Happenings
On what’s been happening. If there’s news you have heard of and think it would make for interesting reading, please share it with us.

A Play of Words, Art & Music
Source: Times of India
A report on the recently-concluded Goa Arts and Literary Festival

Instead, the five-day event was a celebration of great works by lesser-known writers. It gave pride of place to locals, and uniquely, also featured several writers, poets and musicians from the north-east, that oft-ignored part of India that usually comes into the national consciousness only in the event of some unpleasant occurrence there.

The festival conjured up a finely balanced cocktail of both the ingredients that are usually characteristics of a successful literature festival-scholarship and performance, although some argued that a third- scheduling-was in short supply.

While veterans such as Gulzar, Amitav Ghosh and Kiran Nagarkar were the star draws for panel discussions and book-signings, the walls that separate a writer from his reader were slowly chipped away as the festival progressed; by the final day, most attendees, by now familiar with their fellow-delegates, pleasantly greeted each other in a friendly manner of camaraderie consistent with the spirit of the host state.

Informality aside, another highlight of the festival was the spotlight on the younger brigade, led by three writers who stood out throughout the festival. Their works comprise long, hard looks at the cities they’ve lived in.

Nigerian-American novelist Teju Cole wrote ‘Open City’, about an African psychiatry resident who takes long walks around New York City. It has been listed as one of Time magazine’s top-10 fiction books of the year. Sonia Faleiro’s ‘Beautiful Thing’, which takes a look at Mumbai through the lens of a bar dancer, is a formidable work of narrative journalism and its title regularly features in several international best-of lists.

Naresh Fernandes’s ‘Taj Mahal Foxtrot-The Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age’, though released at the festival, is already being looked at as a significant chronicle of the city through the perspective of the defining musical genre of that era. During their sessions, Cole, Faleiro and Fernandes exhibited extraordinary mastery of their material, presenting it in a way that held captive the fickle attention of the small, scattered audience.

Read more »Globalocal 2011
GLOBALOCAL 2011- a two day conference for professionals in the content industry – Publishing, Printing, Digitization, Film and more, was held on the 24th and 25th November 2011. The theme of the conference was “Crossing Currents” – looking at how content is being produced, packaged, sold and consumed differently in the current world of increasing digitization. The two day conference started on 24th November with Juergen Boos, President of the Frankfurt Book Fair presenting the opening speech. In Juergen’s words “I am very pleased to be here today because India currently finds itself in a unique position as it shifts into the spotlight of the media world. It is one of the largest English-speaking markets in the world. Print runs are still increasing, even as interest is growing in digital publishing.” He then handed the podium to Dr. Shashi Tharoor, eminent writer and Member of Parliament to present the keynote speech. Dr. Tharoor spoke eloquently, on how the subject of the conference – “Crossing Currents” had intrigued him, he went on to tell us of his personal journey with ‘the book’, how when he was young and asthmatic, reading was his only and best entertainment. Since then, there has been a sea change in terms of what is available for entertainment. Though this digital variety must pose quite a challenge for publishers, Dr. Tharoor insisted that publishers should not see it as such, but rather that all the new technology can only enhance the reader experience.

The first presentation was aptly on Cross media storytelling – presented by Holger Volland who heads the Digital Initiative of the Frankfurt Book Fair, there was rapt attention as Holger expounded on the subject which is at the heart of the discussion on how content is being redefined today. This was followed by a lively panel discussion on the subject with various experts a lively round of questions and input from the audience. The other sessions of the day saw subject experts on retail, film, and social media giving informative and thought provoking presentations and lectures. The second day started with the Keynote Speech by Octavio Kulesz from Argentina. Octavio gave an overview of the state of digitisation in the world today, he spoke of how digitisation can be viewed simply as that which has happened/is happening and is controlled by the developed world and the big players, and digitisation in the rest of the world/ developing world. Setting the tone for the rest of the day’s sessions all focussed on the digital to an engaged and curious audience, the current state of confusion in the industry at present, was especially apparent from the number of questions from the participants – especially in the session on E-Reader/ Tablet platforms and on Cloud Computing. The conference ended with an intense workshop on Digital Practice.

Writers’ conclave at book fair
Source: Times of India
At a conclave held at the 13th North East Book Fair, noted writers from the city stated that authors’ stand to lose their originality if they let their publishers amend their composed works in accordance with the taste of readers.

‘North East Writers’ Conclave – an open platform: A conglomeration of Creative Minds’ was a gathering of professional and amateur writers held with the objective of discussing issues concerning writers ranging from writing styles and influences, new-age tools for writers, integrity of the writer, understanding of a community, publishing woes of writers etc. The conclave was attended by writers cutting across professional lines.

“Different writers, both from the classical and from the contemporary genre, may influence us and our writings, but as writers we need to have a sensitivity to respond and react and have to touch upon us. All we need is to be open to moments that might range from the beautiful to the ugly and we need to grasp it no matter what,” said Srutimala Duarah, associate professor and writer.Read more »

The Seagull School of Publishing launched
The Seagull Foundation for the Arts in association with Seagull Books supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy of New Delhi, launched The Seagull School of Publishing in Calcutta today. The inauguration was done by Her Excellency Ms. Ann Ollestad, Ambassador of Norway in the presence of Mr. Naveen Kishore, Publisher, Seagull Books, Mr. Samik Bandopadhyay, Founder Editor, Seagull Books and Dean of Editing, The Seagull School of Publishing, and Ms. Sunandini Banerjee, Senior Editor and Graphic Designer, Seagull Books and Dean of Design & Production, The Seagull School of Publishing and Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, eminent scholar, University Professor at Columbia University, New York, and Seagull Books author.

The inaugural year will conduct a single session from April to July 2012 and thereafter Spring (January-April) and Autumn (June–September) sessions from 2013. The course will include a one-month compulsory overview covering the art, science and business of publishing, editing, marketing and distribution of books followed by three months of specialization in Editing or Design and Production. The selection procedure will include a national online test (www.seagullschool.org) whereby candidates will be shortlisted for another round of written test and final interview to be held in Kolkata. The academy will admit 40 qualified students per batch. The course fee will be Rs. 20,000 per session.

The curriculum is enriched with special Saturday sessions comprising master classes and field trips to publishing houses, printing presses, book fairs, bookstores as well as lectures by guest faculty from mainstream and independent presses, universities, authors and designers who will share their insights gained from their long years in this field. The School will be offering a selection of national and international internships for its students as well as a few fellowships for those aspiring entrepreneurs who wish to set up their own publishing venture.

Oxford Press to continue printing Ramayana essay
Source: Economic Times
Oxford University Press (OUP) has gone back on an earlier move to stop printing a controversial essay suggesting that the Ramayana has many versions, and now said that it will, after all, continue to publish A K Ramanujam’s Three hundred Ramayanas. The essay was removed somewhat hurriedly from the Delhi University’s History syllabus in October this year.

OUP on Friday said; “Given the current concerns expressed by members of the scholarly community over the availability of The Collected Essays and Many Ramayanas, we have decided to immediately reprint both titles and make them available in India and beyond. We are also making Questioning Ramayanas available again.”

The publishing house came under an unprecedented attack from scholars worldwide, including powerful and influential alumni of Oxford University (OUP is closely connected with the University) for having ‘apologised’ to those wanting the Ramanujam essay on the diversity in the versions of the Ramayana removed from the Delhi University syllabus. Those protesting against the inclusion of the essay had used a statement reportedly made by OUP’s India office stating that OUP has decided to desist from publishing the controversial essay. Read more »

Wolters Kluwer Health acquires Medknow
Source: Indian Express
Wolters Kluwer Health acquired Medknow, a leading scientific, technical and medical journal publishing operation headquartered in Mumbai and one of the largest open access publishers in the world.

The acquisition expands Wolters Kluwer’s medical research business presence in key developing markets and supports its strategy to increase locally written content and incorporate more open access platforms into its business model. Read more »

Good Response at Hyderabad Book Fair
Source: http://ibnlive.in.com
The annual book fair which was in town for 10 days had quite a few people from the city turn up at the 250 and-odd stalls that were put up, where about 150 English book stalls and 90 Telugu book stalls were put up. Stalls were set up by book shops from across the twin cities and outside including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Gorakhpur, Vijayawada, Anantapur and a couple of others. With a recorded foot-fall of about 10,000 on weekdays and more than 50,000 on weekends, the fair was considered a success overall.

When asked about how the response had been over the 10 days, secretary of Hyderabad Book Fair Society, Hanumanth Rao said, “The response has been incredible, especially on the weekends. The number of people who visited the fair on the last day has been more than 60,000, definitely a larger turn-out than last year.”

While parents and teachers seem worried about children spending too much time either watching television or on internet, the book fair reflected differently. Most of the stall owners found that children’s books were the most sold category of books. Another comforting trend observed was the sale of Telugu doing as well as English books; in some cases Telugu book stalls did much better business than their English counterparts. Read more »

It’s a woman’s world
Source: The Hindu
Over the last 10 years, the face of publishing has been changing, and what was a bit of a boys’ club a few decades back is no longer so.

Today, more women occupy important, decision-making positions in the Indian publishing industry, and many have broken off from larger, multinational publishing houses to start their own imprints. With the multinationals too, a large number of young, spirited women are at the editorial helm. Over the past 10 years, at least in the world of publishing, women have surely and silently begun to outnumber men. But hasn’t there always been a greater ratio of women in the editorial teams of publishing houses? And if so, what has changed?

Read more »Commercial success, a diving force for writers today
Source: DNA
The scary submission to market forces

“I want to beat Chetan Bhagat’s record!” screeched another hopeful in his conversation with me. At the risk of supreme generalisation, the aspiration of several, if not all, budding authors is precisely this – emulate Mr Bhagat. I really have nothing against this man who is being touted as a ‘publishing phenomenon’ and frankly think my fellow-authors who love to bitch about him in all Lit Fests and social gatherings are plain jealous of his monetary success.

But the greatest disservice that I feel he has done to Indian writing is in creating this vast pool of youngsters who want to be like him! Making the lowest common denominator as an aspirational benchmark for both writers and readers not only feeds, but also celebrates mediocrity! No surprise then that a very eminent and erudite author in his ‘diplomatic’ review of Chetan’s latest book commented tongue-in-cheek that while his style might be ‘pedestrian,’ ‘careless’ and ‘awkward’, the author’s ‘ultimate vindication’ is the number of copies his book sells and hence he must be read! Bananas sell too, I thought! So what is the point?

Read more »How to Succeed in Business? By Reading, India Says
Source: cnbc.com

Indian readers, particularly young ones, have been devouring books on business, management, careers and money in recent years. In storefront displays and airport bookstores across India, these tomes get pride of place, relegating fiction and books about politics to the back row.

