Book Review: 'CREATIVE WRITING' by Prof. Arputharaj Devaraj

Crisp and clear, exclusively inclusive, handy and an easy read makes this book highly interesting to students, professors, teachers and aspiring creative writers. This book is the first of its kind as per creative writing in India is concerned.

The book balances both the acts of theoretically explaining certain concepts and practically putting the concepts into use (i.e. workshop content/ praxis).

The 14 chapters of the book sequentially and briefly discuss basics of creative writing, kinds of writing and art of writing with different techniques. The book doesn’t bore you at all because one can get involved in the activity that the author puts forward.

The author has taken pains to keep the book highly academic and thus learning objectives at the beginning of every chapter makes clear the purpose and what one should look for in the chapters. The chapter’s end with questions that help the reader to revise what she/he has just read and learnt.

The book contains sample question papers too in the interest of the students who are studying creative writing in their Colleges, schools etc. In writing this book the author himself has been creative enough. Every chapter starts and ends with a quote. There are exhibits at the end of a few chapters that act as explications and examples to certain practicalities; they are highly beneficial to the reader. Interesting to note, these exhibits are not taken from any books, but are the dear articles written by the students of the author.

If one aspires to be a creative writer, begin your journey in this field by reading this book. Don’t trust me trust the book. Finally quoting the author himself, “Creative writers are not born, they are made”. Hence this book helps you become one.