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PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE AND DISNEY INDIA BRING DISNEY’S ICONIC STORIES AND CHARACTERS CLOSER TO INDIAN CHILDREN

PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE AND DISNEY INDIA BRING

DISNEY’S ICONIC STORIES AND CHARACTERS CLOSER TO INDIAN CHILDREN

March 08, 2016, Delhi: Penguin Random House and Disney India’s Consumer Products business today announced the launch of Disney books. Penguin Random House will now hold the rights in India for publishing Disney’s iconic Mickey & Friends characters as well as – Aladdin, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Dumbo and the cast of The Jungle Book.

Published under the Puffin imprint and aimed at young readers, the fully-illustrated books will include readers, storybooks, colouring & activity as well as novelty books.

The first series of titles will be available to consumers March 14, 2016 onwards and will include Dumbo and Aladdin colouring books, Jungle Book, Dumbo and Peter Pan Treasured Classic editions, Peter Pan and Dumbo storybooks and readers Mickey’s Round Up, Donald’s Special Delivery, Minnie’s Rainbow, Minnie Red Riding Hood and Mickey Mouse Flies the Christmas Mail.

“Puffin India has long published some of India’s finest writing for children with generations brought up on books from authors including Ruskin Bond, Sudha Murty and Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. We are delighted to now be working with Disney India to bring their well-loved characters to readers with a specific range of Indian publishing”, said Gaurav Shrinagesh, CEO, Penguin Random House in India.

“Disney is synonymous with storytelling. We all have grown up reading Disney stories and are familiar with Disney characters and classics such as Mickey & Friends, Aladdin, Pinocchio and many more. We are happy to be working with Puffin India to launch a series of Disney books for the new generation of readers in the country,” said Abhishek Maheshwari, VP & Head, Consumer Products, Disney India

For further details, please contact:

Caroline Newbury | Penguin Random House | [email protected]

Namita Jadhav | Disney India | [email protected]

Richa Anand | Disney India | [email protected]

About Penguin Random House:

Headquartered in New York City Penguin Random House is the international home to nearly 250 publishing imprints, with operations in 20 countries across five continents, publishing 70,000 digital and 15,000 print titles annually and with more than 100,000 eBooks available worldwide. We publish more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.

Penguin Random House in India is part of The Penguin Random House Group worldwide. As India’s longest established international publishing company, we are the proud publishers of many of India and the subcontinent’s finest writers and publishing talent. Our authors have won prizes including the Nobel Prize, the Magsaysay Award, the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker Prize, Man Booker International Prize, Commonwealth Writers Award, Shakti Bhatt Prize and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

In addition to our Indian publishing program, we also make available over 30,000 of Penguin Random House’s international titles to our readers across India and the subcontinent every year.

Penguin Random House is committed to expanding our role as a cultural institution that serves society not only with the books we publish and investments we make in new ideas, creativity, and diverse voices, but also our belief in the power of books to connect and change lives. Together, our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire, and to connect them with readers everywhere and across print and digital platforms.

About Puffin India:

Puffin Books India is the children’s imprint of Penguin Books India. Started in 1939, today Puffin is one of the largest, most diverse and successful children’s brands both in India and abroad. With an award-winning range of best-selling titles, Puffin’s ever expanding publishing list spans picture books, fiction, poetry and non-fiction. With a winning combination of literary classics and appealing commercial fiction, Puffin remains a children’s books innovator and perennial reader favourite.

Some of Puffin India’s finest writers include Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Ruskin Bond, Sudha Murty, R.K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Satyajit Ray, Devdutt Pattanaik, Jerry Pinto, Payal Kapadia, Anita Nair, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Subroto Bagchi, Derek O’ Brien, Paro Anand, Subhadra Sen Gupta, Ranjit Lal.

About Disney India’s Consumer Products Business:

Disney is the largest retail character licensor in the world with US$45 billion in character merchandising retail sales globally in 2013. The Consumer Products business includes: Toys; Fashion & Home; Food, Health & Beauty (FHB); Consumer Electronics; Stationery; Publishing and Retail Sales and Marketing. The Consumer Products business plays a critical role in providing Indian consumers a chance to bring a piece of the Disney magic home through a wide range of creative and locally appealing merchandise.

Today, Disney-branded products are available across a million retail locations in India. Disney-branded products are present in close to 500 retail touch points including hypermarkets with more than 3,000 SKUs across categories. Working with over 150 licensees across categories, Disney India’s Consumer Products retail branding, such as the unique Disney-branded corners in prominent retail outlets including Hamley’s and Big Bazaar, continue to reach more and more consumers across the country. Disney-branded products are available across all the key online portals with branded pages on Amazon and Flipkart and with strategic presence in portals like Myntra, Jabong, Snapdeal and more.

