Penguin Books India

Penguin Books India launches Partridge, a new self-publishing imprint, in partnership with Author Solutions

admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 12:58:43 +0000

Media Contact:
Ms. Hemali Sodhi
Penguin Books India
011-24613 1415
hemali.sodhi@in.penguingroup.com

Penguin Books India launches Partridge, a new self-publishing imprint, in partnership with Author Solutions

Partridge will provide exciting new opportunities for Indian authors to get published and discovered, both in India and around the globe.

NEW DELHI – 07 February, 2013: Penguin Books India has announced the introduction of Partridge, a new self-publishing imprint launched in partnership with Author Solutions, Inc., the world’s leading publishing services company. Author Solutions, which is based in Bloomington, Indiana, was acquired by Penguin in July 2012. Partridge in India marks the first imprint brought to market in collaboration with Penguin since the acquisition.

As the leader in the self-publishing industry, Author Solutions has helped more than 170,000 authors publish more than 200,000 books around the globe. Through Partridge, Indian authors will now have access to the widest range of professional editorial, publishing and marketing services that enable them to get their books published and distributed in both digital and print formats.
Aspiring authors can chose from a range of publishing packages that include services such as:

Editing
Design and illustration
E-book formatting and distribution on all e-readers
Print formatting and distribution through online retailers
Publicity and marketing
Video

Andrew Phillips, President and CEO of Penguin Books India said: “Since Author Solutions joined the Penguin family, we’ve been focused on their international expansion and India is an obvious starting point, given the active and enthusiastic writing community. We are delighted to be working with them to offer high quality services priced appropriately for the Indian market.” Phillips added: “In addition, Penguin will be monitoring Partridge titles with hopes of picking up authors for the Penguin list. I have no doubt that Partridge will be a huge success.”

Kevin Weiss, President and CEO of Author Solutions Inc. added, “We have been watching this market for some time and see more and more authors looking for publishing and marketing services that meet industry standards but are affordably priced. With Partridge, authors in India now have the opportunity to achieve their publishing goals and build their platform both domestically and abroad. It is truly the best time in history to be an author.”
To learn more about self-publishing services available from Partridge, visit www.partridegepublishing.com/india
About Partridge

Partridge is a new self publishing imprint launched by Penguin Books India in partnership with Author Solutions, Inc, the world’s leading self-publishing services company. Through this imprint, Indian authors now have access to the widest range of professional publishing and marketing services that meet the best publishing industry standards, but are appropriately priced for the Indian market. Penguin Books India will be watching key Partridge titles with hopes of picking up authors for the Penguin list.
For more information, visit www.partridgepublishing.com/india and follow @partridgepublishing on Twitter for the latest news.
About Penguin Books India

Penguin Books India is the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent. Founded in 1985, Penguin India began publishing in October 1987 with six books and celebrated its twenty-fifth year in 2012. The company now publishes more than 250 new titles every year and has an active backlist of over 3000 titles. Known for its strong fiction and narrative non-fiction list, Penguin India publishes across virtually every segment including biography, travel, business, politics, history, religion and philosophy, lifestyle, cookery, health and fitness, sports and leisure, visual books and children’s books.
Apart from English, Penguin India also publishes in Hindi, and its books are available in several Indian languages through partnerships with several language publishers. Penguin India is also the exclusive distributor partner in the region for books published by several international leading publishing houses.
Penguin India’s author list reads like a who’s who of Indian writing and its authors have won virtually every major literary prize, including the Man Booker, the Nobel Prize, the Magsaysay Award, the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; several of Penguin’s authors are also recipients of the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, India’s highest civilian honours.
For more information, visit www.penguinbooksindia.com and follow @PenguinIndia on Twitter for the latest news

About Author Solutions, Inc.

Author Solutions, Inc., (ASI), a member of the Penguin Group, is a world leader in indie book publishing. ASI’s leading self-publishing imprints — AuthorHouse, AuthorHouse UK, iUniverse, Palibrio, Trafford Publishing and Xlibris — have helped more than 160,000 authors self-publish, promote and bring to market more than 200,000 new titles. Through strategic alliances with leading trade publishers, ASI is making it possible to develop new literary talent efficiently and providing authors with a platform for bringing their books to market. Headquartered in Bloomington, Ind., ASI’s global reach includes imprints developed specifically for authors in India, Australia, Singapore, Spain, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

For more information, visit www.authorsolutions.com and follow @authorsolutions on Twitter for the latest news.

