Author Sohan Koonar's 'Lions' trilogy could well be India's 'Gone With The Wind' (IANS Interview)

When eminent Canadian author M.G. Vassanji does the final edit of a book you can be sure it goes beyond the ordinary. And that's exactly what "Paper Lions" delivers as Sohan S. Koonar work and its planned sequels in no mean way match the sweep of "Gone With The Wind" with Punjab as its canvas a timely work on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak with Sikhs as its protagonists.

New Delhi, March 19 When eminent Canadian author M.G. Vassanji does the final edit of a book you can be sure it goes beyond the ordinary. And that's exactly what "Paper Lions" delivers as Sohan S. Koonar work and its planned sequels in no mean way match the sweep of "Gone With The Wind" with Punjab as its canvas a timely work on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak with Sikhs as its protagonists.

"I have been trying to think of a premise to write a historical novel about Punjab and the Sikhs for a couple of decades. A chance meeting with New York novelist Naomi Regin finally set me on this quest. She mentioned that there was nothing about Sikhs in English literature that she could find and advised me to write what I know best, about my own people," Koonar, who was born in India and now lives with his Italian wife in homes in Canada, Italy and India, told in an interview about the writing of "Paper Lions"

( With inputs from IANS )