Now, enjoy Satyajit Ray, Premchand’s works in Marathi as sound novels

While 22 snovels are already up on the Snovel’s website, nearly 50 more literary works are in the pipeline.

If you are a die-hard fan of Marathi literature and at the same time are intrigued by the works of celebrated authors like Satyajit Ray and Munshi Premchand, you can enjoy the repertoire in an unique format — through sound novels or snovels. City-based firm Snovel Inc. has recently launched Marathi snovels based on Satyajit Ray and Premchand’s famous books. While Ray’s works like Patolbabu Filmstar, Shibu Ani Rakshas, Don Jadugar and Feludachi Hergiri have been included, Premchand’s Lottery has also been launched as a snovel.

Though the concept of literary works in audio format has been there for years now in the form of audio books and radio plays, a sound novel or snovel comes with difference. “While an audio book or a radio play involves plain reading of a literary work, a snovel comes with sound effects, background music as well as expressive rendition of dialogues by established theatre and film actors. Just like in a play or a film, a snovel has a proper cast that includes a director, voice-over actors and a music director,” says Sameer Dhamangaonkar, co-founder of Snovel Inc.

Directed by Aniruddha Joshi and translated in Marathi from Bengali by Vilas Gitay, the snovels based on Ray’s works come with diverse themes. The story of ‘Patolbabu Filmstar’ revolves around a character called Patoulbabu, who faced many failures throughout his life and suddenly gets a chance to act in a film. ‘Shibu Ani Rakshas’ is a humorous story about how Shibu, who is convinced that his Maths teacher is an evil demon, gets rid of this demon in a weird way with the help of Fatikda.

While ‘Don Jadugar’ is a tale of Surapati, a young ambitious magician, who confronts with his Guru Tripurababu, a senior magician, about the ethics in the world of magic tricks and what true magic is all about, ‘Feludachi Hergiri’ is a stunning mystery of an anonymous letter received by Rajenbabu, where Feluda with his wit and meticulous observation and guesswork cracks this mystery.

Translated and directed by Siddhesh Purkar, Lottery by Premchand is about a small village on the banks of Ganga which is downed in the hype of lottery when it first comes to the village. The simple people of the village start dreaming big. The story is an apt description of what money can make a man do. Dhamangaonkar and his friends — Vaibhav Kulkarni and Ashish Joshi — had founded Snovel Inc. in 2011 owing to their love for Marathi literature. “

Though we began with snovels of only Marathi authors, gradually we decided to diversify to literature of other languages too,” says Dhamangaonkar, further citing examples of two English works — ‘The Story of Marie Curie’ and ‘Incredible Journey’ — translated by Anant Bhave and directed by Rucha Apte. Though initially the group launched snovels in CD format, last week they have launched their website as well as an android mobile application.

While 22 snovels are already up on the website, nearly 50 more literary works are in the pipeline, which includes Jayant Narlikar’s ‘Preshit’ and ‘Antaralatil Sphot’ and Prakash Narayan Sant’s ‘Vanvas’ among others.

Source | Indian Express | 19 October 2015