For an interview with Andrew Phillips (Penguin India), please contact Hemali Sodhi at 011 46131409/ hemali.sodhi@in.penguingroup.com

Post Date:

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Penguin Annual Lecture 2012 with APJ Abdul Kalam

admin — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:55:47 +0000

4^th December 2012

Penguin Books India

is delighted to announce

The Penguin Annual Lecture 2012

Beyond 2020

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

on 18 December 2012 at 7.00 p.m.

On its 25^th anniversary Penguin India is proud to announce the sixth Penguin Annual Lecture to be delivered by the country's highly respected visionary—former President of India, Bharat Ratna awardee and bestselling author —Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The lecture is titled 'Beyond 2020' and will concentrate on achieving sustainable development, vital to the future of the nation.

One of the most prestigious cultural events of the year, The Penguin Annual Lecture series features some of the world's most respected leaders, thinkers and writers, and builds on Penguin India's commitment to bring the finest minds in the world in direct contact with Indian audiences. It is the first annual lecture to be organized by a publishing house in India and has become one of the most prestigious cultural events on the calendar. The five previous Penguin Annual Lectures have been delivered by journalist and writer Thomas Friedman in 2007, diplomat and writer Chris Patten in 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen in 2009, eminent historian Ramachandra Guha in 2010 and renowned spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2011.

About Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam:
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, b. 15 October 1931, is one of India's most distinguished scientists. He was responsible for the development of India's first satellite launch vehicle, the SLV-3, the development and operationalization of strategic missiles and their weaponization, and building indigenous capability in critical technologies including nuclear power. Dr Kalam held various positions in ISRO and DRDO and became Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India holding the rank of a cabinet minister. He has the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from forty-four universities and the country's three highest civilian honours, the Padma Bhushan (1981), the Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the Bharat Ratna (1997). He served as the eleventh President of India from 2002 to 2007.

Dr Kalam's focus now is on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020, with an economically developed, prosperous and peaceful society. Over the last decade, he has addressed over 15 million youngsters, inspiring them to become active participants in India Vision 2020. He is the bestselling author of a number of books, including India 2020, Ignited Minds, Mission India, The Scientific Indian and Target 3 Billion, all of which are published by Penguin.

For more information please contact:

Hemali Sodhi at 011 26494401 or at hemali.sodhi@in.penguingroup.com.
Aman Arora at 011 26494497 or at aman.arora@in.penguingroup.com.
Amrita Talwar at 011 26494494 or at amrita.talwar@in.penguingroup.com.
SmritiKhanna at 011 26494410 or at smriti.khanna@in.penguingroup.com.

Post Date:

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Penguin and Random house to combine creating the world’s leading trade publisher: Penguin random house

admin — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:20:44 +0000

29 October 2012

PENGUIN AND RANDOM HOUSE TO COMBINE
CREATING THE WORLD’S LEADING TRADE PUBLISHER;
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

London and New York – Pearson and Bertelsmann today announce an agreement to create the world’s leading consumer publishing organization by combining Penguin and Random House.

The combination brings together two of the world’s leading English language publishers, with highly complementary skills and strengths. Random House is the leading English language publisher in the US and the UK, while Penguin is the world’s most famous publishing brand and has a strong presence in fast-growing developing markets. Both companies have a long history of publishing excellence, and both have been pioneers in the dramatic industry transformation towards digital publishing and bookselling.

Under the terms of the agreement, Penguin and Random House will combine their businesses in a newly-created joint venture named Penguin Random House. Bertelsmann will own 53% of the joint venture and Pearson will own 47%. The joint venture will exclude Bertelsmann’s trade publishing business in Germany and Pearson will retain rights to use the Penguin brand in education markets worldwide.

Bertelsmann will nominate five directors to the Board of Penguin Random House and Pearson will nominate four. John Makinson, currently chairman and chief executive of Penguin, will be chairman of Penguin Random House and Markus Dohle, currently chief executive of Random House, will be its chief executive.

