girl who cannot talk? A lot of drama and unravelling of long-untold, forgotten & mysterious stories – says the very candid & witty Tony V Francis, the author of the book ‘The Autograph Seeker’.
Tony launched his first book today right here at the opening ceremony of Bangalore Literature Festival or BLF. While this is his first book, Tony sure is becoming a very popular writer as he received a thunderous applause from the crowd as well as the rest of the panel.
The panel itself had eminent personalities from the publishing world. In the panel, today we had Rashmi Menon, a young, talented & well-known editor based out of Delhi and Shinie Antony, one of the founders of Bangalore Literature Festival. These ladies from the literature arena were all praises about how beautifully Tony has crafted the several pieces of this book together.
The plot of the book travels back to eighteenth-century British Calcutta and revolves around the San Souci Theatre which was once the Kohinoor of Bengal theatre but now diminished in stature and facing bankruptcy. The story runs across cultures and highlights basic yet divergent human elements such as ignorance, passion, love, and obsession. While the author claims that all the characters portrayed in the story are very lifelike, one particular relationship stands out intriguingly well enough.
The protagonist of this story, Tony is a Calcutta schoolboy. As if were, it was his fate to be the one who unfolds lost and forgotten history – the story of a beautiful actress who accidentally got burnt alive in front of a live audience, the story of a dangerous liaison between a married Englishwoman and a native Bengali actor, the story of secrets that have been hidden for 150 years, and the story of the origin of a glorious institution. The story becomes really interesting when amidst all of his efforts and endeavours to put light on some long-concealed secrets, Tony falls in love with a beautiful and lively Anglo-Indian mute girl named Vinny. Vinny collaborates with Tony and the duo then start a journey in which they discover real-life facts which will both surprise and shock the readers of the book.
In this story, Tony V Francis portrays through simple and relevant anecdotes that how taking autographs of our sung and unsung heroes, irrespective of the field of work, was and is still important in today’s selfie seeking world. Finally, the author had a little piece of advice for all young and budding writers – ‘keep writing’.
About the Author: Soumik Seth is an avid follower of music, current affairs, stock market, economy, and filmography. He currently writes for Bookstalkist.