Bangalore’s annual book fair, which was held over 10 days this month in the grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a Windsor Castle lookalike from the Raj days, attracted dozens of business-focused publishers and retailers with catchy names like Success and Genius, as well as more than 200,000 attendees.

Young Indians graduating from management schools “are voracious readers of nonfiction, they read to get a competitive edge,” says Krishan Chopa, chief editor for nonfiction at HarperCollins Publishers India. India’s growing economy has accelerated changes in business and at the workplace, he said, and authors who write about these changes are popular because the “country’s book-reading public is eager to stay updated.”

Read more »Kids’ publishers take baby steps in digital world
Source: Times of India
Realising that there is little point in resisting digital books, publishers and writers are embracing the digital world and working to promote their books online. Artistes related to children’s literature debated the idea of being hooked to books at the ‘The Reading Child’ conference.

Editor of Karadi Tales Manasi Subramaniam said that holding a book comes with a unique social experience. “When I see somebody reading a book I want to walk up to them and talk about it. That social aspect gets destroyed in a digital medium,” she said. “However, there’s no point in fighting the change. With ebooks publishing becomes cheaper and books also become cheaper, encouraging more people to buy them. It’s actually awesome,” she said. Author of Mayil Will Not Be Quiet Niveditha Subramaniam said there is no denying the fact that e-books are a trend now. “We have to find a way to use them creatively,” she said.

Publishers of multilingual children’s books Tulika knows that technology is here to stay, so though the organisation hasn’t got down to e-publishing first hand, they have been approached by others who have. Read more »

The Retell Market
Source: Times of India

Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO of Westland (that had first refused to publish Amish Tripathi, like every other Indian publisher, and then had to eat crow and buy the rights for his next book when The Immortals of Meluha hit top of the publishing charts), says it is a combination of various factors that has ensured the success of this genre. “The new generation of Indian readers is not just comfortable with its Indian roots but also willing to know more about it. And there is a wealth of material in our mythology and history which can become a bestseller in the hands of a gifted writer,” reasons Padmanabhan. Westland has quite a few titles in this genre in its kitty, like the next big series by Ashok Banker, who pioneered this subset in Indian writing almost two decades ago. Banker’s next, The Mahabharat series, is due to be published by Westland in 2012.

Read more »15 Literary Prophecies for 2012
Source: DNA
Bookstores will stock seasonal vegetables, Chetan Bhagat will finally be translated into English, and literary festivals will have readings from telephone directories, predicts bibliophile Sanjay Sipahimalani

Street food vendors will stay off Indian roads to protest against the declining sales of newspapers and magazines. When lauded for their attempts to promote reading, the president of the vendors’ association will say: “Reading-shmeading. We only want to make sure there’s no shortage of plates and wrappers.”

Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
New book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

Rasāla Books
Rasāla publishes India’s most beautiful forgotten poems in translation. These exquisite volumes of Sanskrit poetry, accompanied by contemporary English translations, allow the general reader to enjoy ancient India as imagined by her poets.

Each bilingual edition, with Sanskrit on the left hand page and English on the right, is available in print and eBook format. Rasāla also offers annual subscriptions which include two volumes of poetry and the Rasāla annual anthology.

Rasāla is run by a small team based in southern India. For more details, please visit www.rasalabooks.com or get in touch at venetia@ rasalabooks.com

Revolutionary Road
Source: livemint.com
From 1955-75, a small literary magazine in Mumbai published some of India’s greatest writers and thinkers, before falling victim to Cold War conspiracies and the Emergency. A new anthology recalls its heady legacy, and its importance to Indian modernity.

The clearest indications of its target audience are the advertisements directed at them – ads reproduced painstakingly in The Best of Quest. Here, Mafatlal “puts colour into my life”, suggests a man posing as a painter. “For elegance and comfort, Lambretta 150 li,” says an ad for the famous scooter. With their sparkling, lengthy copy and sophisticated models in translucent saris, they recall a time when such advertisements targeted a very small, but fairly homogenous band of English-speaking sophisticates across the country. In its last years, the magazine cost a generous Rs. 2.

Read more »Campfire Young Writer of the Year
Campfire is proud to launch Campfire Young Writer of the Year – a story writing competition for anyone from classes 5 to 9. The first competition of its kind to take place on a pan-India basis, it is being held in association with Spell Bee India (as co-partner for 2012). Anyone from classes 5 to 9, attending any school in India, participate in this competition. All the child needs to do is write a fictional story (maximum 2,000 words), then log onto www.campfire.co.in/youngwriters to submit their entry. All entries must be received no later than 15th March, 2012. The results will be announced during the first two weeks of April.

Elsewhere…
News from around the world…

The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to…Tomas Transtromer
Source: nytimes.com

Critics have praised Mr. Transtromer’s poems for their accessibility, even in translation, noting his elegant descriptions of long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature.

“So much poetry, not only in this country but everywhere, is small and personal and it doesn’t look outward, it looks inward,” said Daniel Halpern, the president and publisher of Ecco, the imprint of HarperCollins that has published English translations of Mr. Transtromer’s work. “But there are some poets who write true international poetry. It’s the sensibility that runs through his poems that is so seductive. He is such a curious and open and intelligent writer.”

Read more »

Happenings
On what’s been happening. If there’s news you have heard of and think it would make for interesting reading, please share it with us.

In the Loop in Frankfurt
Vinutha Mallya, Senior Editor, Mapin Publishing, visited the Frankfurt Book Fair again this year and wrote this report for The Publisher’s Post.

The good news for the Indian presence at the Fair this year was that the National Book Trust had taken a large stall, where they were also promoting the upcoming World Book Fair to be held in Delhi early next year. At the Sahitya Akademi stand, the spotlight was on Rabindranath Tagore, whose 150th birth anniversary is being commemorated by the nation this year. Other agencies at the Fair were CAPEXIL, and the Kolkata Book Fair. Matchmaking events and buy-seller meets were organised for publishers and printers, and provided good opportunity for gaining business leads. As each year, one hopes that next year the NBT will organize a collective stand for Indian publishers, which would ensure a stronger contingent from India at the Fair. (We needn’t wait to be made Guest of Honour!)

Read more »Publishing Conference – Publishing Next
India’s first conference on the future of Publishing – Publishing Next 2011 – was held on the 16th and 17th of September 2011. The conference attracted participants from all over India and even abroad and ensured that diverse perspectives were put forth during the two days of panel discussions, workshops and presentations.

The panel discussions were held on a variety of topics ranging from the future of independent publishing to marketing in the age of social media to the future of publishing houses themselves. Workshops on the art of academic writing and social media for publishers were also held in an environment that encouraged participation from the audience. In a departure from the usual format of conferences such as these, various technologies were presented by different entrepreneurs, those that represented the future of publishing.

Over the two days participants had an opportunity to network with each other. Given the diverse backgrounds of those attending, participants found that there was a lot they could borrow from each other and collaborate with in order to boost their own businesses.

Publishing Next is now planned as an annual feature with meetups planned between the annual conference.

For reports and blogs about the conference do visit www.publishing-next.com/2011/

FICCI organizes PubliCon 2011

The sessions chaired by eminent persons in their own fields touched upon various aspects of publishing. The first session on day 1 discussed the proposed National Book Promotion Policy and stressed the need for its careful implementation and monitoring. Another panel discussed how India could be a hub for e-book development while a third discussed the huge market potential of comic books and childrens’ books. The first day concluded with a discussion on how IPR could be managed in the publishing industry with perspectives from markets other than the Indian market.

The second day opened with a panel discussion on the role of book fairs in the country. This was followed by one that discussed the export potential of the Indian Publishing Industy. The conference concluded with discussions on how libraries could be rejuvenated in India.

Besides allowing a platform for important topics to be discussed, the conference also allowed members of the publishing industry to meet and network with each other.

Jumpstart 2011
In its 3rd year now, JUMPSTART witnessed an unprecedented euphoria. The two days saw 32 speakers from 5 countries and from almost all parts of India. And over 250 participants, many of whom have been attending since the last 2 years, and many people travelling to Delhi from different parts of India.

Over the two days, various topics were discussed. In the inaugural session on day 1, a number of ideas about how, in the digital age, the idea of the book has been “shattered” and “splintered” were floated, challenging the audience – of publishers and creative people – to rethink the parameters of what they do. Similarly, in later sessions, the audience was educated on the marketing challenges faced by publishers, the state of children’s books in India, the challenges of retail and interesting models people are coming up with to battle infrastructure issues. The second day mainly saw various instances of how storytelling had evolved, especially within the Indian context. Devdutt Pattanaik, for instance, spoke of narrative lineage and his personal explorations in re-telling ancient myths for a young audience.

Various workshops were also organized, aimed at individual groups of writers, illustrators and librarians. The second day also saw the first LitCam conference in India. With a focus on literacy and publishing and literacy in media, the sessions had some very pertinent and exciting discussions on issues that concern us all in the publishing industry.

First Volume of Konkani Encyclopedia Released
Source: daijiworld.com
Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation celebrated the Konkani Manyatha Divas (recognition of Konkani by its inclusion in the 8th schedule of the constitution) by releasing the first volume of the three-part Encyclopedia of Konkani at a function held at World Konkani Centre, Shaktinagar on August 20.

Prof Rajesh Sachdeva Director-in-Charge of Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, who released the book in the presence of Dr Tanaji Harlankar, guest of honour and Chief Editor of the Encyclopedia of Konkani emphasized on the importance of contribution of the community in safeguarding and developing their language. Read more »

National Book Printers conference (NBPC) in Thiruvananthapuram next month
Source: Print Week India
India’s first National Book Printers conference (NBPC) will be hosted between 17 to 19 November at Thiruvanthapuram in Kerala.

Top book printer-exporters from India will participate in a panel discussion on day one. Manipal Technologies, Lovely Offset, IPP, Gopsons, Replika Press, Repro India, Thomsons Press and MultiVista Global have confirmed their presence at NBPC 2011 along with other book printers, book publishers and government delegates.

The three-day event is being supported by Welbound and Henkel CAC India. It will consist of knowledge seminars and panel discussions which have been conceptualised by PrintWeek India. Professor Werner Rebsamen will be the keynote speaker on day one of the event.

“Key post-press suppliers will be providing innovative technological solutions during the conference with an objective to make India the largest book print exporter by 2017,” said P Sajith, Welbound Worldwide. Read more »

Indian flavour rules at Comic Con
Source: booktrade.info
The second edition in the country and the first of its kind in Mumbai, the event saw characters like Darth Vader with his red saber rubbing shoulders with the world’s favourite pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow. Around 40 stalls exhibited works by Indian and international comic as well as graphic novel publishers.