About Disney Publishing Worldwide:

Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) is the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, magazines, and apps, igniting imagination through storytelling in ever-inventive ways. DPW creates and publishes books and magazines both vertically in-house and through an extensive worldwide licensing structure. As a leader in digital products, DPW creates best-selling eBook titles and best-in-class original apps. DPW is also committed to the educational development of children around the world through Disney Learning, which includes Disney Imagicademy, as well as Disney English and other Disney-themed learning products. Headquartered in Glendale, California, DPW publishes books, magazines and digital products in 85 countries in 75 languages. For more information, visit www.disneypublishing.com.

Caroline Newbury

VP Marketing and Corporate Communications

Random House India

Penguin Random House

7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C

DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

P +91 124 4785600

F + 91 124 4785606

Palestine in India: A Writers’ Colloquium, Organised by Women Unlimited (Delhi, March 11-13, 2016)

11 03 , 2016 No Comments

(Ritu Menon, founder, Women Unlimited is organising this fantastic literary festival in New Delhi. It is delicious programming. I was so looking forward to attending it but alas, I cannot. Thanks to the traffic diversions set up by the Delhi Police to allow the Art of Living three-day cultural festival to take place without a hitch on the Yamuna river bed. I am most disappointed. So those who can attend, must!)

Palestine in India: A Writers’ Colloquium

March 11-13, 2016

Main Auditorium

India International Centre

Programme

Friday, March 11, 2016, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Film Screening: The Time That Remains

(109 min; 2009; DVD; English subtitles)

Director: Elia Suleiman

Recipient of the Jury Grand Prize, Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2009; Audience Award & Silver Alhambra, Grenada Film Festival Cine del Sur 2010; ACCA Jury Prize & Award for Best Director, Mar del Plata Film Festival 2009

Elia Suleiman’s memoir of his family under Israeli occupation continues the mood of his earlier Divine Intervention (2002).

Friday, March 11, 2016, 6:30 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Memory & Imagination: A discussion on writing and resistance; on home and exile; on seeking, finding… with Mourid Barghouti and Sharif Elmusa.

Moderated by Ahdaf Soueif & Ritu Menon

Saturday, March 12, 2016, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Counterfacts on the Ground: A discussion on living under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, and on writing back to subvert suppression.

Laila El-Haddad and Adania Shibli talk to Raghu Karnad, and read from their work

Saturday, March 12, 2016, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Palestine in Publishing: A discussion on the challenge of publishing and selling Palestinian writing in, and outside, Palestine.

Michel Moushabeck, Interlink, USA; Mahmoud Muna, Educational Bookshop, Jerusalem; Sudhanva Deshpande, Leftword Books, New Delhi & Ritu Menon, Women Unlimited, New Delhi exchange experiences and views, talk about difficulties and how they overcome them, intelligently!

Saturday, March 12, 2016, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

“The Blue Between Sky and Water”

Susan Abulhawa reads from her new book and discusses it with Githa Hariharan

Sunday, March 13, 2016, 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Poetry Reading: “My Country: Distant as My Heart from Me”

Mourid Barghouti and Tamim Albarghouti read their poetry in a mesmerising jugalbandhi

Sunday, March 13, 2016, 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

“Stuck in Historical Amber?”: Susan Abulhawa and Sharif Elmusa speak about what it means to be “out of time, out of place”, to be never at home, and much else besides.

A free-wheeling conversation with well-known book critic, Sunil Sethi

Sunday, March 13, 2016, 6:30 – 8:00 p.m.

Main Auditorium, IIC

Double Bill!!

“Palestine: Nothing Makes Sense, Why Should I?”

Suad Amiry performs the tragi-comedy of her situation as a Palestinian under Occupation in the West Bank.

Book launch: My Damascus. Suad Amiry takes the reader by the hand and walks her through the city of her childhood, interleaving Damascus in history from the 1860s to the 2000s, with family history, of roughly the same period. A tour de force.

Ahdaf Soueif is the mistress of ceremonies.

11 March 2016

Press Release: SPEAKING TIGER LAUNCHES NEW INTERNATIONAL FICTION SERIES

10 03 , 2016 No Comments

( I am thrilled about this announcement. In India we get editions of books published internationally but not always easily. Some of the ways this is done is if a firm’s product manager decides to bring a local edition into the market; the consumer buys the international edition online at an exorbitant price or a distributor makes the books available in bookshops. But to have a dedicated space in a publishing house that will focus on international literature, world literature and translations. With the launch of the three titles in this series, Speaking Tiger, has had an auspicious beginning by publishing two out of the three writers on the Man Booker International Prize 2016 longlist — Eka Kurniawan and Fiston Mwanza Mujila. I remember reading Tram 83 last year and mentioning it after which the news was picked up in this part of the world. From a publishing point of view launching such an imprint may be perceived as a risk since the local readership is not very well acquainted with these writers but one lives in hope… . For now this is a fabulous news indeed!)

