Wednesday, April 27 2005 22:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New York: A teenaged Indian-American girl, who is yet to make her literary debut, has secured a staggering Rs 22 mn two-book deal with a prestigious American publishing house.

US-born Kaavya Viswanathan, studying in Harvard to be an investment banker, has won the whopping $ 500,000 (Rs 22 mn) in advance from Little Brown and Company, one of the oldest and most prestigious American publishers - now part of the Time Warner Group.

"I still cannot believe this. I never expected this would happen," Kaavya Viswanathan, the only child of her Indian-born parents - Viswanathan Rajaraman, a neurosurgeon, and Mary Sundaram, a gynaecologist - told 'The New York Sun'.

Most first-time writers of fiction receive advances of less than $ 10,000, according to the editor of Writer's Digest Books, Donya Dickerson.

"I had only vaguely thought of becoming a writer. But a book contract? From a major publisher? This is so incredibly unbelievable. It's so hard to believe that I'm going to be able to walk into a bookstore and see something that I wrote on display there," Kaavya told Sun.

Kaavya, both of whose books will be fiction, said she expects to deliver the first volume, tentatively titled "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got In," by next month end. The novel is expected to be published next spring.

"The main character (of her first novel) is a girl of Indian descent who's totally academically driven, and when she senses from a Harvard admissions officer that her personal life wasn't perhaps well-rounded, Ms Mehta goes out and does what she thinks 'regular' American kids do - get drunk, kiss boys, dance on the table," Kaavya told Sun.