In chat: The Narrators

So you love books? You have many, adorning those shelves in one corner of your home. Do you wish if there was a better, beautiful and artistic way of displaying your book collection? If you can relate to all of the above then the ‘The Narrators’, an initiative by Reshma Jain, has the right recipe for you. They have just converted literary masterpieces into beautifully designed posters. So now you can have the entire text of the book in the form of a poster, decorating the walls of your home. Excited? Read on, for our interview with Reshma Jain and you can also check out a few of their works here. For the entire collection, head over to their site -here

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle

Discovering Mumbai (DM): Hello Reshma, can you shed light on your personal background?

Reshma: I am a 35 year old single girl staying with my parents in the crazy city of Mumbai. I have been a journalist for most part of the last decade, and used to freelance for papers like Sunday Midday, Hindustan Times, Deccan Chronicle and The Hindu. Past four years I was Managing editor of a magazine called ‘Marwar’. I left it in December to work on a documentary by an Austrian production house which was on surrogate mothers. That was an incredible experience.

Reshma Jain, founder 'The Narrators'

DM: When did the idea to start ‘The Narrators’ occur to you?

Reshma: The Narrators was a name we stumbled upon as I was working on a book for an industrialist based in Kolkata.

DM: How did you stumble upon the idea of book posters?

Reshma: I shifted to my new house in April and my friend from Berlin gifted me a ‘Pride and Prejudice’ poster. I fell in love with it almost immediately. Later I had a series of housewarming parties for friends and relatives, they all would show wonderment at the poster and requested to source some for them too. My friend in Berlin Peter Morcinek, who has been wanting to collaborate with me for almost a decade now, said “Reshma, let us do it”; and we ordered the first 15 posters. Overnight they were sold, in spite of lots of people finding them expensive.

DM: Can you tell us about the process of making a book poster? How much time does it take from start to end?

Reshma: It takes anything from a week to a month because books under hundred years are copyrighted and take time. Then the design, ensuring the whole book is covered, at the moment Peters friends are designing and we source it from them, eventually we wish to design and print in house any book of your choice.

Book Poster of The Jungle Book

DM: How are you planning to go about marketing your posters?

Reshma: That is always a tough one, being a journalist I have never been in the place of selling so now to appease someone to write on me or this venture is difficult but the uniqueness of the product has already reaped the word of mouth wonder.

Secondly my brother has a store in Raghuvanshi Mills so I plan to show some from there.

DM: How has the response been so far?

Reshma: Overwhelmingly ‘wow’ but most online stumblers found it expensive, but if they come home and see it, then they like it.

DM: What were the challenges in starting The Narrators? How did you overcome these challenges?

Reshma: Lack of funds and vision were the main challenge, until we decided to see…haha

Peter Pan

DM: Can you share some memories from the journey so far?

Reshma: Made so many wonderful new book lover friends, they would come home, decide on their favourite book poster and eventually we would end up sharing many cups of tea… and books… so made some wonderful new friends.

DM: So what’s the future plan for The Narrators?

Reshma: ‘The Narrators’ is definitely going to be an umbrella for innovation and writing. So every year I plan to launch a new product, which is completely unique.

DM: Few words about the city of Mumbai

Reshma: A city that can embrace contradictions and polarities… incredibly abundant… and painfully fast paced.

You can check out ‘The Narrators’ entire collection of wall posters - here