SPEAKING TIGER LAUNCHES NEW INTERNATIONAL FICTION SERIES

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new series, ‘International Fiction’, which will bring you some of the best contemporary writing from around the world, either originally in English or in English translation. It will focus on fiction (novels, novellas and short stories) that is truly outstanding and original, and leaves a lasting impression on the mind.

The series kicks off this month with Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty Is a Wound, translated from Bahasa into English by Annie Tucker. Rights to this amazing novel described as ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude kicked into another gear’ have been sold in 27 countries. Published late last year in the US and UK, it quickly made its way to several prestigious lists, including The Guardian’s The Year’s Best Literary Fiction, the New York Times Notable Books of 2015 and Oprah Winfrey’s Best Reads of 2015.

Hailed as ‘a literary child of Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie’ (The New York Review of Books), Eka Kurniawan is already being spoken of as a likely contender for the Nobel Prize—to quote Le Monde: ‘Original and powerful… Maybe, who knows, the judges of the Nobel Prize could, in a few years, consider giving [Eka] the prize that Indonesia has never received.’

Beauty Is a Wound will be followed in March by South African writer Imraan Coovadia’s new novel, Tales of the Metric System. Part political thriller, part family drama, part historical and human rights drama, it tells the story of modern South Africa in ten chapters that describe ten days spread over four decades, from 1970 to 2010.

Reviews of Tales of the Metric System have been superlative since its publication in South Africa, the US, Germany and elsewhere. The Mail & Guardian has described the novel as ‘an astonishing feat of imagination’ and one that people ‘will read long after our time has passed’, and the Sunday Times reviewer wrote, ‘With its elegant prose and ruthless determination to lead you to the truth, Tales of the Metric System is about as good a book as you are likely to read on South Africa’s transition from struggle to power.’

In April we will publish Tram 83, the sensational debut novel by Congolese writer Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from the French by Roland Glasser. Set in a night club in an unnamed Congolese mining town, Tram 83 follows a poet, Lucien, and his escapades with a cast of writers, drunkards, drug dealers, sex workers and dreamers. Mujila’s novel has been described as an ‘exuberantly dark’ tale that ‘delights in absurdities’ and extracts ‘epic poetry from violence, despair and distraction’.

With these three brilliant novels as our lead titles, we will continue to bring you books every few months from different cultures and countries that delight, absorb and enthrall.

Speaking Tiger Publishing Pvt. Ltd
4381/4, Ansari Road
Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
India
Phone: +91-11-47472630
e-mail: [email protected]
www.speakingtigerbooks.com

10 March 2016

Ratan Kumar Sambharia, “Thunderstorm”

09 03 , 2016 No Comments

The process of translating the literature of the Dalits, among India’s most oppressed classes, brings one face-to-face with the bitter realities of our society. …The situation changed significantly with the advent of printing technology. Books became available to every Indian, irrespective of caste and creed. As a result, a number of important voices began to find a wider audience. While social reformers like Jyoti Ba Phule, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr B.R. Ambedkar brought to the fore the injustices inherent in a social order designed to perpetuate caste-based exploitation, the freedom movement, launched to liberate the country from its British colonial rulers, played a vital role in the social awakening of communities that had, so far, been denigrated as the lower classes. These simultaneous developments would go a long way in contributing to the creation of a specific literary genre that eventually came to be identified as Dalit literature — the literature of the oppressed.

( p. ix “A Note from the Translator”)

Ratan Kumar Sambharia Thunderstorm: Dalit Stories ( Translated by Mridul Bhasin) Hachette India, Gurgaon, India, 2015. Pb. pp. 246 Rs350

Graham Swift, “Mothering Sunday”

09 03 , 2016 No Comments

The Beechwood library has its wall’s worth of books, most of which ( a maid knows) had hardly ever been touched. But in one corner, near a buttoned-leather soft was a revolving bookcase ( she liked to twirl it idly when she was cleaning) in which were kept books that clearly had been read. Surprisingly perhaps, in such a generally grown-up place, they were books that harked back to childhood, boyhood or gathering manhood, books that she imagined might once have flitted between the library and those silent rooms upstairs. There were even a few books that looked newly and hopefully purchased, but never actually begun.

Rider Haggard, G.A.Henty, R.M.Ballantyne, Stevenson, Kipling … She had good reason to remember the names and even the titles on some of the books. The Black Arrows, The Coral Island, King Solomon’s Mines …she would always see their grubby, frayed dust jackets or the exact coloration of their cloth bindings, the wrinkling and fadings of their spines.

Of all the rooms at Beechwood, in fact, the library, for all its dauntingness, was the one she most liked to clean. It was the room in which she most felt like some welcome, innocent thief.

( p.66-67)

Graham Swift’s novella Mothering Sunday is a dazzlingly splendid meditation on reading. If it were not for the fabric of a plot and the misleading subheading in the title “A Romance”, this little novella would be a prime example of a powerful interior monologue by an accomplished writer exploring his individual talent in a literary tradition.