In reviewing the long-term trends and considerable change affecting the consumer publishing industry, Pearson and Bertelsmann both concluded that the publishing and commercial success of Penguin and Random House can best be sustained and enhanced through a partnership with another major international publishing house. They believe that the combined organization will have a stronger platform and greater resources to invest in rich content, new digital publishing models and high-growth emerging markets. The organization will generate synergies from shared resources such as warehousing, distribution, printing and central functions. Pearson and Bertelsmann intend that the combined organization’s level of organic investment in authors and new product models
will exceed the total investment of Penguin and Random House as independent publishing houses.

The two companies believe that the combination will create a highly successful new organization, both creatively and commercially, with the breadth and investment capacity to deliver significant benefits. Readers will have access to a wider and more diverse range of front list and backlist content in multiple print and digital formats. Authors will gain a greater depth and breadth of service, from traditional front list publishing to innovative self-publishing, on a global basis. Employees of the new organization will be part of the world’s first truly global consumer publishing company, committed to sustained editorial excellence and long-term investment in a rich diversity of content. And shareholders will benefit from participating in the consolidation of the consumer publishing industry without having to deploy additional capital.
The combination is subject to customary regulatory and other approvals, including merger control clearances, and is expected to complete in the second half of 2013.

In 2011, Random House reported revenues of €1.7bn (£1.48bn) and operating profit of €185m (£161m). Penguin reported revenues of £1.0bn and operating profit of £111m with total assets of £1.0bn. After completion, Pearson will report its 47% share of profit after tax from the joint venture as an associate in its consolidated income statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, neither Pearson nor Bertelsmann may sell any part of their shareholding in Penguin Random House for three years. To protect Pearson’s interests as a minority shareholder, if Bertelsmann declines a Pearson offer to sell its entire shareholding, Pearson may require a recapitalization by which Penguin Random House raises debt of up to 3.5x EBITDA, with a dividend distributed to shareholders in line with their ownership. In addition, from five years after completion, either partner may require an IPO of Penguin Random House.

Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, said: “Penguin is a successful, highly-respected and much-loved part of Pearson. This combination with Random House – a company with an almost perfect match of Penguin’s culture, standards and commitment to publishing excellence – will greatly enhance its fortunes and its opportunities. Together, the two publishers will be able to share a large part of their costs, to invest more for their author and reader constituencies and to be more adventurous in trying new models in this exciting, fast-moving world of digital books and digital readers.“

Thomas Rabe, chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, said: “With this planned combination,
Bertelsmann and Pearson create the best course for new growth for our world-renowned trade-book publishers, to enable them to publish even more effectively across traditional and emerging formats and distribution channels. It will build on our publishing tradition, offering an extraordinary diversity of publishing opportunities for authors, agents, booksellers, and readers, together with unequalled support and resources.”

John Makinson, Chairman and CEO of Penguin, said: “All of us who work in book publishing
Experience every day the breathtaking pace of change in our industry. The partnership that we are announcing today will position Penguin Random House at the forefront of that change. Our access to investment resources will allow us to take risks with new authors, to defend our creative and editorial independence, to publish the broadest range of books on the planet, and to do it all with the attention to quality that has always characterized both our great companies.”

Markus Dohle, Chairman & CEO of Random House, adds: “Our new company will bring together the publishing expertise, experience, and skill sets of two of the world's most successful, enduring trade book publishers. In doing so, we will create a publishing home that gives employees, authors, agents, and booksellers access to unprecedented resources. I deeply believe that the support and services that we will be able to offer, coupled with the creative and editorial independence that we will continue to maintain, will benefit everyone in the book publishing environment, especially our passionate readers from today's generation to the next.”

- ends

For more information please contact:

Becca Sinclair
+44 (0) 78 0890 5288
Rebecca.Sinclair@uk.penguingroup.com

Erica Glass
(646) 309-9460
Erica.Glass@us.penguingroup.com

Toby Jones
+44 (0) 20 7010 3345
Toby.Jones@uk.penguingroup.com

Post Date:

Monday, October 29, 2012

Penguin to Publish the First-Person Account of the Bin Laden Raid!

admin — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:36:16 +0000

PENGUIN BOOKS INDIA
TO PUBLISH THE FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT OF THE BIN LADEN RAID
BY A MEMBER OF SEAL TEAM SIX WHO WITNESSED
THE TERRORIST’S FINAL MOMENTS
in
NO EASY DAY
The Only First Hand Account of the Navy Seal Mission
that Killed Osama Bin Laden

by Mark Owen
with Kevin Maurer

Penguin / Rs 499 / Releasing on 11^th September

Penguin Books India presents the first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from inside the US Navy SEAL team who carried out the extraordinary mission to kill the terrorist mastermind.

