'Tiny Sliver of the City's Cosmos'

Sketches by Hootum the Owl: A Satirist’s View of Colonial Calcutta

8.5 x 5.5” hb,  288pp ISBN 81-85604-86-2 Rs 800

Chitralekha Basu thanks The Book Review for reviewing Sketches by Hootum the Owl by Kaliprasanna Sinha in their April issue.

'Calcutta by nature is a city so multifarious and so intractable that it spills over the brim of any work of literary or artistic endeavour to seize it' says Basu. According to her no literary work can be more representative of Calcutta than Kaliprasanna's 150 year sketch.

‘It was indeed heartening to see a work of translation about social life in mid-19^th century Calcutta, an area of so-called niche interest, given considerable space in your esteemed publication.

…Indeed, Sketches by Hootum is a ‘tiny sliver of the city’s cosmos’ as the reviewer suggests.’

Chitralekha Basu

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/

http://www.facebook.com/TheBookReviewindia

The Editor of Unstable Populations, Anxious States: Mixed and Massive Flows in South Asia

Unstable Populations, Anxious States: Mixed and Massive Flows in South Asia

Edited by Paula Banerjee

demy octavo pb 368pp‘ISBN 978-93-81345-06-1  Rs  575

The complexities of displacement have created massive, mixed flows: refugees, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, IDPS and other victims of violence, deprivation, hunger.Persecution and discrimination occur together , and the old forms of protection are often inadequate.

This book considers the disparity between economic growth and human development indices that leads to continuous massive human flows.                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Paula Banerjee

Paula Banerjee is professor, department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Calcutta and president, Mahanirvan Calcutta Research Group. 

The Editors of Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India

Women Contesting Culture: Changing Frames of Gender Politics in India

Edited by Kavita Panjabi and Paromita Chakravarti

demy octavo pb 381pp ISBN 978-81-906760-8-3 Rs 500 May 2012

Editors and contributors grapple with the dialectical nature of culture, ‘particularly how its dichotomies become most evident’ and offer lively discussions on literature, on songs and singers, theatre and actors, art, sexualities, Naxalite women, Tebhaga, school textbooks, covering most aspects of life and living.

 Kavita Panjabi                                                                                  

Kavita Panjabi, Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University and Paromita Chakravarti, Reader, Department of English, and Joint director, School of  

Women’s Studies Jadavpur University.

     












   Paromita Chakravarti

Independent Publishers and the Interactions of Regional Language Publishers

 Independent Publishers and the Interactions of Regional Language Publishers

‘It is a truism that small independent publishers bring sparkle and fresh quality to Indian publishing. I would  argue that because these companies are run by publishing professionals, as opposed to being family run, they offer very high quality editorial and production skills, publishing most of the best books in India. These small companies focus mostly on social science and literary studies...
What independent companies focus on is the creation of knowledge, that is, something that adds to the world’s understanding of ideas, of life, of how and why people live their lives, in brief, the great humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, philosophy. This kind of publishing feeds into perennial thought.

So what do independents not publish? They avoid the stereotypical and are not impressed by the need to entertain and get more sales. When are sales enough to impress a multinational? Andre Schiffrin in his books: The Business of Books and Words and Money says that a small quality imprint brought by a conglomerate can never succeed even when it increases sales. Because the target is always pushed further. Unrealistic expenses like huge fancy corporate offices and salaries have to be covered…

The kind of publishing that Indian independent publishers do is to show what is happening in society, whether in fiction or in non-fiction. They, thus, take risks in publishing a first time author who has something important to say, again, whether in fiction or non-fiction. This is because they want to publish exciting, quality books.’

An Extract from Independent Publishers and the Interactions of Regional Language Publishers by Mandira Sen