Read it. Read it for the story at its face value. Read it for its social commentary. Read it for a century of world of English literature and translations it unveils. Read it to find your inner equilibrium. (It is incredible how much more at peace I was at for having read this slim book.)

Graham Swift Mothering Sunday Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2016.

9 March 2016

Sunil Khilnani’s “Incarnations”

09 03 , 2016 No Comments

Even the terms used to describe the famous Indian uprising against the British in 1857 are political positions. Was it a mutiny, or India’s First War of Independence? Rebellion or uprising? A nationalist movement or a string of local protests?

p.243, “Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi: Bad-ass Queen (1828-1858)”

‘A society, almost necessarily, begins every success story with the chapter that most advantages itself,’ the American public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates recently argued regarding mythic constructions of liberation all over the world. ‘[C]hapters are almost always rendered as the singular action of exceptional individuals.’ In modern India’s myth of finally, formally confronting its brutal history of case, Bhimrao Ambedkar is that exceptional individual. But every Great Man story is also a story of circumstance. Had India not been devastated by Partition, the formidable lawyer and scholar who led the untouchables might not have become the founding father most meaningful to ordinary Indians today.

p.468 “Ambedkar: Building Palaces on Dung Heaps (1891-1956)”

Sikri’s battlements, palaces, shrines proclaim imperial grandeur. But its airy pavilions and halls share little in common with the heavy monumentalism of Versaille or the Habsburg seats of power. Parts of the city have the feeling of a tent encampment, except that the animal skins and wood frames have been replaced by stone and marble, carved with great skill by local craftsmen. Walking through this now desolate cityscape in the dry heat, you might feel, at certain turns, as if you were in one of M.C. Escher’s drawing, reworked with the stark surrealism of Giorgio de Chirico. It’s like touring the physical manifestation of a mind — the expansive, syncretic mind of its creator: Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors.

p. 165 “Akbar: The World and the Bridge ( 1542-1605)

Sunil Khilnani’s magnificent Incarnations: India in 50 Lives gives a bird’s-eye view of history via the short account of people through their ages. The fifty people profiled are those who left a significant stamp in the socio-cultural-political and economic make-up of this land evident in modern India –a nation state that is very complicated, multi-layered. These biographical accounts written like “non-fiction short stories” detail the life and achievements of the person being profiled while placing them neatly in their historical and contemporary context. Incarnations has been published to coincide with the BBC Radio 4 series http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05rptbv. The principle of arrangement of this book is probably borrowed from another extremely popular BBC Radio 4 series + sumptiously produced book by Neil MacGregor, then director of the British Museum, on A History of the World in 100 Objects ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads ).

Yet Incarnations is very much in the tradition of books written trying to make history accessible to the lay reader. To document history in this fashion probably began with Jawaharlal Nehru’s Glimpses of World History to many accounts at chronicling this fascinating sub-continent by authors like Amartya Sen, Jean Dreze, Shashi Tharoor, Ramachandra Guha, Patrick French, Bipin Chandra, Romila Thapar, Percival Spear, Narayani Gupta, Subhadra Sen Gupta ( for children) et al. There were many volumes that were published to coincide with the fiftieth year of Independence but it is for the first time that a historian like Sunil Khilnani has put together an account that incorporates even lesser known individuals such as Malik Ambar the African slave who become powerful political force to contend with.

We live in a noisy, reactionary and surprisingly ahistorical world where lies and misinterpretations get amplified rapidly using social media platforms. So to have a book recount landmark moments in history through well-written biographies is a crucial and much appreciated contribution to social discourse. The style of writing is wonderfully catchy beginning with the chapter headings. For instance, Rani Lakshmi Bai, the queen who is almost revered for her resistance to the British colonial rulers in the nineteenth century with Indian school children even today being taught to memorise poems extolling her heroism; she is simply referred to as the “Bad-Ass Queen”. The list of contents is a delight to read. Similarly are the introductory paragraphs to every chapter –packed with facts, information and incorporating the broad spectrum of views on how the moment in history being discussed in the chapter has been perceived. It is a remarkable example of immense scholarship with a fine sensibility of being able to communicate with a non-academic audience. Peppered in the book are cross-references to other chapters illustrated by the names being marked in bold, a neat technique taken from academic publications and inserted into a trade title.

Outlook magazine’s 19 February 2016 issue focussed on Sunil Khilnani’s book with generous extracts from the book along with an in-depth interview by Satish Padmanabhan. Here is a link to the special issue and interview: http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/issue/11449 and http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/self-criticism-and-not-glib-self-congratulation-is-the-deepest-form-of-patriotis/296684 .