From the streets of Iraq to the successful rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from pirates in the Indian Ocean; from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan, operator Mark Owen of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group – commonly known as SEAL Team Six - has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines.

Mark Owen (a pseudonym) completed thirteen consecutive combat deployments during the War on Terror. NO EASY DAY illuminates the life and work of the SEALs, and it culminates with his experience during Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. Owen was one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader’s hideout and was present at his death. An essential piece of modern history, NO EASY DAY takes readers behind enemy lines with one of the world’s most astonishing fighting forces. It is the only insider’s account of that spectacular mission.

In the book, Owen says, “While written in the first person, my experiences are universal…It is time to set the record straight about one of the most important missions in U.S. military history. No Easy Day is the story of ‘the guys,’ the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job….My hope is one day a young man in junior high school will read it and become a SEAL, or at least live a life bigger than him. If that happens, this book is a success.”

Owen will be donating the majority of the proceeds from the book to charities that help support the families of fallen Navy SEALs.

About the Author:
Mark Owen is a former member of the U.S. Special Warfare Development Group, commonly known as SEAL Team Six. In his many years as a Navy SEAL, he has participated in hundreds of missions around the globe, including the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean in 2009. Owen led one of the assault teams on Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. Mark Owen’s name and the names of the other SEALs mentioned in No Easy Day have been changed for their security.

Kevin Maurer has covered special operations forces for nine years. He has been embedded with the Special Forces in Afghanistan six times, spent a month in 2006 with special operations units in east Africa, and has embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq and Haiti. He is the author of four books, including several about special operations.

Post Date:

Friday, August 24, 2012

Jeet Thayil’s ‘Narcopolis’ longlisted for Man Booker Prize 2012

admin — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 06:11:52 +0000

Penguin Books India

is delighted to announce that

Narcopolis

by
Jeet Thayil

Published by Faber and Faber

Has been longlisted for the

Man Booker Prize 2012

Penguin Books India is proud to announce that on July 25, 2012 Narcolpolis by Jeet Thayil was amongst the 12 book longlist of the Man Booker Prize for fiction. The Man Booker Prize committee said in their announcement on their website: “The 2012 longlist includes four debut novels, three small independent publishers and one previous winner. Of the 12 writers, seven are men and five women; nine are British, one Indian, one South African and one Malaysian. The shortlist of six authors will be announced at a press conference at the Man Group headquarters on Tuesday 11 September 2012. The winner of the 2012 prize will be announced at a dinner at London’s Guildhall on Tuesday 16 October. Each of the six shortlisted writers is awarded £2,500 and a specially commissioned beautifully handbound edition of his/her book. The winner receives a further £50,000.”

Peter Stothard, Chair of Judges commented: “Goodness, madness and bewildering urban change are among the themes of this year’s longlist. In an extraordinary year for fiction the ‘Man Booker Dozen’ proves the grip that the novel has on our world. We did not set out to reject the old guard but, after a year of sustained critical argument by a demanding panel of judges, the new has come powering through.”

Another Faber and Faber publication, Skios by Michael Frayn was also amongst the longlisted titles.

Narcopolis was released in India in December 2011.

About the Book

A rich and hallucinatory novel, set around a Bombay opium den, that follows a fascinating cast of flawed characters as the city transforms itself over three decades.

Wait now, light me up so we do this right, yes, hold me steady to the lamp, hold it, hold, good, a slow pull to start with, to draw the smoke low into the lungs, yes, oh my...

Shuklaji Street, in Old Bombay. In Rashid's opium room the air is thick with voices and ghosts: Hindu, Muslim, Christian. A young woman holds a long-stemmed pipe over a flame, her hair falling across her eyes. Men sprawl and mutter in the gloom. Here, they say you introduce only your worst enemy to opium.
There is an underworld whisper of a new terror: the Pathar Maar, the stone killer, whose victims are the nameless, invisible poor. In the broken city, there are too many to count. Stretching across three decades, with an interlude in Mao's China, it portrays a city in collision with itself. With a cast of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters and eunuchs, it is a journey into a sprawling underworld written in electric and utterly original prose.