With 5,000 odd people visiting on day one, stalls with the maximum sales at the event were not the graphic novels, but those selling comic merchandise. “It’s difficult to get your hands on to a lot of this stuff. I’m a huge Family Guy fan, so when I saw these broaches, I just knew I had to stock up,” says Abeer Aggarwal, an advertising professional.

And though bookstores like Landmark, Crossword and Flipkart too have set shops here, it was the small, independent artists who got maximum eyeballs. Bollywood too took a backseat, as Bihari superhero Uud Bilaw Manus took on Ra.One the comic. Read more »

Business of selling books set for a wrenching change
Source: Economic Times
The Indian author, especially the one who writes in English, no longer lives on fresh air and inspiration. As interest in Indian writing and book sales have gone up, so have the advances.

Having said that, not everyone is giggling all the way to the bank. Despite being the world’s third-largest producer of English titles by volumes after the US and the UK, Indian booksellers are bleeding, a result of what Hachette India managing director Thomas Abraham terms “overexpansion”.

The leading book retail chains are still in an expansion mode in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore to consolidate their positions. “But there isn’t as much a demand for books in the metros that justifies the presence of as many players,” says Abraham. The result? Booksellers end up cannibalising each other. Read more »

Lacklustre response to Delhi Book Fair disappoints exhibitors
Source: The Hindu
Though bibliophiles could be seen in good numbers on the penultimate day of the ongoing Delhi Book Fair at Pragati Maidan here on Saturday, its director, Shakti Malik, is a disillusioned man because of bleak response from the book reading public.

According to Mr. Malik, one of the main reasons is lack of publicity for this annual event. “There should have been more publicity in local newspapers and satellite channels so that Delhiities living in far flung areas could have made it to the fair. This is a book fair that has been conceptualised for the citizens of Delhi but if they are missing it then it is disheartening for me and other publishers,” said the veteran book promoter, who has played a significant role over the past 16 years in popularising books authored by Indian writers at this fair. Serious buyers did come to the nine-day-long fair but only in dribs and drabs. However, there was a silver lining in the Chinese publishers evincing interest in books authored by Indian writers and there being an agreement on translation rights.

Read more »‘Identity of Indian in writing is problematic’
Source: http://expressbuzz.com/
“Why do Indian writers write in English? This was asked to me by the organiser of a poetry fest in Poland. The identity of the Indian in Indian writing thus becomes a problematic one,” said author Anita Nair. She was inaugurating the Indian Ruminations Literary Festival at the Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan on Saturday. The Indian-born writer added that writings in Indian English after the 1960s were rarely discussed in academic circles.

The literary festival is hosted by Indian Ruminations, a web-based writers’ collective and publishing firm. Books authored by city-residents Anu Joshy and Anna Maria were released at the event. An anthology of poems by writers from various parts of the country was also released under the banner of Roots & Wings, the publication wing of the website.

Delivering the presidential address, Additional Chief Secretary K Jayakumar said that translations were as serious a literary engagement as creative writing. “Empanelling of translators is a rigorous process in most International Book Festivals and only the translations done by the members of that panel are accepted for the festivals. Translation is a serious work and translators should be respected and well-paid,” he said. “When great literary works are translated into vernaculars, it is not the literary space of M T Vasudevan Nair or Basheer that is compromised, but that of the new writers who will have to struggle to get noticed by readers and critics. This is where initiatives such as Indian Ruminations can play the role of effective mediators between readers and writers,” he said.

Awards for works of poetry and prose (fiction and non-fiction) in both English and Malayalam were presented to authors by Tamil poet K Pankajam. Technical writer Nayanathara received the award for best poetry in English for her The Scent of Frangipani while in the Malayalam section, the award was given to Rajesh Chithira for his Unmathathakalude Crash Landingukal. Amit Upadhyay of Delhi has bagged the award for the best fiction in English for his work
Evil is Evil Good is God. Journalist Sulfikkar Kamar shared the award for best non-fiction work in Malayalam (’Fernhill’) with Ajoy Kumar MS (’Angane Oru Mambazhakalam’). Read more »

Indian writers turning bolder!
Source: daily.bhaskar.com
“There has been a greater acceptance of such writing by society, possibly on account of a more matured audience and the desire of the reader to experiment with varied styles, genres of writing”

Going by what India is reading and writing of late, the country seems to be undergoing a mass change in its attitude to morality. Latest books, including controversial translations from yester-years, have proved that the common man is more understanding of what goes on in a marriage and is perhaps more tolerant of transgressions.

Take Farrukh Dhondy’s “Adultery and Other Stories” (HarperCollins), the newest entrant in literature to explore relationships in an out-of-marriage context. These stories about ‘love, lust, friendship, betrayal and the ways of the heart’ take on the seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. Of course, the word ‘adultery’ is gaining new nuances and carries all kinds of meanings in modern-day vocabulary.

In Shinie Antony’s recently released novel “When Mira Went Forth and Multiplied” (Rupa), the erring partners are delightfully caricatured. Far from being the stereotypical mistress, Mira is your average, neighbourhood psycho whose heart is in the right place.

Agreed, adultery is as old as the hills, but interpretations are new and now manifold. In most of these books, affairs rarely culminate in marriage – the ultimate traditional destination of man-woman relationships. Indeed the new trend is to tell it like it is and not judge.

Read more »Future of Books rather good
Source: Print Week
There’s been a bit of action on the book front.

…publishers across the country are now targeting the YA segment as a separate category and coming up with books that have adolescent Indian protagonists in local settings. HarperCollins Publishers India launched the YA category last year under the Harper imprint while Penguin India rolled out Penguin YA in February 2011. Amar Chitra Katha also plans to come out with two separate YA lists – graphic novels as well as fiction – within six months. All of them are targeting the 14 to 21 age group as a separate segment.

Read more »It is the best of times for new authors
Source: The Hindu

But even in these good times, finding a publisher can be quite a task. R. Chandrasekhar’s The Goat, the Sofa and Mr. Swami was turned down by three publishers before Hachette, impressed by the first three chapters, published him. “My story revolved around cricket, bureaucracy and politics, all three are timely and continue to be,” says the alumnus of Vivekananda College, Delhi School of Economics and University of Chicago.

Publishers employ many methods to process this deluge. For instance, Chennai-based Blaft Publications are open to getting works from first-time writers but insist on an element of surprise in the story and “not somebody who wants to be another Chetan Bhagat or an IIM story,” says a spokesperson. Rupa & Co too rejects a considerable percentage of the manuscripts they receive.

Read more »Language and Identity
Source: The Hindu
With an inherited legacy of access to multiple languages, our writers and translators are enriching the English language with a typically Indian tenor and landscapes…

The more thorough the last of these acts, the deeper the self-forgetfulness of the defeated because language is like life, like faith, in it is encoded the identity of a people. But unlike the Portuguese who tortured the local people in and around Goa, pushed Latin into churches at the point of a sword and banned Marathi and Konkani, the British did not force their language on us … they simply made it socially expedient and professionally profitable to learn English even as they withdrew funding for scholars of Arabic and Sanskrit. After English was institutionalised in India and after a few decades of self-denigration and excessive awe of Western textbook-English, not only did Indians start to experiment with English, and reverse creative norms by beginning to translate into this visitor language, which they picked up rapidly, but they also coined usages with which no one can argue: popular ones, not literary. Not to mention, “I am thinking it is going to rain…” which overtook “I think it’s going to rain…” and which, according to David Crystal will one day be accepted as Standard English.

Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
New book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

Indian language literature goes to Frankfurt Book Fair
Source: http://ibnlive.in.com
In a first showcase of Indian indigenous writing, a literary panorama featuring works by over 30 language writers was on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a pilot exhibition for readers and publishers from Europe, the US and other countries.

The literary panorama was initiated by the union culture ministry under the ‘ILA: Indian Literature Abroad’ project. The project aims to carry the diversity of contemporary regional Indian literature from the grassroots to the world through source translation, which involves creation of original work directly to foreign languages in an attempt to remove dependence on English translation. Initially, the focus of translation is on six UNESCO languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. Read more »

Simon and Schuster eyes India’s digital reading space
Source: newKerala.com
The booming publishing market in India has lured yet another international publishing firm, Simon and Schuster, which is high on the country’s growing digital reading space. Simon and Schuster, the publishing segment of CBS Corp, has opened an India-specific unit.

The publishing house wants to cash in on digital transformation, the demand for inexpensive books and the inherent financial advantages like lesser material and allied costs in India, said Carolyn K. Reidy, president and CEO of Simon and Schuster. Read more »

Nobody’s in the library
Source: Economic Times
The rise of online library to suit changed lifestyles

Once upon a time, before the rise of the Internet and the emergence of hundreds of television channels, the library was where people went for both information and entertainment. It was here they learnt about global events, or were transported to distant lands. But then the library became a victim of rapidly changing lifestyles, and was on the verge of being wiped out. That is until it rediscovered itself in a new avatar: the online library.

Putting library catalogues online is now a growing trend, with several start-ups offering the service, and some traditional libraries following suit. In February 2010, the British Council Library, or BCL, at Mumbai’s Nariman Point, arguably the best-known library in the city, opted to close down and focus entirely on its online service. With online libraries sprouting all over India, are traditional libraries becoming obsolete?

Yes, says Hiten Turakhia, one of the founders of the Mumbai-based librarywala.com, the country’s first online library service. “Due to busy schedules, fewer people are willing to spend their precious free time travelling to a library,” he says. “This is where online libraries come in, where the books are delivered at your doorstep.”

Read more »Lit fests bloom as interest grows among sponsors
Source: livemint.com

The next four months will see at least 10 major literary festivals across the country, including the Indian edition of the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts (Kerala), the Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival (Delhi), the Kovalam Literary Festival (Kerala), the Goa Arts and Literary Festival, and Literature Live! (Mumbai).

Organizing such an event costs between Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 5 crore, according to organizers. The cost increases 15-20% annually, said Sanjoy K. Roy, founder of Teamwork Productions Pvt. Ltd, which has been organizing cultural festivals for nearly two decades. Besides infrastructure, costs that rise continuously are travel, accommodation and security, he added.

Read more »A barrier-free world with open-access publishing
Source: The Hindu

The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), based on the Technopark campus in Thiruvananthapuram, is poised to take its first step into open-access publishing. The centre is set to release the Journal of Free Software and Free Knowledge on Monday, representing the next stage in the free software movement.

Talking to The Hindu, Satish Babu, director, ICFOSS, said open-access publication provided an answer to the problems posed by copyright restrictions in the conventional method of publishing. A recent development in the domain of scholarly publishing, open-access publication aims at providing free, instant, global, and indexed access to published literature, without compromising on its quality. It encourages widespread access, use and reuse, with or without modification, of the original work, while maintaining the integrity of the original material and the rights of its author. Open-access publication is enabled by the Internet and Web technologies.