For all the stupendous historical detailing in each biography there are some disturbingly puzzling glossing over historical facts. For instance not referring to General Dyer by name instead saying “the officer” ( p.437) or referring to the campaign of installing Gandhi’s statue in London ( 2015) led by Lord Meghnad Desai and his wife, Lady Kishwar Desai but once again not pinning it in history by taking any names. Baffling since General Dyer is well-remembered in India and the topiary at Jallianwala Bagh nevers allows anyone to forget the dastardly massacre. Similarly, the campaign to instal Gandhi’s statue was a very political and public event splashed across worldwide media with David Cameron PM, UK and Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister, India, Gopal Krishna Gandhi, Amitabh Bachchan, Lord Meghnad Desai and Lady Kishwar Desai attending the unveiling of the statue. So it does leaves a tiny lingering of doubt about the other bits of history that may have been silenced. Even so, this is is a splendid book and must be read.

Sunil Khilnani Incarnations: India in 50 Lives Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Penguin Random House, UK, 2016. Hb. pp. 636 Rs. 999

9 March 2016

World Wildlife Day, 3 March 2016 / Some books

03 03 , 2016 1 Comment

On 20 December 2013, at its 68th session, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) decided to proclaim 3 March, the day of the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as World Wildlife Day. In its resolution,[2] the General Assembly reaffirmed the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions, including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic, to sustainable development and human well-being.

Winged Fire -Photo Credit Dhritiman Mukherjee

Winged Fire -Photo Credit Nirav Bhatt

To commemorate this day, I am posting pictures of some of the wildlife books that I have enjoyed. The absolutely scrumptious trilogy published by renowned wildlife conservationist Valmik Thapar lead the list. The books are– Tiger Fire, Wild Fire and Winged Fire. These are a “must have” not only for the stupendous production, quality of photographs but also for the amount of research that has been presented. It is probably the first time such an ambitious task has been undertaken in India wherein an extensive selection of historical accounts in writing and paintings, brilliant photographs with never before seen images of wildlife ( much like the pioneering work done by Jacques Cousteau’s photo-documentation of ocean life) and an overview of the conservation efforts made by governments with an informed and critical understanding by Valmik Thapar.

Winged Fire -Photo Credit Arpit Deomurary

Speaking Tiger too has republished a couple of books by Jim Corbett.

Last year Hachette India published Vivek Menon’s incredibly detailed guide to Indian Mammals which even game wardens consider as their Bible! A fact we discovered while on a trip to a wildlife sanctuary last year. It was being sold at the entrance of the park and the guides were encouraging the tourists to buy it for its authentic and accurate information.

There are also a bunch of books for children discussing wildlife conservation by not demonising the unknown, instead respecting other species and learning to live in harmony. ( Finally!) We need many more books like these given how there are hunts organised as new tourism packages. I am posting pictures of a few examples from National Book Trust ( NBT) and Puffin but there are many more available in the market now.

3 March 2016

HarperCollins India to publish William Dalrymple’s The Writer’s Eye”

03 03 , 2016 No Comments

I am truly excited about this forthcoming book – The Writer’s Eye. True, the photographs taken by William Dalrymple are exquisite. Even more astounding when you realise these were mostly taken with his Samsung phone. But what I like the most about this publishing arrangement is the coming together of three very talented photographers — William Dalrymple, Ananth Padmanabhan and Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. The historical sense that informs the superb compositions of William Dalrymple, combined with the sharp publishing potential and commissioning sensibility of veteran publisher Ananth Padmanabhan and the fine aesthetic and curation abilities of Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi can only make a stupendous book. I wait eagerly to see what is published in March 2016.

HarperCollins India to publish William Dalrymple

HarperCollins India are delighted to announce the publication of renowned writer, traveller and historian William Dalrymple’s first book of photographs, The Writer’s Eye, this March.

In a suite of black and white photographs, shot over two years, William Dalrymple brings elegance, inquiry and grace to the photographic form. Powerful and precise, the pictures in The Writer’s Eye are documents of landscape, conveying potent solitude and brooding strokes. The beloved author of acclaimed books returns to a visual medium he first worked with in collegiate days, armed now with over two decades of writerly composure and brilliance.

William Dalrymple said, “I am completely thrilled that HarperCollins India are publishing my photographs – the realisation of a long held dream.”

Ananth, CEO, HarperCollins India said, ‘We are incredibly excited – it’s a rare moment when a celebrated writer chooses another medium of art. William’s first book of photographs and we are delighted he chose to publish with us’

Curated by bestselling writer and Sensorium Festival co-founder, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi The Writer’s Eye opens at Sunaparanta : Goa Centre for the Arts, 18th of March, in Goa; Vadehra Art Gallery, 29th of March, in Delhi; and the Grosvenor Gallery, June 2016, London. This show is proudly supported by arts patrons Dattaraj, Dipti Salgaocar and Isheta Salgaocar, gallerists Roshini Vadehra, and Conor Macklin, The Writer’s Eye marks the public debut of a gifted visual artist.