About the Author

Jeet Thayil was born in Kerala, India in 1959 and educated in Hong Kong, New York and Mumbai. He is a performance poet, songwriter and guitarist as well as a writer, and has published four collections of poetry. He is the editor of The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008). He currently lives in Bangalore.

For More Information please contact:
Amrita Talwar at amrita.talwar@in.penguingroup.com or at 011 46131494
Hemali Sodhi at hemali.sodhi@in.penguingroup.com or at 011 4613 1400

Post Date:

Monday, August 6, 2012

Announcing Pankaj Mishra’s latest book From the Ruins of Empire

admin — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:06:45 +0000

Penguin Books India
is proud to announce the much awaited and incisive
non fiction book
by
Pankaj Mishra

From the Ruins of Empire

The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia.

(Releasing on 10 August)

Advance Praise for ‘From the Ruins of Empire’

‘Brilliant ... Mishra reverses the long gaze of the West upon the East, showing modern history as it has been felt by the majority of the world's population - from Turkey to China. These are the amazing stories of the grandfathers of today's angry Asians. Excellent.’ Orhan Pamuk

‘Superb and ground-breaking. Not just a brilliant history of Asia, but a vital history for Asians.’ – Mohsin Hamid

‘Pankaj Mishra has produced a riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections. He follows the intellectual trail of this contested history with both intelligence and moral clarity. In the end we realise that what we are holding in our hands is not only a deeply entertaining and deeply humane book, but a balance sheet of the nature and mentality of colonisation.’ Hisham Matar

The Victorian period, viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. Foreign soldiers and merchants tore apart the great empires which had once formed the heart of civilization. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire, burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, or humiliated the bankrupt rulers of the Ottoman Empire, it was clear that for Asia to recover a vast intellectual effort would be required.

Pankaj Mishra's fascinating, highly entertaining new book tells the story of a remarkable group of men from across the continent who met the challenge of the West. Incessantly travelling, questioning and agonising, they both hated the West and recognised that an Asian renaissance needed to be fuelled in part by engagement with the enemy. Through many setbacks and wrong turns, a powerful, contradictory and ultimately unstoppable series of ideas were created that now lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to Al Qaeda, from Indian nationalism to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mishra allows the reader to see the events of two centuries anew, through the eyes of the journalists, poets, radicals and charismatics who criss-crossed Europe and Asia. Sitting in the midst of ruins of the old empires which now seemed doomed to permanent partition by predatory foreigners, these thinkers created the ideas which in turn were to doom the new empires, and which lie behind the powerful Asian nations of the twenty-first century.

About Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra’s first book was Butter Chicken in Ludhiana and he has subsequently written many books that include The Romantics and An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. Mishra writes literary and political essays for the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, the New Yorker, London Review of Books, Bloomberg View, among other American, British, and Indian publications. His work has also appeared in Times Literary Supplement, Financial Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Time, The Independent, Granta, The Nation, N+1, Poetry, Common Knowledge, Outlook, and Harper’s. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.

Post Date:

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Penguin India is delighted to announce the launch of eBooks

admin — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:30:58 +0000

Penguin India
is delighted to announce the launch of
eBooks

July 1 7, 2012

Penguin Books India is delighted to present its first tranche of eBooks. This will be the first extensive list of Indian ebooks to be published internationally by an Indian publisher and will be available from all the major international ebook retailers – Amazon, Apple, Kobo and Google, Gardners, Sony, OLF, Apabi, Go Spoken/Mobcast, OverDrive, Txtr, Ebooks.com, IGroup and Baker & Taylor.

The first list of over 240 titles consists of all our new books published in 2012 and select best sellers from the backlist. Over the course of the following months we will continue to publish the remaining backlist while publishing our front list simultaneously in both print and ebook editions. By the end of this year Penguin India will have the largest digital catalog of Indian ebooks to be available on sale.

Penguin India ebooks will be priced to respective geographies and the full list of our ebooks will go on sale in India at local prices when the ebook industry develops further here. Right now, readers in India will be able to purchase ebooks from any of the retailers listed above at international prices.