Read more »Bringing art back into fairy tales
Source: DNA
There was a time when story books laden with beautiful illustrations made heading to bed in the night, an event to look forward to. Fairy tales came alive with the equally-enticing illustrations. With PSPs, the computer and television grabbing the eyeballs, will picture books be a thing of the past?

Karadi Tales, the pioneers in audio-books in India don’t think so. Stepping out from the audio-book mode, the company recently launched five picture books under the Chitra imprint; namely, Whose lovely child can you be?, When the Earth Lost Its Shape, The Moustache Man, The Dancing Man and Dorje’s Stripes.

Shobha Vishwanath, writer and publishing director of Karadi Tales explains, “We are in a transitional phase right now. We have moved from cassettes to CDs and are deliberating on what to do next. This is a reason why we have decided to move to picture books.”Read more »

Indian student creates publishing buzz in London
Source: Times of India
Prajwal Parajuly, a 27-year-old student at the University of Oxford from Gangtok, Sikkim, India, created quite a furore in the publishing world of London this week by being signed by the Steig Larson trilogy publisher Quercus Books in a respectable five-figure pound advance. With the signing, Mr. Parajuly becomes the youngest author at Quercus.

Already touted as the next big thing in South Asian fiction by various publications of the Indian sub-continent, Prajwal’s The Gurkha’s Daughter: Stories clinched him the deal in a two-book signing, proving that talent – irrespective of the market for short-story collections – doesn’t go unrecognized. This will be the first time a book on fiction has been written about Nepali-speaking people without the contents restricting themselves to Nepal.Read more »

Elsewhere…
News from around the world…

The Nobel Prize in Literature goes to…Tomas Transtromer
Source: nytimes.com

Critics have praised Mr. Transtromer’s poems for their accessibility, even in translation, noting his elegant descriptions of long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature.

“So much poetry, not only in this country but everywhere, is small and personal and it doesn’t look outward, it looks inward,” said Daniel Halpern, the president and publisher of Ecco, the imprint of HarperCollins that has published English translations of Mr. Transtromer’s work. “But there are some poets who write true international poetry. It’s the sensibility that runs through his poems that is so seductive. He is such a curious and open and intelligent writer.”

Read more »

Happenings
On what’s been happening. If there’s news you have heard of and think it would make for interesting reading, please share it with us.

Making English Text Available In Bodo, Dogri, Oriya…
Source: newkerala.com
Graduate and postgraduate level English books or knowledge texts in 15 subjects will be translated into all 22 languages on the eighth schedule of India’s Constitution, the Human Resource Development Ministry has announced.

This is an outcome of a review of the working of the National Translation Mission set up to overcome language barriers and make knowledge accessible to all, a Ministry statement indicated.

The Mission is expected to help develop all Indian languages in a rapidly modernising society and pave way for a “functioning knowledge society with healthy multilingualism,” the statement said. Read more »

Children’s books by Indian authors record brisk sales
Source: DNA
The Indian authored children’s books section is growing steadily at a rate of 10% year-on-year with newer authors and publishers entering the space with more relevant story lines. According to experts, India’s English publishing industry was estimated at Rs. 1,200 crore in 2010, of which children’s category accounted for about 15%. However, of the total books market, excluding the academic books, the children’s books share is estimated to around 25%.

Leading bookstores in the country say there has been a surge in the growth of kids’ books authored by Indian writers in the last few years. “We see an increasing demand and that’s why we are stocking more of such books. Indian authored books for children is a fast moving category, followed by comics,” says Dipak Marwah, VP and business head, Reliance TimeOut, where out of the total book stocks, 30% constitutes children’s books. Read more »

Readership survey reveals domination of N-E over national average
Source: The Telegraph
The National Youth Readership Survey, conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research and by the National Book Trust, has revealed that compared to the rest of the country, readership of leisure books was much higher in the Northeast.

The results have revealed that excluding Sikkim, the proportion of leisure book readers in Mizoram was 62 per cent, Manipur 52 per cent, Nagaland 47 per cent and Assam 39 per cent in comparison to the national average of 28 per cent.

In Sikkim, though, the readership stood at a dismal 13 per cent. The survey has also shown that a much higher percentage of rural readers in the Northeast prefer fiction to non-fiction or the mixed category. Read more »

Repro acquires printing operations of Macmillan India
Source: newkerala.com
Printing solutions provider Repro India has announced the acquisition of printing operations of Macmillan Publishers India (MPIL).

As part of the deal, MPIL will outsource printing of education books to Repro, translating into business worth Rs 250 crore for Repro over the next 5 years, the company said in a statement.

MPIL Managing Director Rajiv Beri said, “Printing is not our core activity and we would like to focus on publishing growth. This is a strategic decision which will further consolidate our investments and energies in development and delivery of quality, need-based content.” Established in 1892, MPIL is a part of UK-based leading publisher Macmillan with over 3,000 titles and works with over 20,000 schools across India.Read more »

Amazon to enter Indian market
Source: The Bookseller
Amazon.com is reportedly in discussions with e-commerce companies in India in a bid to expand into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

The company could enter the market as early as first quarter 2012. It is in talks with a number of businesses including online bookstore Flipkart.com, electronics site letsbuy.com and luxury goods retailer exclusively.in.

However, if takeover talks fails, Amazon could enter the market on its own. A source told the Times of India: “Indian players see the huge potential in the e-commerce segment here and so have so far been resistant to being bought out easily.”

The retail giant has also been setting up a warehouse in Mumbai and recently bought 80,000 sq ft of land in Chennai. If Amazon does set up a dedicated Amazon.in site for the country, it will be the seventh country specific site for the retailer, in addition to Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Read more »

IIM Ahmedabad to start course in publishing
Source: DNA
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA) has become the first B-school in India to start a course on the publishing sector covering in-depth aspects.IIMA and Frankfurt Book Fair signed an MoU to continue the management development programme – a short-term programme on the publishing and media industry. Last year they conducted a five-day course.

President and CEO of Frankfurt Book Fair, Juergen Boos and director of German Book Office, New Delhi chapter, Akshay Pathak, spoke about the challenges the sector is facing. “There are three main challenges. Lack of education or training for community members is one. Secondly, there is lack of information – people learn once they join the sector. And finally, infrastructure and distribution of books is a real challenge even though retail is picking up,” said Pathak. Read more »

World Book Fair 2012 focuses on books on Indian cinema
Source: All About Book Publishing
The biennial New Delhi World Book Fair has been earning the reputation for offering international rights initiatives on a particular theme – in 2008, it was Mahatma Gandhi; in 2010, it was the sports and the year 2012 will see an international rights exhibition on books on Indian cinema.

To be held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from February 25-March 4, 2012, the 20th edition of New Delhi World book Fair is entering the 40th year of its foundation. The show is well organized by the National Book Trust (NBT), an autonomous organisation founded in 1957 by the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru under the Ministry of HRD, Govt of India as the national body for book publishing and book promotion. Read more »

Publishing Conference – Publishing Next
CinnamonTeal Publishing, a division of Dogears Print Media Pvt. Ltd, is organizing Publishing Next, a two-day Conference on the future of publishing on 16 and 17 September 2011 in Goa.

Supported by the British Council, UK’s international organisation for educational and cultural relations, the Conference will attract publishers, authors, bloggers, digital content developers, literary critics and others associated with the publishing ecosystem from around the country and internationally.

Through panel discussions, the Conference will address the impact of social media marketing, business process outsourcing, and proliferation of ebooks on the publishing industry. Publishing Next is also designed to be a networking platform to facilitate the trade of publishing rights, encourage dialogue between publishers and vendors and organize workshops on the technical aspects of social media marketing and digitization of content.

For more information and registration details, visit http://www.publishing-next.com or email contactus@ publishing-next.com

Books will be books
Source: The Hindu
Parragon now turns its attention to tier-II and tier-III cities and towns

After getting a stronghold in metros, Parragon Publishing India is all set to target tier-II and tier-III cities. On the basic strategy to harness the readership there, Vineet Sharma, Managing Director, explains, “Our prices are very nominal – Rs. 95 to 295 – with a majority of the titles under INR 200. In addition, there is further slash in the rates and at the start we have a new range available from Rs.39 onwards (for children’s activity books).”

The company does not want to restrict itself to the English language and has launched 400 bilingual titles, mainly in Bengali and Marathi. New ventures include a collaboration with Disney at a global level; Parragon is the leading licensee with all the major Disney titles.

Read more »Growing up with fiction
Source: Times of India

…publishers across the country are now targeting the YA segment as a separate category and coming up with books that have adolescent Indian protagonists in local settings. HarperCollins Publishers India launched the YA category last year under the Harper imprint while Penguin India rolled out Penguin YA in February 2011. Amar Chitra Katha also plans to come out with two separate YA lists – graphic novels as well as fiction – within six months. All of them are targeting the 14 to 21 age group as a separate segment.

Read more »Copyright as cultural notion
Source: The Telegraph
That book history is gradually coming of age becomes evident when the National Library organises the first BS Kesavan Lecture on this subject that few were aware of even a decade ago. The lecture on Saturday at Bhasha Bhavan on the library premises in the memory of the first National Librarian after Independence was by A.R. Venkatachalapathy of the Madras Institute of Development Studies on the “Cultures of Copyright.”

In the 1940s, the notion of copyright was one of simple transaction – outright sale of copyright for a pittance. When a man said he was a writer, he was asked what he did for a living – the earnings were so meagre. Kalki was a successful journalist and writer, but when he wanted to join the satyagraha, his employer was not happy. He said what Kalki had written was as an employee and thus had to relinquish his copyright. The case was hotly debated in Kerala. The writer’s claim was always made on moral and cultural grounds, not on legal grounds.

When the same song on different topical issues made the rounds, several people would claim authorship. Copyright was recognised only if registered. After Independence, 50 years after the death of Subramanya Bharathi, his songs and works were placed in the public domain in 1949, overruling the legal right of two men. The government gave a decent sum to Bharathi’s widow although she had no legal right, the move stemming from the notion of moral responsibility. Moral and cultural claims superseded legal notions.

Read more »Extending palm-leaf shelf life
Source: IBNLive
In this age of technology, the rare palm leaf manuscripts are like remnants of history. While Orissa is a storehouse of palm leaf manuscripts, the State Museum is being considered as the largest repository in the world with around 50,000 manuscripts.

These are categorised in 27 sections such as Vedas, lexicons, mathematics and art. There are manuscripts on three types of Oriya style of temple architecture – Pidha, Rekha and Khakara.