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi had this to say on his Facebook wall ( 1 March 2016). (I am posting it with his permission. )
One winter evening at the Goa home of Dattaraj Salgaocar, the writer and historian William Dalrymple showed me photographs he’d made on his phone. I was struck by their jazz quality, nocturnal and solitary. I asked if I might show them. He agreed. Two years later, we have a handsome body of work, The Writer’s Eye, which debuts this spring March 18th at Sunaparanta Art Centre. My friend, the wonderful Roshini Vadehra Kapoor and I teamed to show it in Delhi, at Vadhera Art Gallery, which opens March 29th. And in partnership with family friends Dattaraj and Dipti Salgaocar’s Sunaparanta and Vadehra, the show moves to London, opening at the Grosvenor Gallery on June 23rd.
I was equally keen to take the gallery catalog, a somewhat of a vanity document seen by an elite few, and grow it into something that might be enjoyed by many. I turned to my friend Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins, himself a writer and photographer, and he gamely came on to support the show by bringing out a splendid book of the photographs (with essays by William and myself). The Writer’s Eye is launched in Delhi, on the day the show opens.
As Sensorium draws to a close this month, we are already preparing walls for the next show. Please come if in Goa, Delhi or London to celebrate William, his work, and his 50th birthday this March, for which this is a small celebration.
With gracious support from Arianna Huffington, Anindita Ghose and all at VOGUE, Shruti Kapur at Platform, and David Godwin.

I am posting some of the photographs that William Dalrymple has clicked with his Samsung. These are a personal selection I made from the press release, newspaper reports and from William Dalrymple’s Facebook page. These are being posted on my blog with his permission.

William Dalrymple is a writer, traveller and historian and one of the co-directors and founders of the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. He is the author of several bestselling books, including Return of a King, White Mughals and Nine Lives.

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi‘s debut novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the Betty Trask Award in the UK, the Premio Grinzane Cavour in Italy, and was nominated for the IMPAC Prize. The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, his subsequent bestselling novel, was nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008.

3 March 2016

The Revenant by Michael Punke

28 02 , 2016 No Comments

The Revenant ( 2001) written by Michael Punke is tipped to win a few Oscars tonight ( 2016). It has been nominated for 12 Academy Award nominations across all categories including the Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio — probably his first in twenty years of being in the movie business. ( http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/26/leonardo-dicaprio-the-revenant-oscars-academy-award ). I have not seen the film but the book is brutally magnificent and mesmerising with its focus on one man’s quest for revenge. It is powerful. Set in the American wilderness in the early 1800s, frontiersman Hugh Glass is badly mauled by a grizzly and abandoned by his fellow trappers ( intensely described in the stomach churning opening pages of the novel). Barely surviving his wounds, Glass is driven by thoughts of his family and a desire for revenge as he endures the frigid winter and pursues the men who left him for dead.

The author, Michael Punke, is a serving international trade expert and diplomat. He serves as the US Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. The Quartz profiled him: http://qz.com/626726/the-author-behind-the-revenant-is-an-international-trade-expert-and-diplomat/. This is what they say, “Despite the press frenzy ahead of Sunday’s Academy awards, Michael Punke can’t give interviews about his book or make promotional appearances due to his government position. He skipped the film’s December premiere to negotiate a $1.3 trillion trade deal in Nairobi. He can’t even sign copies of his 2002 novel.”

According to Wikipedia, the word revenant is derived from the Latin word reveniens, “returning” (see also the related French verb revenir, meaning “to come back”). A revenant is a visible ghost or animated corpse that is believed to have returned from the grave to terrorize the living. Revenants share some similarities with zombies in modern fiction. This is a result of contemporary depictions of zombies having evolved from vampire fiction. The original folklore about zombies had less in common with revenant legends. Similarities are also obvious with the aptrgangr (literally ‘again-walker’, meaning one who walks after death) of Norse mythology, although the aptrgangr, or draugr, is usually far more powerful, possessing magical abilities and most notably is not confined to a deathlike sleep during the day – although it does usually stay in its burial mound during the daylight hours – and will resist intruders, which renders the destruction of its body a dangerous affair to be undertaken by individual heroes. Consequently, stories involving the aptrgangr often involve direct confrontations with the creature, in which it often reveals to be immune to conventional weapons. Such elements are absent from the revenant lore, where the body is engaged in its inert state in daylight, and rendered harmless. Also references of revenant-like beings come from the Caribbean and are often referred to as ‘The soucouyant’ or ‘soucriant’ in Dominica, Trinidadian and Guadeloupean folklore (also known as Ole-Higue or Loogaroo elsewhere in the Caribbean).

The last time a film based on a book written by a serving diplomat won many Oscars was Slumdog Millionaire (2008), based on Vikas Swarup’s Q&A ( 2005). He is now the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2016).

Michael Punke, The Revenant HarperCollins India, 2016. Pb.

