"au vu des programmes qui se profilent dans la plupart des maisons d'édition, il y a fort à parier que le niveau sera beaucoup plus faible, sans doute une cinquantaine, tout au plus. Fayard, Buchet Chastel, Le Cherche Midi, Minuit, Plon, Verticales n'en publieront aucun. Les autres (Gallimard, Seuil, Grasset, Stock, Actes Sud, Albin Michel, Julliard, Flammarion...) se contenteront, à eux tous, de dix premiers romans."

Depuis trois ans, un groupe d'universitaires, de graphistes et d'ouvriers typographes persiste à se battre pour que ce patrimoine soit sauvegardé. D'où lettre aux candidats, les appelant à «s'engager, pour que les savoir-faire traditionnels de l'Imprimerie nationale trouvent leur place dans un projet à la mesure de leur valeur universelle». [...]

«les options [permettant de préserver et valoriser ce patrimoine] soient examinées avec la plus grande attention». Hélas! rien dans ce courrier ne précise la nature desdites «options». [...] «Votre soutien et votre confiance me sont, plus que jamais,indispensables et précieux pour engager cette action».

Here is the first crucial thing: the screen does work. By "work", I mean that the words stand out clearly without shimmering, and that you can certainly read it outside, in dappled light and direct sunlight, as you would not be able to read a normal computer screen. The effect is matt, not shiny, and black-and-white, not colour. Well, to be precise, not black-and-white so much as dark grey characters on a light grey background, which is perhaps part of the secret. The font is modern - not elegant, but effective - and you get far fewer words to the "page" than with a traditional book, though the half-inch borders and generous spacing between paragraphs help you to read. I tried it, reading some Tolstoy and then some Conan Doyle, in the garden, slumped in a chair inside, on a sofa in a dimmish room, and in the back of a car. In each place, it was easy to read; I have spent plenty of time reading it and so far, haven't felt any eyestrain, or no more than I would have found with a book.
    What about page-turning? It is slower than a book. There is a distinct "one-and-two" count as the page dissolves and re-forms after your thumb has touched the flicker, and it can be disconcerting. I found it more cumbersome than turning a page. Speeding this up will be important if the ebook is to really catch on. [...]
    But the real question is whether it is so useful that it is worth more than £400? And on top of that, there's the material itself, because although a deal with the Amazon subsidiary Mobipocket means there will be access to about 50,000 titles, and though publishers such as Macmillan are now moving into ebooks for new authors, scientific books and other material, the proud owner of an Iliad would still buy "books" to download. It isn't cheap and it isn't going to replace beautifully made books, or books with lots of pictures.

Roy says she has already begun writing the new novel, but has no idea when it will be finished. The whisper was that it would be about Kashmir, the revolt-scarred Himalayan state, but Roy shakes her head sending ripples through her grey-flecked curls. "It is not true. My fiction is never about an issue. I don't set myself some political task and weave a story around it. I might as well write a straightforward non-fiction piece if that is what I wanted to do."

A clue about where Roy is heading may be gleaned from her current reading. On her coffee table rests a book by Bono, while at her bedside are works by the radical American founding father Thomas Paine and Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. What these two writers share is their defence of the French revolution, and an empathy with the lower classes who pulled down the ruling elite. "In so many ways Paris then could be Delhi now. It is a conceit to think that all that we say is new and original."

Like pre-revolutionary France, Roy says that India today is poised "on the edge of violence". As she sees it, the country of her birth is not coming together but coming apart - convulsed by "corporate globalisation" at an unprecedented, unacceptable velocity. "The inequalities become untenable."