For those Fijians whose lives are built on a love of the written word; the creatives, the dreamers, the weavers of wondrous tales, getting your work out into the world can be a great challenge.
Fiji has a disappointing lack of publishing houses. Most Fijian writers who have managed to put their names on a book cover have had to do so through publishers thousands of kilometres away, some with little understanding of the cultures and audiences these books would appeal to.
But through the foggy debris of the broken dreams of aspiring Fijian writers comes a man with a solution.
Praveen Chandra “nurtures writing and writing endeavours, engages freely in the time-consuming task of editing, formatting and producing books, and often promoting them at launches.
And it is all philanthropic activity; his reward comes from holding a published book in his hands,” I was told of this modern-day patron of the arts.
Chandra has reportedly published 37 books over the past 25 years from his small study in Brisbane, Australia; as a voluntary service for Fiji writers.
Despite being from Fiji himself, Chandra’s interest in Fijian literature wasn’t sparked until he left the country in 1987.
Perhaps to feed a longing for home, perhaps by chance, Chandra called back to a poem he had read about a decade earlier; Satendra Nandan’s “Two Waves”.
This poem, he says, made a big impact on him because someone had “summarised the pains of Girmit in such a memorable way.”
“What was more impressive was that the writer was a home-grown descendant of a Girmitiya,” he shared.
Now in a foreign land, he befriended two fellow Fijians; noted academics Professor Satendra Nandan and Professor Brij Lal. Chandra says these great thinkers had a profound influence on his foray into writing and publishing.
Much later he would find himself acquainted with yet another Fijian great, Professor Subramani, and read his novel Dauka Puran, written entirely in Fiji Baat.
His friendship with Professor Subramani grew, and in 2018 Professor Subramani requested Chandra to design the writer’s next massive novel, Fiji Maa: Mother of a Thousand.
In appreciation of his help and dedication, Professor Subramani would write the following in the Preface of the book (translated into English):
“That vast ocean of humility creates such books as if pearls are being formed in an oyster.
“An engineer by profession, that skilled craftsman has been editing many books written from Fiji for years. His first love is probably a book, that is why he writes himself, and also inspires others to write.
“He neither wants praise nor awards. He is so humble that perhaps he would feel embarrassed to read his name, Praveen Chandra, here. But it is necessary to write his name because as soon as he saw ‘Fiji Maa’, he adopted this novel.
“Like a mother, he embellished every word of this book, probed every turn of this long story, tested it on his own criteria and gave me many suggestions.
“A person writes his book with the same passion with which a mother raises her child, but helping someone else to write a book is like raising someone else’s child as your own.
“I will always be indebted to him for this simplicity and dedication,” Professor Subramani wrote.
With the support of Professor Subramani, Chandra published his own novella in Fiji Baat, Ek Anokhi Katha, in 2023.
But for those dreamers who are intimidated by these works, worry not. Chandra takes a nurturing hand to a wide array of topics and genres. He has published 12 biographies, 14 historical, political and literary books, 3 books written in Fiji Baat, 7 in Manak Hindi, and several pieces of fiction.
It is no wonder then that even the renowned Professor Vijay Mishra took up Chandra’s help, later saying of him that “With tremendous patience and care Praveen Chandra went through the Glossary of Fiji Hindi words, provided a map of Fiji with localities mentioned in the books discussed, corrected a number of oversights, misreadings and formatted the entire manuscript.”
The aspiring Fijian writer can certainly find comfort in the hope of engaging Chandra on their next project. But according to Chandra, publishing isn’t the only challenge.
A major problem Chandra says he sees in the area of producing books is that readership has fallen to an all-time low in many parts of the world.
“It has become uneconomically viable for commercial publishers to print and sell books because their costs are not recovered as a result of low sales of books,” he shared.
The issue of low readership is so serious in Fiji, according to Chandra, that it has prompted the University of Fiji to commission a book on this topic.
But fear not tale-weaver, Praveen Chandra continues his work with the passion and dedication of any patron of the arts before him, and your work too may someday stand on a bookshop shelf.
But before that, we must be the ones to acknowledge the books already on those shelves.
The more we pick up the books of Fijian writers, the better the chances of our own works seeing the light of day.
The power to allow creatives to continue creating rests with you.
For those seeking to reach Praveen Chandra for a full list of the works he has been involved in, or to engage his help yourself, he can be contacted at carindalepublishing@gmail.com