28 Feb 2016

Institute of Book Publishing, 9th Intensive Course for Editors in Publishing / 25 Feb 2016

25 02 , 2016 No Comments

( Mr Surinder Ghai, a respected and veteran publisher in India started this book publishing course a few years ago. On a few occasions I too have lectured there on subjects ranging from journal editorial, journal management and ethical practices, and social media strategies for publishers. This year again Mr Ghai is organising a course. Here is the announcement and application form. For more information and application, please email: [email protected] )

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9^th Intensive Course for Editors in Publishing

A six-day intensive programme for emerging and intermediate editors to be taught by some of India’s top luminaries in the publishing industry.
Get hands-on experience from some of the top editors of India.
Sharpen your editorial skills in one of the lowest studentto-faculty ratio course.

Course Overview

The six-day Intensive Course for editors is designed to update your knowledge of various aspects of editing. You will attend lectures, workshops and field visit to a printing/publishing house, study reference material and handouts, and see videos of a publishing house and an editor at work. You will also practise your editing and proofreading skills on a manuscript copy and online.

Who should attend this course?

Those who want to make editing a career.
In-service publishing professionals.
Those managing editorial departments.
Those wanting to improve their editing skills.

What can you expect from this course?

Widening of your understanding and knowledge about the publishing industry.
Understanding the role of an editor, what editing is all about and how to do it effectively and efficiently.
Establishing contacts with leading professionals in the industry.
Learning online copy editing.
Networking with fellow participants and faculty.
Learning how to deal with authors successfully.
Internship at a publishing house after completing the course (optional).

What is special about this course?

The only course of its kind in Asia and Africa.
Opens up job opportunities in the publishing industry.
Discussions with course faculty (each session includes 30-45 minutes for interaction, discussion and Q & A).

Some of the responses we received from the participants of

8^th Intensive Course for Editors in Publishing

Sessions were very friendly, enjoyable and interactive. Field visit was very good and informative. Hospitality was great and food awesome.

Hampi Chakrabarti

Dept. of English, Banaras Hindu University

Well structured and organised course. Most of presentations were excellent. It is very useful for my job.

M.T.A Rahuman

Educational Publications Department, Sri Lanka

I think this is probably just the right course for anyone who has never done an editing course. This course was relevant and useful for our jobs. Well organised.

W.A.N Darshi Ranasinghe

Educational Publications Department, Sri Lanka

Well structured. Well organised. Most of the presentation were excellent. Mr. Ghai and the coordinator gave lot of encouragement and help when required. I can take what I learned and start applying it directly to my current job.

Chandima de Zoysa

Educational Publications Department, Sri Lanka

Sessions by veterans, were really enlightening.

Soma Bhattacharjya

Course Contents

Day 1

Role of an editor in a publishing house (including acquisition and commissioning of manuscripts).
Author/contributor-editor/publisher relationship.

Day 2

House style: Its importance and how to develop it + Practice.
Copy editing and tools of editing.
Grammar and punctuation: Syntactic issues, punctuation, hyphens, ems and ens, quotation marks + Practice.
Marking up: How, why, when, what.
Style and level: Capitals, italics, numbers, purpose and level.
Tables, technical symbols and copyfitting: Abridging and elaborating.

Day 3

Introduction to online editing.
Advantages of online copy editing.
MS-Word functions with track change.
Practice session with live text.

Day 4

Visual editing: Type fonts, structure and design.
Cover to cover: Covers and binding, prelims, body of the book/ journals running heads, end matter-references, notes, further reading and index.
Field visit to a printing house.

Day 5

Making a proposal.
Editing fiction + Practice.
Editing translations and language publications.
The art of making an index.

Day 6

Delivery of content online – e-publishing and other options.
Editorial dilemmas.
Copyright, permissions, legal issues and author-publisher agreement.
Panel discussion: Role and Responsibilities of an Editor.

Course Format

he course comprises lectures, group discussions, workshops and hands-on exercises, designed to give the trainees a well-rounded exposure to all the aspects of editing. Formal sessions will be held everyday from 9.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. with a 45-minute break for lunch. A part of the afternoon session will be utilised for practical training, exercises and field visit. The course faculty is drawn from a panel of highly qualified and professionally experienced editors from the Indian publishing industry. After attending lectures on editing skills and strategies, the participants will work individually and in groups to apply what they have learnt.

Admission standards

The course is open to in-service personnel and to those who have completed their graduation/postgraduation and are looking for a career in editing.

Admission deadline

Enrolment is limited and the applications must reach the Institute by 1^st April 2016.

Tuition fee

Tuition fee for the course is `14,000.00 (US$ 500 for foreign students). It includes study material, stationery, working lunch and tea/coffee. The participants will have to make their own arrangements for boarding and lodging; however, the Institute may help the participants in arranging accommodation near the venue of the programme, as per their budget.

Early-bird discount

Register before 10^th March and Avail 10% discount.

