With only two years in mainstream publishing, how editor Rahul Soni carved a niche with empathy, resolve

In the digital age, his belief continues to lie firmly in the printed word, which, more often than not, leads him to award-winning bestsellers — seven of them within a year, to be precise. “He is quiet and unassuming, doesn’t exist on social media, he refuses to be in photographs, he doesn’t like to be the centre of attention, — it’s all about the words on the page for him,” is how author of Girl in White Cotton, Avni Doshi describes her editor Rahul Soni, Executive Editor (Literary) at HarperCollins India. Soni’s stint in mainstream publishing has only just begun, having recently crossed the two-year mark, with a prodigious number of acclaimed titles under his belt already. Reactions to his accomplishments from publishing peers range from reverence to unwavering faith in his mettle, but what seems to get repeatedly underlined about Rahul through several testimonies is his abounding empathy — an alleged rarity in the business. When Firstpost reaches out to Rahul Soni for a conversation, he is in the middle of deadlines and travel. He tells me how his “love for words” brought him to publishing, besides him second-guessing that this is perhaps what he’s “best at?” “I started, along with a friend, the journal Pratilipi, and I’ve been associated with the journals Almost Island and Asymptote, with the writers’ residency Sangam House, and the literary agency Writer’s Side,” Soni informs, before adding that during this time, he’s “done everything — from evaluating manuscripts to editing and ghostwriting, from designing covers to laying out books to producing them, running a small press, organising conferences and small literary gatherings (not festivals).” Finally, in 2017, he joined the publishing giant as Senior Commissioning Editor. [caption id=“attachment_8099241” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Rahul Soni, Executive Editor (Literary) at HarperCollins India. Photo courtesy: Jinhee Park[/caption] However, only a handful seem to be aware of his writing career prior to his editorial stint. Udayan Mitra, Publisher (Literary) at HarperCollins India, tips me off about it. “I first met Rahul about three years ago, soon after I moved to HarperCollins as Publisher, and was looking to build a strong literary team. Rahul was a Harper author before he was a Harper employee — we had published some of his excellent translations under our Perennial imprint. Rahul has a very sound literary sense and a great eye for writing with true merit,” he says. For Soni, it’s all about getting his hands on a good book, whether as a reader or as an editor. But what really cuts it for him is “a combination of strong voice, strong writing, strong story.” “I love to be able to publish work that pushes at and tries to expand the boundaries of what form and language can do. It doesn’t matter then whether it is from an established writer or a debut work,” he says. The editor, however, is mindful of falling in the trap of chasing trends or established names. Predicting readers’ tastes and preferences or what may sell isn’t among his concerns either. “The aim, as a literary publisher, should be to bring out work of lasting value,” the 40-year-old tells me. The list of award-winning and nominated titles acquired by him looks formidable already. “It’s been a good run of luck,” he admits. “You can only choose from what is out there, what is submitted to you, or what you know is being written and can chase down. The past couple of years have been special that way, and I’m very aware that it’s not something that can consistently keep happening.” From Madhuri Vijay’s debut book, The Far Field (winner of JCB Prize for Literature, Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Fiction, and The Crossword Book Jury Award for Fiction), Sahitya Akademi awardee Vinod Kumar Shukla’s Blue is Like Blue (winner of the Atta Gallata Best Fiction of the Year, and The Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award), to debutante writer Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing (winner of the Sushila Devi Literature Award) and N Prabhakaran’s Diary of a Malayali Madman, translated by Jayasree Kalathil (winner of The Crossword Book Jury Award for Best Indian Language Translation) — Rahul Soni is just getting started.

Among his other notable titles, which have been nominated for various prestigious awards, are the late Numair Atif Choudhury’s first and only novel, Babu Bangladesh!, Anukrti Upadhyay’s Bhaunri, Akil Kumarasway’s Half Gods, Subimal Misra’s Actually This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar’s Tale (translated by V Ramaswamy), and This is How it Took Place, by the late Rudrakshi Bhattacharjee. Author and translator Arshia Sattar first met Rahul Soni in the year 2012, when he joined the Sangam House Residency headed by her, as a writer. By the end of his term as a resident, Sattar invited him to come onboard as an administrator. “When Rahul was with Sangam House, each year there were at least four or five residents who specifically mentioned how very helpful he had been to them in their writing, and how their work had improved because of their conversations with him. Some of those writers from Sangam House and those works have gone on to win awards — like Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing,” Arshia mentions. Her faith in her former colleague, now her editor, is unrelenting, as she emphasises on his gentle approach towards his job that is often perceived as a rational, almost surgical feat. “He lets you do what you want and helps you do it better. The biggest thing is that you know you can trust him completely, that he is a literary editor, and without being dominated by marketing and sales concerns, he will make your book the best that it can be,” Sattar says. Shubhangi Swarup corroborates this claim. She remembers how only days before her novel went to print in April 2018, her life came to a momentary pause after a near-fatal accident. “But we met our deadline, thanks to Rahul’s dedication. He and my sister helped me type, because I had two fractures on my hand. Rahul sat with me, listened to my suggestions, and made the changes to the document. That explains the kind of equation I have with him. He really looks out for you, and speaks through his actions,” she says, adding that he “worked his magic silently” by helping her find an international audience. “I didn’t have international publishers. He pushed my book in a way that it got international attention. We, as writers, and anyone who’s a part of the literary community, should also look after him because he’s such a gem. The writer too should be invested in the editor’s career. It can’t simply be a transactional relationship, you know.” Swarup also believes that Soni’s writing chops contribute significantly to his superlative editing skills. For Soni, the two skill-sets certainly overlap more often than not. “I think you absolutely need to be a good editor to be a good writer, but you don’t necessarily have to be a good writer to be a good editor (though it can help),” he says.