Researchers believe that the temple architects might have used these manuscripts as references before. translating the designs on stones.

In this regard, a five-day national preventive workshop on manuscript conservation was organised by the State Museum in association with National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) in Bhubaneswar. Read more »

The Lo-Cal Literati
Source: Outlook
These young professionals are giving vent to the book in them, sans any literary pretension.

They are the sort of writers who couldn’t get past the security guards outside plush publishing houses. Their books were thrown routinely into the slush pile. But now, as a new generation of readers, famished for books about themselves, buy them by the lakhs, smashing all bestselling records, they are sending publishers into a tizzy. Never before perhaps in the publishing business have so many editors got it so wrong for so long.

Read more »Are estributors the future of publishing?
Source: nextweb.com
Enter the concept of estributors, the brainchild of J.A. Konrath, ironically one of the largest and most famous proponents of authors striking out from their publishers and going it alone.

A facilitator who could be a buffer between the author and the business end of self-publishing. I called this position an estributor.The more I began to self-publish, the more I realized what a time suck it was to take care of all the non-writing parts of the job. When you go indie, you essentially become a small business, and take on all the responsibilities for running that business. That cuts into writing time. Doing quick and dirty assessment of my time management and my productivity, I concluded that I could make more money if I gave an estributor 15% to take care of the business side for me, because my increased writing output would more than make up for that cost. Plus, I’d be happier, because I’d much rather write for a living than run a business.

Read more »Surinder Mohan Pathak: The King of Hindi Pulp
Source: Times of India

Having retired over 13 years ago from government service, Pathak continues to write four months in a year, working nearly nine hours a day, churning out about three novels a year. “It’s the first 100 pages that take time, the rest of the story just flows.. it’s all about the resolution of the crime.” His book The 65 Lakh Heist (or Painsath Lakh ki Dacoity in Hindi, featuring popular detective Vimal) has been mentioned in the Time magazine among the all-time bestsellers and once, notoriously, a bank robber took tips from one of his crime novels.

His readership remains steadfast, but Pathak admits, “There are not too many new readers.” There are issues with publishing houses, who are not honest about returns, he says. Besides reading his favourite Jack Higgins and other detective fiction, he enjoys watching old Hindi movies. As for new ones, he says, “Sometimes, my son drags me to the multiplex. But, in between, I wish I had a torch so I could read a book.” Interestingly, he gives away all the books he has read and only keeps the ones that he hasn’t.

Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
New book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

The Nor’eastern Post
Note from the Literary Editor of The Nor’eastern Post, Uddipana Goswami

The Nor’eastern Post – a daily soon to be launched from Guwahati, Assam. It promises to be a regional publication with a national and international reach. My aim as literary editor will be to showcase the literatures produced in the Northeastern region to a wider audience as well as to make readers in the region aware of the richness of their own literatures. Literature from the Northeast is usually treated as a homogenous entity, but my effort will be to bring out the diversity within it. It is hoped that this will establish a dialogue of equality and harmony among the many constituents producing the various ‘literatures’ of the Northeast.

This is a call to readers to share their creative and critical writings as well as translations with the newspaper.
- The critical writings/features could relate to any aspect of the literature of any of the regions within the Northeast. They may also deal with particular writers or texts or genres.
- In creative writing, poetry submission is particularly welcome, although space permitting, we might also occasionally carry pieces of fiction/memoir/literary non-fiction.
- We will also devote considerable attention to translations of classic and contemporary literary pieces. The translators must however, have acquired the necessary permissions from the original copyright holder. A short translator’s note and adequate information about the original author are also required.

Contributions from writers living in/hailing from outside the Northeast are especially welcome. I am also looking at ‘mainlanders’ views of Northeast literature.

Please send in your entries to northeastliterature@ gmail.com. To avoid having your email sent to the spam folder, please use the following in the subject line: “Submission: Nor’eastern Post”.

Simon & Schuster all set for India ops
Source: Economic Times
Publisher Simon & Schuster will begin its India operations from August and promises to give readers “the best” in terms of content, price and package besides encouraging home grown talents.

The establishment of Simon & Schuster India (S&SI) is part of Simon & Schuster, Inc’s strategic focus to bringing the works of its authors to widest possible global audience.

As part of its localised publishing and marketing strategy, S&SI will offer titles from S&S’s many worldwide imprints and divisions, including distribution client titles. Books will be rupee-priced and selected and formatted specifically for the Indian marketplace. Inventory for titles published and distributed in India will come primarily via S&S UK, with reprints handled locally.Read more »

Archieji, Bettydidi and Tintinbhai
Source: indianexpress.com
In June, Archie Comics released the comic book in Hindi and Malayalam. They plan to sell 10,000 copies in Hindi before increasing the print number, and so far, the response has been “quite positive”. In the pipeline are plans to give the comics a desi twist. “We have introduced simple translations of the original intellectual property material, but we plan to Indianise it further if the books get a good response,” says Om Arora of Variety Book Depot, Delhi, who is in charge of the distribution of the comic in India. Thus Archie will become Raj Patel and Betty will sport her girl-next-door look in an Indian attire. “It is still a new concept. We are trying to take it slowly but we recognize that there is a bigger market for Archie in India than what we have tapped. For now, the Indian version is just like the original with the change in the language,” says Jon Goldwater, CEO, Archie Comics. Read more »

One Amazing Journey
Source: The Hindu
The last of the four in the Knit India Through Literature series, this volume on North Indian languages opens up a treasure-trove. Like the earlier three volumes – South, East and West – that focussed on the literature and languages of particular regions, Volume IV – The North dwells on Hindi, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Urdu and Sanskrit literature. The author calls the Knit India Through Literature project of 16 years a literary yagna, during which time she had immersed herself in a sea of literature – “a sea comprising the works of eminent writers from 18 Indian languages.”

Each volume, designed to a pattern of travelogue, interview, history, myth and opinions in a logical format, encourages easy reading. Read more »

Springer to expand footprint in India
Source: expressbuzz.com
Springer, one of the world’s leading publishers of books on advanced science, technology and medicine with 1,000 top Indian writers in its international database, is to expand operations in India, a company official announced.

The German company is planning to increase content, editorial structure and distribution networks to penetrate a wider customer base in India.

The 169-year-old publishing firm has set up a new office in the capital where it will locate 10 editors in different fields to understand Indian sensibilities, content requirement, distribution and facilitate better networking with institutes, scholars’ societies and community of professionals, he added. Read more »

Finding space for their verse
Source: The Hindu
It was for the first time that seven poets, from different backgrounds, got a chance to publish their works collectively. Each of them invested Rs.2,000 to get their maiden works published with the support of the Vettom People’s Collective Book Project. The group included students, daily-wage workers, and school employees. Opportunity knocked at their doors when the publishers invited works from budding poets and screened out the best for publishing.

Na Sheershakam (Untitled), the anthology of 17 Malayalam poems was released by P.K. Pokker, former Director of the State Institute of Languages. Read more »

Albums that tell a story, for Rs 1.5 lakh
Source: The Telegraph, Kolkata
Most of us, at some point or other, have lingered over old family albums, looking at the faded pictures. Now it’s time to read them.

Enter the heritage album, which not only freezes the past through photographs but also tells a family’s story with accompanying text.

The idea came to Abhijit Singh, a Rajput from Tana in Mewar, who wanted to compile a book on his family. The result was a 90-page album with rare pictures and text. His effort got several families in Rajasthan, where many boast of an illustrious past, interested in the concept of heritage albums that tell a story more interesting than a mute collection of faded photographs. Read more »

Elsewhere…
News from around the world…

Bangkok selected as World Book Capital 2013
Source: newkerala. com
The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday announced that an international committee designated Bangkok, Thailand as World Book Capital 2013.

Representatives from the publishing world, along with the UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), met at the UN agency’s Paris headquarters where they agreed on selecting Bangkok. The committee said it selected Bangkok “for its willingness to bring together all the various stakeholders in the book supply chain and beyond, actors involved in the publication chain for a range of projects proposed, for its community-focused and the high level of its commitment through the proposed activities.” Read more »

Happenings
On what’s been happening. If there’s news you have heard of and think it would make for interesting reading, please share it with us.

Govt. to discuss National Book Promotion Policy
Source: The Hindu
Aimed at promoting book reading habit among people of all age groups, especially women and children, the Centre proposes to recognise publishing as a small scale industry or a priority sector that would help books receive preferential treatment.

By declaring publishing as a priority sector, books will receive preferential treatment in fiscal policies, credit facilities, export-import regulations and incentives, the draft National Book Promotion Policy of the Ministry of Human Resource Development suggests while recommending that the matter be taken up with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

While sanctioning grants to libraries and institutions, it will be laid down that at least 50 per cent of the grant would be used for purchasing books of Indian authors to protect the interest of the local publishers. Read more »

Penguin India gets new publisher
Source: The Hindu
Publishing house Penguin India has announced the appointment of Chiki Sarkar as its new publisher.

Ms. Sarkar, who was the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of Random House India since 2006, has worked with bestselling authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Mohammed Hanif, Daniyal Mueenuddin and Rujuta Diwekar. A graduate from Oxford University, she had previously worked for Bloomsbury Publishing in London for seven years.

Pearson Group to increase its investment in India
Source: The Financial Express
Pearson Group, one of the world’s largest education firm and also the parent company of the Penguin Publishing House and the Financial Times, is all set to increase its investment in India.

“We expect to increase our investment in India significantly over the next three years and see the provision of educational services as our number one area of focus,” said Chief Executive, Pearson, Marjorie Scardino.

As part of its is looking at increasing its presence in India by combining its expertise with long-term strategy for India, Penguin Group has recently tied up with mobile software firm, Mobifusion for digital delivery through which one would be able to read books via their mobile phones.
Read more »

Lakhimpur to get language research centre
Source: Times of India
Asom Sahitya Sabha will soon take a step ahead in furthering the cause of local languages with the inauguration of a new study and research centre at Bihpuria in Lakhimpur from June 1 this year. The centre, which is named after Lumber Dai, the noted litterateur from Arunachal Pradesh, will facilitate detailed studies on regional languages, mainly Assamese and other ethnic languages and dialects of the region.

“The research centre will offer all possible facilities for higher studies, including PhDs; the courses will be affiliated to Gauhati and Dibrugarh universities. The study material for the courses has been finalized,” said the secretary of the apex literary body, Poromananda Rajbonshi, adding the centre’s doors are open to anybody living in the state, the country and even for those outside India who want to study and research the languages of Assam. He further said the hard copies of the study material would be provided through post and the same would also be uploaded on the website for the researchers.Read more »

Polish university to set up Tamil Chair
Source: The Hindu
In a sign of growing interest in the study of Indian culture in European universities, the Jagiellonian University at Krakow in Poland will soon establish a Tamil Chair.

