Chetan Bhagat's latest book breaks pre-order record on Amazon

His latest fiction 'One Indian Girl' is now the leading title on pre-orders, the site has ever witnessed

Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat
Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Aug 20 2016 | 2:44 PM IST
Breaking all records in Amazon's pre-order history, bestselling author Chetan Bhagat's latest fiction "One Indian Girl" is now the leading title on pre-orders, the site has ever witnessed.

"Launched under the exclusive online partnership between Amazon and Rupa Publishing, the pre-orders went live on Amazon at 2 pm on Friday and in just the first two hours, it has created history by becoming the leading title on pre-orders, the site has witnessed since its launch in 2013," the online shopping site said in a statement.

The banker-turned-writer who shot to fame with his debut novel, 'Five Point Someone' took to Twitter on Friday to announce the title of the book.

The book which comes after five fictions by the author revolves around an "Indian girl who is intelligent and successful, because of which she finds it difficult to get love."

Bhagat, who is believed to have pioneered the genre of 'campus novels' in the country wishes to question the discrimination meted out to women by the society through his latest narrative, which unlike his previous works is in "female first person."

"It (book) hopes to question society, which judges women achievers. It asks why when it comes to love, being intelligent and too successful is almost a drawback for women," the 42-year-old writes on his blog.

He also unveiled the teaser for the book on Friday which can be viewed on YouTube.

"Hi, I'm Radhika Mehta and I'm getting married this week. I work in a top investment bank. Thank you for reading my crazy story. However, let me warn you. You may not like me too much. One, I make a lot of money. Two, I have an opinion on everything. Three, I have had sex before. Now, if I were a guy, you'd be cool with all this. Since I am a girl, these things don't really make me too likeable, do they?" says the teaser.

The title, which is set to hit stands on October 1, also surpassed the biggest release of the year so far, 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' with selling 20 times the former on the first day of pre-order.

"'One Indian Girl' beat 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child's' Day 1 pre-order number within 30 minutes of going live on the platform," Amazon said.

According to Bhagat, he wrote from a feminist point of view because he wanted to get into a woman's head and unravel the mystery as he, "often found them mysterious, particularly in the way they think."

"I felt it would be interesting to get in their head. I wrote on feminism because it isn't an equal world for women, and most don't realise it. As a writer, I want to highlight issues in society that affect a lot of people. Feminism affects us all," he writes on the blog.

The author says that he has been wanting to write in female first person for quite some time now but managed to execute it only after a decade of being an author because it was a "huge challenge."

"I wanted that book to be about women, and deal with feminism. To do all this as a male writer was a huge challenge. After writing for over a decade, I finally attempted 'One Indian Girl'," he says.

He has previously authored seven books (5 fiction and 2 non-fiction) and his last book, 'Half-Girlfriend' is being adapted into a film of the same name starring Bollywood actors Arjun Kapoor and Shraddha Kapoor.

The author has been actively tweeting developments about the Mohit-Suri directed underproduction film scheduled to release next year.

Bhagat's novels 'Five Point Someone', 'One Night @ the Call Center', 'The 3 Mistakes of My Life' and '2 States: The Story of My Marriage' have all been previously adapted for Bollywood.
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First Published: Aug 20 2016 | 2:22 PM IST

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