When asked if he’s finally learned a secret or two about concocting a best-selling book, the editor starts with narrowing down the purview to fiction, and then attributes it to chance. “It goes without saying that you should publish well, that is acquire good books to begin with, and then edit, design, produce, package and market them well. But more often than not, these books will not become ‘hits’, in the sense that their sales figures will be very modest. And prizes, reviews, reading tours, festival appearances will not really help much. What does help is word of mouth – readers telling other readers that this is a book to get – and that is hard to engineer. But I do like to think that good writing will find its readers – immediately, or over the course of time,” Soni says. While on the subject of book acquisitions, Priya Doraswamy of Lotus Lane Literary agency chimes in to vouch for Rahul’s sharp instincts. For Doraswamy, who’s worked with him on over half-a-dozen books, — ranging from mythology, to poetry, fiction and biography — what stands out in the man are “his gentle ways, humour, and deep love for books,” making every interaction fun. “He has a ’nose’ for stories that to many at first glance seem unlikely, but he sees the potential and is not afraid to take on these books, and then edits them with much care, which end up as success stories. No pun intended!” she laughs. Soni runs a fine-tooth comb through each of his projects, with a keen eye for detail that “[cuts] across language, structure, plot, and simplicity,” according to HarperCollins India CEO, Ananth Padmanabhan. “As you can imagine we receive a lot of submissions, and there is a certain consistency with the kind voice he likes, while the books themselves can be starkly different,” he says. But above all, he is a generous reader, who “takes the time to tune into the wavelength of a new writer,” says poet Vivek Narayanan. The two first collaborated in the mid-2000s, when Soni solicited Narayanan for poems for his bilingual journal, Pratilipi. Rahul’s experience in independent publishing prepared him for its knottier aspects — from dealing with obdurate distributors to “sniffing the paper for printing”, according to Vivek. “I think Rahul reads like a writer as much as a publisher, with a feeling both for what is good and what is going to become important in the future. I’m not sure these kinds of instincts can be taught, or learnt. You either have them or you don’t.” But the man himself finds nothing exceptional about his routine. He does “what all editors do”, charting out a list of seemingly mundane literary chores that starts with reading submissions, writing blurbs, to overseeing cover designs and colluding with marketing teams, agents, and international publishers after the book’s release. You’d wonder why he makes the drill look like the most ordinary clockwork, only to be reminded of his fly-on-the-wall disposition. Clearly, the spotlight isn’t his comfort zone. “He is never heavy-handed, never arrogant — always ready to have a conversation about what decision to make…His interest in language and his dedication to literary fiction are single-minded. (I would use the word devotion, but I think he won’t like that.) That is the kind of person you want ushering your work into the world,” says Avni Doshi. She remembers being surprised when Soni mentioned some of his favourite authors in one of their first conversations. “Maggie Nelson, Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin — all authors that I admire and am inspired by. I immediately felt we had similar taste,” the writer recalls. [caption id=“attachment_7567261” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Avik Chanda’s Dara Shukoh: The Man Who Would Be King[/caption] Armed with an uncanny literary instinct and a stolid mien, Rahul Soni’s peers firmly believe that he is set to achieve even greater heights in the days to come. In 2018, writer Avik Chanda first bumped into Soni over an email exchange between the latter and his agent, with Chanda playing silent spectator on cc. “I could almost immediately understand his gentle and quiet nature from how he wrote his emails,” he says. As they eventually went on to collaborate on his book, Dara Shukoh: The Man Who Would Be King, Chanda realised how Soni was “more than just a good editor”. “He brought empathy, and that was new to me. He could almost feel what the characters felt. He would come back to me and say that he felt terrible about what happened to a character at the end of a chapter,” Chanda says, with a hint of wonderment. Having said that, the writer also testifies to Rahul’s conscientious and uncompromising editorial standards, that refuse to get swayed by emotions. “It was he who suggested that I add a Dramatis personae to my book, along with maps. The book is almost 400-pages long, and has almost as many characters, — which I didn’t find confusing because I was living with the characters, as almost all authors do. But others may have found these names similar sounding, while they were actually completely different personages. It took me a little time, and was a bit tedious, but so many readers have come and told me that it made a world of difference to their reading experience,” he says. *** Currently, Arshia Sattar’s upcoming title Maryada, and journalist Ashutosh Bhardwaj’s The Death Script are keeping Rahul Soni up at night. But the publisher is not complaining. “I’m terribly excited and proud to be publishing them,” he says. Quite evidently, the literary universe is all ears for Soni, even if it means having to strain them every once in a while to listen to what he has to say. But make no mistake — “Contrary to his otherwise quiet demeanour, Rahul has a wicked sense of humour,” assures Ananth Padmanabhan, before signing off.