This was announced by First Secretary in the Indian Embassy in Warsaw Vikrant Rattan at the third Middle European Student Indology Conference (MESIC 3) held from May 19 to 21.

Mr. Rattan said the decision follows a memorandum of understanding with the Institute of Oriental Studies in the university. The Chair would facilitate programmes in ancient Tamil literature, culture and civilization. It would be held by an associate professor.

Libraries take the digital route
Source: Times of India
Keeping pace with the times, libraries at research institutes have begun to digitise their book collections.

The Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute is in the process of scanning books between 1500 AD and 1900 AD, while the Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan, which has a rare collection of pure mathematics, also plans to use the digital platform.

One of country’s foremost research institutes, the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, has digitised its books from the 16th century onwards. Plans are afoot to make it available to the public through the internet on a membership basis. The Jayakar Library of the University of Pune has also scanned over 3,000 books so far. Read more »

Goa’s Central Library to be shifted to Rs 32-cr, 6- storey premises
Source: Navhind Times
A repository of knowledge since 1832, the Central Library formally known as ‘Biblioteca Nacional de Goa’ will soon move to a new, Rs 32 crore state-of-the-art building at Patto, and will be rechristened as Krishnadas Shama State Central Library.

The work of transporting the books and other material from the present location of the library in the Menezes Braganza building has already started and is expected to be complete in a month’s time. The new 6-storeyed library building having an area of 13,369 sq mt is expected to be inaugurated on June 18, the Goa Revolution Day.

Meanwhile, the new library building is almost ready with an audio-visual section for children, two music rooms, one recording room, one studio room and a multi-purpose hall for 200 persons, among other facilities.

The new library building will also separate sections for Hindi, Konkani and Marathi books, besides a Braille section for blind readers. Furthermore, it will have a reference section, a photography laboratory, book scanner, binding section, microfilm reading section, and a new book-drop system, wherein if a reader arrives at the library after closing hours, he will be able to deposit the book in this system that will receive it automatically and update the records. Read more »

Publishing Conference – Publishing Next
CinnamonTeal Publishing, a division of Dogears Print Media Pvt. Ltd, is organizing Publishing Next, a two-day Conference on the future of publishing on 16 and 17 September 2011 in Goa.

Supported by the British Council, UK’s international organisation for educational and cultural relations, the Conference will attract publishers, authors, bloggers, digital content developers, literary critics and others associated with the publishing ecosystem from around the country and internationally.

Through panel discussions, the Conference will address the impact of social media marketing, business process outsourcing, and proliferation of ebooks on the publishing industry. Publishing Next is also designed to be a networking platform to facilitate the trade of publishing rights, encourage dialogue between publishers and vendors and organize workshops on the technical aspects of social media marketing and digitization of content.

For more information and registration details, visit http://www.publishing-next.com or email contactus@ publishing-next.com

Hill’s Angels
Source: Outlook
Bhutan’s litfest was a perfectly curated retreat

With no publishers and high printing costs, one would think it’s tough to be a writer in Bhutan. All of them are self-published authors but it’s not like the vanity publishing we know. They could teach our publishers a thing or two about marketing. Take former diplomat Lily Wangchhuk. Last year, when she wrote her first book, Facts About Bhutan, she couldn’t find a publisher abroad. They kept trying to turn it into something it wasn’t: a guide book. Then Lily decided to publish it on her own, hawking it to every outlet, official and unofficial, she could think of. The result: 25,000 copies sold in less than five months. Nor is her book cheap: it’s priced at Rs 1,250.

Read more »New equations
Source: The Hindu
David Davidar, who made books fashionable for the urban middle class, returns to the Indian publishing scene with Aleph, a high-end company forged in partnership with Rupa and Co.

David is clear what kind of titles he would opt for. He even admits he is not looking for mass production and very many authors. He would rather want Aleph to be like Faber or Hamilton. “It has to be a high-end publishing company and we are looking for novelists. We will be selective. We will take a book if it is distinctive, will make a mark. A good book should achieve 90 per cent of what it set out to do in its genre. As beginners we have the luxury of being able to choose. It is like we don’t have certain figures of the previous year to live up to.” Kapish adds, “The reader cannot be persuaded to buy a bad book.”

Read more »The corruption in Indian publishing
Source: Tehelka
Poor and gutsy Indian authors don’t seem to get published. Maybe a consortium of billionaires must buy half the industry and clean it up.

Why is it that Salman Rushdie and his elite friends, mostly from the upper middle class or wealthy families and elite schools, hog 90 per cent of the sales and advances granted to Indian authors by Western publishers? They tend to present a synthetic literary picture of India, while a rainbow-variety of discordant and authentic voices is suppressed. There is greed and dishonesty here. The spokesmen Indian authors who pretend theirs is the only point of view, that they represent the hundreds of millions of Indians they have never met, never socialise with, and never could begin to understand – because they have never been truly poor and unprivileged, and only have learned how to copy the Western literary masters and to write snake-charming sentences. America would find it intolerable if all its authors were Ivy League products coming from privileged backgrounds, and the working class Americans who managed to squeak through community colleges were never heard from.

Read more »Story-telling takes on graphic form
Source: The Hindu
Looking beyond the categorisation of illustrated novels as ‘children’s books’, many publishers are encouraging readers to engage with literature differently.

India’s first widely marketed graphic novel was published only in 2004. While the readership remains niche, the variety and diversity of themes and forms being explored by graphic novels have rapidly increased. Pure text will soon start facing stiff competition from graphic novels, say publishers.

Ashok Rajagopalan, a graphic novel artist, says that there is wide degree of acceptance and the form is being given some prestige now. “A number of Chennai-based publishers have started experimenting with illustration-based books.”

He identifies two reasons behind the increasing readership for graphic novels. “People are getting lazier. So publishers are experimenting with short visual-based reads. In airport bookstores, for example, you won’t find 60,000-word classics. Secondly, print is slowly going out of fashion. The medium is changing due to the Internet and devices such as the Kindle. People are engaging with literature differently.”

Read more »Can English rescue regional writing?
Source: DNA
After being felicitated for receiving the Tagore Literature Award for her work Badlondian Bahaaraan, Dogri writer Santosh Khajuria did not mince words in holding Dogri-speaking people responsible for what she called the “sorry state” the language has been reduced to.

“Just like those who negate their mothers once they reach the pinnacle, these people seem to feel ashamed to speak their own language,” she said, adding, “This can end up killing our traditional languages and we may lose a really rich trove of our cultural legacy in the process.”

So, is translation the only way out of this situation? Khajuria admitted wryly, “I don’t know. Maybe we should look at translations into other Indian regional languages and not English alone.” Read more »

In defence of books
Source: The Hindu
What is it that lawmakers fear when they resort to banning books?

When it comes to books, what do the lawmakers fear? Moral corruption? Violence? Sentiments being hurt? Then they should be barking up the right tree! When they choose to ban these books, aren’t they being rather presumptuous? They believe for instance that a huge majority of the population reads/buys books; that the people who buy these books actually read/analyse them; that those who do analyse them get corrupted/motivated enough to act against the state. (Most of those who do make the grade are academics and litterateurs by the way, denied the opportunity to even discuss/debate the subject.)

Read more »Dewdrops and dunes
Source: livemint.com
Romance novels are the world’s best-selling fiction category. In India, the market picks up

Unlike the course of true love, Mills & Boon India is finding the going smooth. In a typical Indian book store, 30% of all books sold are either children’s books, or romance novels. Romance “comes in just behind children’s fiction as the largest selling category of English books in India,” says Manish Singh, country head, Mills & Boon India.

Some of that optimism informed Sandhya Sridhar and Sunita Suresh’s decision to begin their own publishing house, Pageturn Publishers, in Chennai last year. “We’re both avid readers of romance, and have always dreamt of filling this odd gap in the Indian media,” Sridhar says. They both quit their jobs to set up Pageturn, which now puts out two titles a month under its imprint, Red Romance.

Read more »The top five political comic books
Navayana’s Bhimayana is the sole book from India (even Asia) to make it to comics curator Paul Gravett list of Top 5 political comic books on CNN’s international website, sharing space with genre classics like Maus, Palestine and Persepolis.

Bhimayana explores the plight of India’s Dalits, or Untouchables, who — despite the abolition of the country’s ancient caste system — continue to face routine discrimination based on the idea that they are impure.

The book, published this year, combines the biography of Indian activist and Dalit champion Bhimrao Ambedkar – who himself grew up Untouchable – with a present-day conversation between two people at a bus stop about whether or not the problem still exists.

Read more »‘Upside Down’ lands right side up
T.R Rajesh, author and illustrator of ‘Upside Down’ has another reason to smile.

The book, originally in Malayalam, was awarded the Balasahithya Puraskaram 2010 for Best Picture Book by the KSICL (Kerala State Institute of Children’s Literature) at the awards ceremony held on the 11th of May in Ernakulam. The Balasahithya Puraskaram is an annual award for books published in Kerala and the Malayalam edition of ‘Upside Down’ by T. R. Rajesh was co-published by Tulika and KSICL. Read more »

The Indie Boom
Source: Business Standard
Over the last few years, the subtlest shifts in the way we read have been brought about by a thriving company of independent publishers, ranging from veterans like Seagull and Katha to relative newcomers like Queer Ink. Nilanjana Roy, author and literary critic presents a handful of indie favourites, and why you should read them. Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
New book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

Muse India announces National Literary Awards
To recognize and reward excellence in Indian literature, Muse India is happy to announce institution of two National Awards to be given annually, during Hyderabad Literary Festival. These are:

a) Muse India Young Writer Award to be given to an outstanding original work in English or in English translation from an Indian language. Each year the award will be for a different literary genre (poetry, short fiction, play, novel etc.). For the 2011 award, the genre will be poetry.

b) Muse India Translator Award to be given to a significant work of translation into English from any of the Indian languages. Translation should be of a classic or any other important literary work, preferably not translated earlier, and seen as an important contribution to Indian Literature. Read more »

History of Marathi literature in parts
Source: Times of India
Pune based Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad – the apex Marathi literary body involved in publishing research volumes tracing the history of Marathi literature, [has released] the last two parts of the seventh volume on May 27.

A statement issued by the Parishad said that the six volumes published earlier traced the history of Marathi literature till the year 1950. “The Parishad undertook the task of compiling the history of Marathi literature post 1950 in 2006. This volume has four parts, two of which were published in May 2009 and February 2010. The volume has become big as a period of 50 years from 1950 to 2000 has been covered in it”, the statement said.