Being digitally pioneering is one of Penguin India’s major focuses; Penguin India is the only publisher to have a cross-platform mobile app, available on Apple, Android, Blackberry and Nokia, a redesigned, revamped and upgraded website to a state-of-the-art, navigation-friendly, comprehensive brand portal. Additionally, Penguin India’s robust and proactive presence across social media has made them one of the most followed and liked publishers online.

In its 25th year, Penguin India, Asia’s largest English language publisher, continues to be the most creative, innovative and customer-focussed publishing company in India. In addition to ebooks, Penguin India has launched an exciting range of collectible merchandise this year which are now available in books and gift stores around the country.

About Penguin Books India

Founded in 1985, Penguin Books India is the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent. Headquartered in New Delhi, the company’s commercial activity includes the publishing of its own books in the English language as well as in Hindi, and the distribution of books of publishers including the Penguin Group, A&C Black, Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Faber & Faber, Granta, Hay House, Icon, Kyle Cathie, Marshall Cavendish, Mira, Quercus, Sterling Publishing and Zubaan. Known for its strong fiction and narrative non-fiction list, Penguin India publishes across virtually every segment.

Penguin’s biggest publishing initiatives in the recent past include the launch of its Indian Language Publishing programme in 2005; Portfolio, its business books imprint, in 2006; Allen Lane, the imprint of ideas, and Penguin Studio, a dedicated imprint for visual books, in 2008; Hamish Hamilton, the imprint for literary fiction and non-fiction, in 2009; Metro Reads and Penguin Ananda, the MindBodySpirit imprint, in 2010; and Puffin Young Adult in 2011. Penguin publishes its children’s titles under the Puffin imprint.

Post Date:

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Penguin Books India is proud to announce that

admin — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:38:51 +0000

Amit Chaudhuri's On Tagore: Reading the Poet Today
has been awarded the Rabindra Puraskar,
the West Bengal state government's highest literary honour'

Rabindra Puraskar is the highest honorary literary award given in West Bengal. This award is administered by the Government of West Bengal under the aegis of the Paschimbanga Bangla Academy (Bengali Academy of West Bengal), Kolkata. The award is given for creative literature, non-fiction and books about Bengal in Bengali as well as other languages.

On Tagore: Rabindranath Tagore is widely regarded as a romantic poet, speaking of beauty and truth; as a transcendentalist; a believer in the absolute; a propagandist for universal man. But, as Amit Chaudhuri shows in these remarkable and widely admired essays about the poet and his milieu, his secret concern was really with life, play, and contingency, with the momentary as much as it was with the eternal. It is this strain of unacknowledged modernism, as well as a revolutionary life-affirming vision, that gives his work, Chaudhuri argues, its immense power.

Acute, challenging, and path-breaking, Amit Chaudhuri’s collection will become a classic reading of Rabindranath Tagore and the way he is perceived today.

Post Date:

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Ruchir Sharma’s BREAKOUT NATIONS BREAKS RECORDS!

