'Indians love storytellers'

Author, actor, playwright and politician, Lord Jeffrey Archer has many avatars. Renowned world over for the controversies that surround his political career, in India, Archer is more famous for the cult status he enjoys for his novel Kane and Abel. Thirty years after the release of the book that catapulted him to fame, Lord Jeffrey Archer is back with a re-written version of Kane and Abel.
“I would prefer to call it re-crafted rather than re-written,” corrects the author. “The plot of the story remains the same. However, it is now shorter by a few thousand words, faster and tighter.” When asked as to why an already successful book needed re-crafting, he says, “I was reading the book a year ago because I was bored. And I realised that I could write it better. So I re-crafted it. It took me over nine months to finish it though.” The author who will be visiting Hyderabad for the first time as a part of the Landmark tour, is already making waves around the world, ‘with interesting comparisons being made by English critics,’ as he puts it.
Talking about his trips to India and the large readership he enjoys here, Archer says, “Indians love story tellers. All you’ve to do is read R.K. Narayan to find out the extent of this interest. But I also think Indians are still interested in the British, right from the culture to the language. That lures them towards these books.”
Perhaps that’s what led him to write a story based in Mumbai, as part of his next collection of short stories, Thereby Hangs a Tale. “This is based on a true story of a couple I met at a party during one of my earlier visits to India. I expect it will take the country and Bollywood by storm,” he says.
No stranger to controversies during his long and checquered political career, Archer was recently in the news for his book, Paths of Glory, based on a true story of George Mallory, an Englishman who was supposedly the first to scale the Everest, and not Hillary as the world was led to believe. “It’s an established fact that he got within 620 feet of the summit. Nobody knows whether he scaled the summit. But that book went on to become a best seller,” he remarks, brushing aside protests from outraged New Zealanders. “The book will be made into a film,” he adds.
Talking about drawing inspiration from real life stories for his books, particularly Prisoner at Birth, which is set in Belmarsh prison, where Archer himself served a brief sentence, he says, “There is bound to be a bit of you, your family and friends in every book you write. I think most authors borrow from the people around them and the experiences they undergo as material for their stories. That way, it sounds far more true,” he concludes.