The volumes on history of Marathi literature not only act as valuable reference material for students and researchers of Marathi literature but also guides future direction of research. Rare photographs of authors are also included in the volumes. Read more »

Captivating young minds through comics
Source: The Hindu
Wilco Publishers recently launched eight more English titles from the Wilco Picture Library (WPL) series of comic books. The publishing house has also released 20 Kannada titles.

The comic books explore subjects ranging from mythology and ancient history to religion. The titles also include the science of inventions, discoveries, new cities and festivals.

Ajai Shah, Managing Director of Wilco Publishers said: “The Wilco comic books are a combination of education and entertainment called edutainment. “We aim to captivate young minds and make even boring material fun and educative.

The comic books will be published in multiple regional languages so as to inculcate the habit of reading among young people and also improve literacy levels.”Read more »

Tagore works transcribed into Braille
Source: Deccan Herald
Chennai-based Third Eye Charitable Trust plans to transcribe literary works, including those of Tagore, into Braille by tying-up with publishing houses like Scholastic India, Penguin and Tulika Publishers.

“We have already converted two volumes of Tagore’s “Gitobitan” (a collection of songs) into Braille. The third volume is under production now and will be ready in the next few months,” Mahua Seth, founder trustee of the NGO, said.Read more »

Pottekatt’s ‘Desam’ breaks translation jinx
Source: expressbuzz.com
Oru Desathinte Kadha had warded off attempts at translation and remained unavailable to the non-Malayalee reading community for four decades despite its epic status. One of S K Pottekatt’s few books that has not been translated, it can also be singled out among Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi award-winning works for remaining untranslated for so long.

It took Sreedevi K Nair and P Radhika five years to dissect through the resistance put up by the voluminous vernacular to wrap up ‘The Story of a Desam’. The project, selected for the 2010-11 Translation Grant from the International Center for Writing and Translation (ICWT), University of California, Irvine, will duly be published in book form. Read more »

‘Adopt an ebook’ to preserve manuscripts
Source: The Economic Times
Book lovers in the city have launched an initiative called ‘Adopt an ebook’ to preserve manuscripts and ancient literature by digitally converting them into ebooks. People who participate in the project will be called ‘parents’ as they will ‘adopt’ these ebooks.

“There are lots of manuscripts, so converting them into the digital format is a huge task. So we have decided to involve the public in this project,” said Mandar Joglekar, founder of Bookganga.com. “Our first goal is to convert old Marathi literature texts into ebooks.”

Joglekar, who also runs an IT firm in the US, said that a similar initiative has already been started in the US. The Pune project has received response from five persons, and more volunteers are joining. Read more »

Elsewhere…
News from around the world…

Global book club launches on Twitter
Source: The Guardian
From New Zealand to Brazil, India to Japan, thousands of readers around the world are coming together to tackle Margaret Atwood’s Booker-prize winning novel The Blind Assassin through a global Twitter book club.

1book140 follows last summer’s One Book, One Twitter club, which saw 12,000 people discussing Neil Gaiman’s American Gods on the micro-blogging site. Originator Jeff Howe, author of Crowdsourcing and a professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston, decided to relaunch the initiative this year, in conjunction with the Atlantic magazine, and to make it a monthly virtual meet-up for readers. “One Book, One Twitter was a smash. The only problem? It disappeared, like barbecues and seersucker suits, when summer came to a close,” said Howe. “Now it’s back … It has a new name – 1book140 – but what hasn’t changed is the global, participatory nature of the affair: The crowd is still in charge.” Read more »

UN urges debate of publishing trends
Source: newKerala.com
The head of the United Nations agency tasked with preserving the world’s cultural heritage called for a debate to examine the changing trends in book publishing and copyrights, saying new technologies are transforming the industry and having an impact on publishers, authors and readers.

“Change is giving rise also to sharp new debates – about the strengths and weaknesses of different kinds of products, about the nature of copyright today, about the role of libraries relative to online knowledge, about the meaning of ‘authorship’ in a world of blogs and wikis,” said Irina Bokova, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in a message to mark the World Book and Copyright Day (on April 23). Read more »

Upcoming writers find a place in Marathi literature
Source: Times of India
New and unpublished writers are slowly finding a platform to showcase their work, with a host of city-based publishers opening their doors to first-time and new authors, especially in Marathi literature, citing greater market share as one of the main reasons.

Every month, Prakash Ranade from Neelkanth Prakashan receives at least 10 to 15 enquiries from new writers from across the state and beyond. “There is certainly a rise in the number of new writers wanting to get their works published. They belong to various professional fields and choose to write on anything, spanning from social issues, to environment to women’s problems. I prefer manuscripts that address the current reality of life and society,” says Ranade, who has just published five works by first-time writers in Marathi. Read more »

Veteran writer of science, crime in Urdu passes away unsung
Source: Indian Express
Izhar Asar, who died aged 82 on April 15, was a remarkable man, a writer of nearly 1,000 novels in Urdu, who found the time and dedication to teach himself Kathak, and perform for nearly 10 years. He was also a rare Muslim who, after Partition, migrated from Lahore, where he had gone to live in the 1940s, to India.

As a writer in Urdu, Asar was unusual. His repertoire included crime, pulp and science fiction. A rationalist and a progressive, he was part of the Progressive Writers’ Association, PWA. In 2006, he was honoured with the Ghalib Award.

And yet, in his last few years, the Bijnore-based veteran had become, as his eldest son said without a hint of irony, “a general merchant” of the letters – a man who would write on demand, virtually a novel every week. Read more »

Bhutan literature fest, Edition Two
Source: The Assam Tribune
Come May and literature enthusiasts can head to Bhutan, the land of scenic landscapes and fabled dragons for a festival that seeks to bring authors, poets, writers and other celebrities on a common platform.

“We had a resounding success last year when the festival was held for the first time and we are returning again with a lot more programmes,” Mita Kapur, founder director of the festival “Mountain Echoes” to be held in Thimphu.

The five-day festival beginning May 20 seeks to explore and celebrate the rich literary culture of both India and Bhutan and would focus on themes like the need and importance of preserving languages; oral traditions; the contemporary art of science fiction; story writing; ballads; fantasy fiction, among others.
Read more »

India Poised To Emerge As The Global Publishing BPO Services Hub
Source: The Assam Tribune
The 3rd Publishing BPO Services Conference organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Chennai Zone on 08th April 2011 at Chennai, deliberated on the “digital wave” in publishing offshoring and how India (Chennai region including Puducherry) as the Global Publishing BPO Services Hub leverage it and move up the value chain.

The Publishing BPO conference this year addressed the increased dominance of digital publishing compared to the traditional print (Hard cover, Books), the increased dependency on technology and changing consumer preferences.

This conference provides the right platform for industry to deliberate, discuss best practices, understand trends and provide directions for publishing BPO vendors to convert this challenge into a big opportunity and continue to sustain India as the Publishing BPO Services hub of the world. Read more »

Navayana-Avarna fellowship for NBT Publishing Course, July 2011
In July 2011, NBT is conducing the annual four-week course in Delhi. Following similar initiatives in 2009 and 2010,Navayana once again seeks to provide fellowships to five dalit/ adivasi students who get selected for the NBT course. The details of the comprehensive course, where the best professionals from the publishing industry teach, are available at this link:
http://www.nbtindia.org.in/download/April2010/BookPub/InfoDelhi.pdf.

Application: http://www.nbtindia.org.in/download/April2010/BookPub/Application%20Form.pdf

Last date for sending applications: 10 June 2011.

Candidates are to apply directly to NBT as instructed on the NBT website. There is no entrance test; any graduate may apply. Navayana shall play no role in the selection of the candidates. Candidates who happen to be Dalit/ Adivasi and are selected by NBT may then apply to Navayana for financial support. Navayana shall pay the course fee (Rs 5,000) for up to five Dalit/ Adivasi candidates. NBT this year is also arranging accommodation for outstation candidates at Rs 3,000 for four weeks. Navayana shall also subsidize this amount. In all, the net value of the Avarna Fellowship shall be Rs 8,000.
NBT also has an internship program for promising students from which the selected Avarna fellows could benefit.

In case of queries, please write to avarna@ navayana.org

Course for Editors in Publishing
The “4th Intensive Course for Editors in Publishing” organized by the Institute of Book Publishing will be held from May 23- 28, 2011 at India International Centre, New Delhi. The Course details and application form is available on the website www.ibpindia.org

Indian Publishing
Source: Himal Southasian
Himal Southasian, in its May issue, has extensively covered the publishing industry in India and indeed the entire subcontinent. With articles by, among others, Urvashi Butalia and Ameena Saiyid, the issue provides an insider’s perspective on India’s “booming” book industry and that in its neighbours. Sample an article titled “When markets commission” by Akshay Pathak, Director of the German Book Office, New Delhi

The ‘new’ writer, then, has an interesting arena in which to work. With a growing market in the Subcontinent, the old argument of writing for a foreign readership is losing its logic. Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi, each selling over 50,000 copies in India alone, represent a new breed of writers who are able to defy previous notions of what the market demands. Literary quality apart (defined, in any case, by a handful of critics fighting for the scant space the media permits for reviews), the mood that these authors create lends a new flavour to the scope of English-language publishing in India.

Read more »Waiting on Words
Source: Indian Express
Eshwar Rao or ‘Hyderabadi’ as he is popularly known is not your usual hotel employee who just reads off a list of delicacies to help hungry customers make up their minds about what to order. The 53-year-old, who works as a supervisor at Bhagwati Hotel in Charkop, Kandivali after doing a myriad of odd jobs throughout his life, is also a renowned poet.

Rao, a regular at mushairas and other such literary events in the locality, claims to have written over a thousand ghazals and poems. Amongst the various local awards that he has received over the years, his work has earned him the Kavi Ratna Puraskar and Ambedkar National Award from the Dalit Sahitya Akademi – an organisation working to promote Dalit literature, encourage Dalit writers and recognise the services of those engaged in the field of Dalit welfare. Read more »

Art, within and without lines
Source: DNA
While art should encourage open-endedness, imagination and self-expression in children, colouring books too have their merits.

These seemingly-innocent books meet two key parental desires: perfection in the child’s ‘performance’, and secondly, quiet engagement, or ‘timepass’. Like the classes, they leave no room for open-endedness, imagination and self-expression. They also pass on a subtle signal to kids: drawing is grown-up’s work, and should not be attempted by you. You just colour. Neatly and within the lines.

Read more »Untold stories – India’s non-fiction
Source: Business Standard
While art should encourage open-endedness, imagination and self-expression in children, colouring books too have their merits.

Samanth Subramanian, like Sonia Faleiro, is one of the new stars of non-fiction; Following Fish, narrative journalism exploring India’s coastline, remains one of the best food and travel books of recent times. “This is just the beginning,” he says. We both agree that a handful of authors and non-fiction books from the subcontinent isn’t enough to call a movement, yet.