Application Form

Name …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Address ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. City …………………………………………….. Pin…………………………………………………………… Tel(O) ………………………. (R)/Cell ………………………………. Fax………………………………… E-mail …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Other relevant information, if any (attach a separate sheet) Enclosed cheque/draft no …………………………………. dated …………………………………… favouring Institute of Book Publishing, New Delhi. Date …………………….. Signature …………………………………

Course Organiser

S.K. Ghai, Chairman, Institute of Book Publishing, has been associated with the Institute since its inception in 1985. He is the CMD, Sterling Publishers (P) Ltd. He has served as the Chairman on the Books, Publications and Printing Panel of CAPEXIL, Ministry of Commerce, Govt. of India (2008-2011). A senior member of the book trade bodies in India, he is the vice president (north) of The Federation of Publishers’ & Booksellers’ Associations in India. He has been actively involved with the world of publishing since 1965 and has visited and participated in many international book fairs. He is on the course faculty of National Book Trust, India and a member of the Experts Committee (Publishing) of IGNOU. He has been on the editorial board of Publishing Research Quarterly, New York, since 2007. He is the editor of Publishing Today, an e-journal.

Course Director

Prabuddha Sircar has been associated actively with print, production and publishing since 1974. He has worked with Macmillan, Oxford University Press, Sage, Harcourt and Elsevier Science. He has also worked for Indian Council of Historical Research and National Book Trust as Joint Director (Production) and was General Manager of Gopsons Paper Limited, a renowned quality printer in Noida, UP. Teaching is also his domain and he has been instructing students of mass media communication and graphic design on book production since 1981. He is presently teaching at YMCA, Masscomedia, and a couple of colleges under the University of Delhi. He teaches regularly at the publishing courses organised by NBT, IBP, FPBA and other professional organisations. He has now started an organisation named WordsWorth India, offering print-production and publishing services for the industry. WordsWorth India is also publishing books of general interest for all age groups of readership.

Panel of Course Faculty

Arvind Kumar, CEO, Arvind Kumar Publishers Ashok Chopra, Managing Director, Hay House India Atiya Zaidi, Editor, Ratna Sagar Chiki Sarkar, Publisher, Juggernaut Books, Dinesh Sinha Dr, Editor, Byword Books

S. Jolly, Publishing Consultant Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, International Publishing Consultant, Joseph Mathai, Vice President, Entrepreneur India Books. Malini Sood Dr, Freelance Editor Manish Arora, Director, Universal Law Publishing House
N. Sarkar, Former Professor, IIMC Narender Kumar, Chairman, Har-Anand Publishers
K. Jayanthan, Freelance Editor and Book Indexer Ranjan Kaul, Managing Dir., Oxford University Press India Ravi Singh, Editor, Speaking Tiger Ritu Menon, Editor, Women Unlimited Sayoni Basu, Publisher, Duckbill Sridhar Balan, Consultant, Ratna Sagar Sugat Jain, Director, Ratna Sagar Sumita Mukherjee, Freelance Editor Sunaina Kumar Dr, Prof. English, Coordinator PGDBP, IGNOU Urvashi Butalia, Author and Editor, Zubaan Books
K. Karthika, Publisher and Chief Editor, HarperCollins

Institute of Book Publishing

The importance of books in the intellectual, cultural and educational development of a country has long been recognised, but it is only in recent years that book publishing has acquired its rightful place as an industry.

Responding to the growing need for professionally trained and skilled personnel to feed this rapidly expanding O P Ghai – Founder industry, the Institute of Book Publishing was founded in 1985 at the initiative of Late Shri O. P. Ghai, who was not only a pioneer in Indian book publishing but also a visionary who understood the significance of specialised training and research in the various aspects of book publishing.

The Institute has been organising an annual Condensed Course for Publishing Professionals since 1986. It attracts participants from neighbouring countries, South-east Asia and other parts of the world.

The Institute’s faculty includes academicians, professionals and editors from major publishing houses. The Institute’s alumni hold senior positions in their respective organisations.

It has also established a library containing books on various aspects of book publishing. The institute started Publishing Today, an e-journal for publishing professionals, in December 2006.

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PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE AND DISNEY INDIA BRING DISNEY’S ICONIC STORIES AND CHARACTERS CLOSER TO INDIAN CHILDREN

Palestine in India: A Writers’ Colloquium, Organised by Women Unlimited (Delhi, March 11-13, 2016)

Press Release: SPEAKING TIGER LAUNCHES NEW INTERNATIONAL FICTION SERIES

Graham Swift, “Mothering Sunday”

Sunil Khilnani’s “Incarnations”

World Wildlife Day, 3 March 2016 / Some books

HarperCollins India to publish William Dalrymple’s The Writer’s Eye”

The Revenant by Michael Punke

Institute of Book Publishing, 9th Intensive Course for Editors in Publishing / 25 Feb 2016

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