But as Subramanian points out, what may be changing is a sensibility, as our curiosity about our own stories is matched by the willingness to actually go out and tell them.

Few Indian publications support essays longer than 1,500-2,000 words; and even fewer would offer that space to issues other than politics. The Caravan, run by Jonathan Shainin and a crack team of writer-editors, who include author Anjum Hassan and former Random House editor Rajni George, is one of the few magazines that look for and nurture narrative non-fiction, aside from a handful of men’s magazines that occasionally commission lengthy essays.

It’s tempting to see Siddhartha Mukherjee’s Pulitzer triumph as confirmation of the Indian success story in non-fiction; but in a way, Mukherjee’s success as a writer is a very American, not Indian, success. What would it take to have a The Emperor of Maladies come out of India? More supportive publishing houses, more magazines with demanding editorial standards, more imagination and willingness to go after the untold stories on the part of writers? I don’t really have the answers, but it’s an interesting question.

Read more »Mills & Boon to adopt teaser route for e-books
Source: Financial Express
Harlequin Mills and Boon India will be promoting the growth of e-book vertical in the Indian market with a series of customer-centred teaser initiatives, according to Manish Singh, country manager of the publishing company.

“Currently the company derives 2 to 3% revenue from the online and e-book categories. We wish to boost the e-book adoption among Indians with a variety of sops including buy one get one offer, free online access to select titles and other innovative promotions like free mystery gifts to induce the next generation bibliophiles to embrace the tech platform of their choice,” he said in an interview with the Financial Express. Read more »

Silence! The ego is reading
Source: Tehelka
The solitary, brooding writer is nearly extinct. Writers are now public property, but is that good for them or the reading public, asks author Anjum Hasan

Even if one does manage to reconcile writing with speaking, the two are obviously very different kinds of performances. Having learnt about Franz Kafka’s petrifaction and Philip Larkin’s diffidence about reading in public, I’ve always assumed writing and reading must be judged independently. Having seen Orhan Pamuk display, as a speaker, a teacherly style that sits oddly with the lyricism of his prose or heard the seemingly stone-hearted VS Naipaul confess that listening to other people read aloud from his work moves him to tears, I’ve realised that writers as people of flesh, blood and vocal chords are not to be measured exactly against writers as people we encounter in print.

Read more »World of books hardly lags behind
Source: The Hindu
It is not just the classics or the popular works in contemporary literature that are drawing readers. What is commonly perceived as serious literature is increasingly seeing more takers.

The success of Tamil books mirrors some larger trends in Tamil literature itself, says Sirpi Balasubramaniam, executive board member and convener of the Tamil advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi.

“The field is flourishing in terms of quality in writing and business. It is almost like another Sangam era. Classics are being reprinted. Short stories of writers such as Pudhumaipithan are seeing multiple editions. Many publishers are re-printing the works of Jayakanthan, Sa. Kandasamy and Asokamithran,” he says.

On other genres, Mr. Balasubramaniam says the patronage is equally encouraging. Dalit literature, including the works of writers such as Imayam, Azhagiya Periyavan and Bama, is building a good repository on the lives and reflections of dalits.

“There is a transition from giving accounts of one’s problems to giving a perspective of a Dalit’s life and relationships. There is some very powerful writing coming out,” he adds. Feminist and post-modernist literature, and poetry are seeing some valuable contributions. “Folk and Tamil Diaspora literature is enriching the Tamil vocabulary with rare usages and powerful metaphors.”

Read more »National shelf life
Source: Mint
A store in Delhi’s book publishing hub has the country’s largest collection of non-fiction on India

The bookshop doubles as a publishing and distribution company. Books from here are parcelled daily to Kyoto, Kolhapur, Heidelberg, Prague, Patna, Toulouse, Dublin, Bangalore, Boston, London and Lahore. “We have religion and arts, music and crafts, politics and cultural studies,” says Ajay, the owner’s son. “Which means we are a one-stop shop for academic needs,” adds his father.

What is scholarly for professors could simply be a pleasure read for a lay reader. The shop’s eclectic collection comprises titles that give a tantalizing glimpse into a world right under our noses, yet unexplored. Sample a few: From Sacred Servant to Profane Prostitute; The Social History of Health and Medicine in Colonial India, Muslim Architecture of South India, Boats of South Asia, Pied Pipers in North-East India, Frogs in a Well-Indian Women in Purdah and Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees.

The shop, spread over five floors, has 25,000 books. Many lie locked in the basement. The browsing area on the ground floor is divided by wooden shelves into two rows, with a seating space that has two coffee tables with eight low chairs. The late scholar Simon Digby, who divided his time between Delhi and the UK, was a regular. He would make two piles of books; one for immediate reading went to his apartment in Nizamuddin West, the other would be shipped to England.

Read more »

New Book Releases and Events
New book and journal releases, new imprints and other similar events.

Blaft announces tie-up with Westland Ltd.
Source: Company Press Note
BLAFT Publications, the newsmaking independent publishing house, has announced a fresh programme in association with Westland Ltd. The association kicks off with a series of four titles by one of the subcontinent’s best-loved fiction writers, Ibne Safi. These will be published, appropriately, under Westland’s literary imprint, Tranquebar. Blaft is confident that the tie-up will enable all [those concerned] to expand and diversify its list of books even more grandly.

Ibne Safi’s Jasusi Dunya is a dysfunctional world of titanic villains, mad-genius detectives, and alluring femmes fatales. With a huge cult following among readers in both India and Pakistan, this series spans 125 novels published between 1952 and 1979. They remain some of the bestselling books in Urdu even today. Blaft and Westland will bring out the evocative – even eerie – titles Poisoned Arrow, Smokewater, The Laughing Corpse and Doctor Dread translated by the renowned Urdu scholar Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.

Westland Limited is a general trade publishing and distribution house, which includes EastWest Books and the newer Tranquebar Press. Our list of titles includes books on literary and popular fiction and non-fiction, food and cooking, erotica, spirituality and self-help, health and wellness, business, management, travel and a host of other subjects including graphic fiction and satire.

Blaft is an independent house based in Chennai has a wide and varied list, including bestselling Indian crime novels, experimental fiction, pulp art, and graphic novels.

Tara book receives special mention in White Ravens Catalogue
Source: Company Press Note
I See the Promised Land, published by Tara Books has been singled out for Special Mention in the White Ravens Catalogue of the world’s best books for young people, released at the Bologna Book Fair.Described by the jury as ‘an extraordinary collaboration between devoted artists from three continents’ it was praised for being, ‘an engaging and challenging graphic novel for a young (and older) audience.’

I See the Promised Land is an unusual, graphic retelling of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. African American performance poet Arthur Flowers tells a masterful story in musical prose, while Manu Chitrakar, a traditional scroll-painter from Bengal, carries the tale confidently into the vivid idiom of Patua art. This is the eighth book by South Indian independent publishing house Tara Books to be included in this prestigious list of noteworthy international books.

NJP Digital Connections Private Limited launches company, www.notjustpublishing.in
Source: Company Press Note
NJP Digital Connections Private Limited has announced the launch of the company and its product, www.notjustpublishing.in. While NJP Digital Connections will provide web and mobile solutions, products, and consultancy for publishing and allied industries, the portal www.notjustpublishing.in is about people in publishing and associated industries, their publishing careers, and lives beyond the office. In a casual chat, the portal will feature a new professional every week in video and text interviews. Through this interactive portal, you can write to the featured personalities and also recommend people to be featured.

And then there were two
Source: Tehelka
The recent reissue of two detective fiction series – the Inspector Ghote mysteries and four Urdu novels in English translation from Ibne Safi’s Jasoosi Duniya series – reminds you of all that is wonderful about the genre

This interest in unpeeling the social world around the crime, the clear-eyed understanding of how class and power operate, influencing even the most intimate relationships, is perhaps the only thing common to these very different styles of fiction. If Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart unpacks the precarious circumstances created by a rich man being asked to pay a ransom for the tailor’s son who has been kidnapped instead of his own, The Laughing Corpse centres around the kidnapping of a “lowly typist” whose unexpected inheritance had suddenly made her the town’s most eligible girl. The staunchly middle class Ghote, who worries about taxi fares, dreams of cold buttermilk when he watches his rich complainant pour himself a Scotch and must muster all the courage at his command to exert a semblance of authority in the face of social superiors, could not be more unlike Faridi, a man with a private income who comes to detection out of a passion for criminology, has a degree from Oxford and owns a palatial house with its own laboratory and library. But in both Keating and Safi, there is that deepdown stock-in-trade of the best crime fiction — an abiding interest in how the world works.

Read more »Marketing professionals and literary pursuits
Source: The Economic Times
Rama Bijapurkar, independent market strategy consultant, has written, Winning in the Indian Market – Understanding the Transformation of Consumer India and her new book called Customer In The Boardroom? Crafting Customer Based Business Strategy is coming out soon. Marketing consultants Santosh Desai and Harish Bijoor are also prolific writers.

They could be writing a treatise on what they practice – in this case marketing and branding – or it could be totally unrelated, as is the case with JWT’s former creative director Anuja Chauhan’s two bestsellers, The Zoya Factor and Battle For Bittora. Or Publicis Ambience’s NCD, Ashish Khazanchi’s (yet to be published) pictorial prose in the form of very specialised artists books. Whatever be the output, the moot point is the fact that more people from the industry want to tell a story, which may not necessarily be a brand story. Read more »

Reading Satyajit Ray
Source: DNA
On the eve of his 90th birth anniversary, a collection of his film scripts has been translated into English and published in book form.

In 1992, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,the Satyajit Ray Society and funding agencies such as the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the India Foundation of the Arts, and other organisations came together to try preserving and restoring Ray’s heritage. Part of this archiving effort has been preserving Ray’s paper archives, for he left extensive ‘Notebooks’ of each of his productions. These have draft storylines, scenarios, draft dialogue, character outlines, musical annotations, story-boards, detailed pictures of costumes, shot breakdowns etc – in short, the entire visual and aural creative process of one of India’s foremost artistes, in detail. There are full musical annotations both in staff notation and in sargam, or all the musical treatments and background music for most of his films.

Read more »Elsewhere…
News from around the world…

Iraq concludes first book fair in 20 years
Source: google.com/hostednews/afp
Iraq’s first book fair in 20 years concluded on Thursday with organisers and attendees hailing it as a return for the violence-wracked country to the global literary scene.

The two-week exhibition featured more than 200 publishing houses from 32 countries displaying about 37,000 books at a massive conference hall in Mansur, west Baghdad, according to the event’s organisers.

The books on offer were mostly in Arabic, but English and French literature was also on sale. Read more »