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:58:29 +0000

Debuts as No 1 in Nielsen Bookscan in India
Penguin Books India is delighted to announce that Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations has debuted straight at No 1 position on all bestseller lists across the country (including the very popular Neilsen Bookscan).
Breakout Nations was released on April 23rd and is already in its 2^nd reprint. The book through fantastic reviews and word of mouth is getting a great response from people across country.
According to Ananth Padmanabhan, Vice President Sales, Penguin Books India, “We are delighted that Breakout Nations shot straight into No#1 in India. It is a path breaking book on emerging markets and the ONLY book you’ll ever need to understand new economies, it’s going to be our biggest nonfiction book this year.”
Ruchir Sharma Management’s Head of Emerging Markets has spent one week each month in a different developing nation. “Breakout Nations” is the fruit of those weekly fact-finding excursions and brings together Ruchir’s thinking about what makes up a “breakout nation.” The new "breakout nations" will probably spring from the margins, even from the shadows and the probability of India continuing its journey as a breakout nation this decade is just 50 percent.
Ruchir Sharma does neither. In Breakout Nations he shows why the economic 'mania' of the twenty-first century, with its unshakeable faith in the power of emerging markets - especially China - to continue growing at the astoundingly rapid and uniform pace of the last decade, is wrong. The next economic success stories will not be where we think they are.
In this provocative new book, Sharma analyses why the basic laws of economic gravity (such as the law of large numbers, which says that the richer you are the harder it is to grow your wealth at a rapid pace) are already pulling China, Russia, Brazil and other vast emerging markets back to earth. To understand which nations will thrive and which will falter in a world reshaped by slower growth, it is time to start looking at the emerging markets as individual cases. Sharma argues that we must abandon our current obsession with global macro trends and the fad for all-embracing theories. He offers instead a more discerning, nuanced view, identifying specific factors - economic, political, social - which will make for slow or fast growth.
Spending much of his professional life travelling in these countries as Head of Emerging Markets at Morgan Stanley, Sharma is uniquely placed to present a first-hand insider's account of these new markets and the changes they are undergoing. As the years of unbelievably swift growth draw to their close, this book shows us how it is time for both investors and economists to halt their blind thrust towards an impossible future.
Ruchir Sharma is Head of Emerging Market Equities and Global Macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he manages around $25 billion in emerging market assets. He has been a writer for as long as he has been an investor - a former contributing editor for Newsweek and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and The Economic Times.
For reviews, extracts and interviews please connect with amrita.talwar@in.penguingroup.com
Penguin Books India is delighted to announce that Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations has debuted straight at No 1 position on all bestseller lists across the country (including the very popular Neilsen Bookscan).
Breakout Nations was released on April 23rd and is already in its 2^nd reprint. The book through fantastic reviews and word of mouth is getting a great response from people across country.
According to Ananth Padmanabhan, Vice President Sales, Penguin Books India, “We are delighted that Breakout Nations shot straight into No#1 in India. It is a path breaking book on emerging markets and the ONLY book you’ll ever need to understand new economies, it’s going to be our biggest nonfiction book this year.”
Ruchir Sharma Management’s Head of Emerging Markets has spent one week each month in a different developing nation. “Breakout Nations” is the fruit of those weekly fact-finding excursions and brings together Ruchir’s thinking about what makes up a “breakout nation.” The new "breakout nations" will probably spring from the margins, even from the shadows and the probability of India continuing its journey as a breakout nation this decade is just 50 percent.
Ruchir Sharma does neither. In Breakout Nations he shows why the economic 'mania' of the twenty-first century, with its unshakeable faith in the power of emerging markets - especially China - to continue growing at the astoundingly rapid and uniform pace of the last decade, is wrong. The next economic success stories will not be where we think they are.
In this provocative new book, Sharma analyses why the basic laws of economic gravity (such as the law of large numbers, which says that the richer you are the harder it is to grow your wealth at a rapid pace) are already pulling China, Russia, Brazil and other vast emerging markets back to earth. To understand which nations will thrive and which will falter in a world reshaped by slower growth, it is time to start looking at the emerging markets as individual cases. Sharma argues that we must abandon our current obsession with global macro trends and the fad for all-embracing theories. He offers instead a more discerning, nuanced view, identifying specific factors - economic, political, social - which will make for slow or fast growth.
Spending much of his professional life travelling in these countries as Head of Emerging Markets at Morgan Stanley, Sharma is uniquely placed to present a first-hand insider's account of these new markets and the changes they are undergoing. As the years of unbelievably swift growth draw to their close, this book shows us how it is time for both investors and economists to halt their blind thrust towards an impossible future.
Ruchir Sharma is Head of Emerging Market Equities and Global Macro at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he manages around $25 billion in emerging market assets. He has been a writer for as long as he has been an investor - a former contributing editor for Newsweek and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and The Economic Times.
For reviews, extracts and interviews please connect with amrita.talwar@in.penguingroup.com

Post Date:

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Penguin India acquires Rights for Rahul Bhattacharya’s Books

admin — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:48:53 +0000

We are delighted to present The Sly Company of People who Care and Pundits from Pakistan in a brand new look

Both his books, in a very attractive new look, will hit the market soon.

Since it was first published, The Sly Company of People Who Care, Rahul Bhattacharya's first work of fiction, has won the Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction 2011, it was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2011, and has just been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize 2012.

Pundits from Pakistan, an all-time cricket classic in a stunning new edition will be available with a new preface by the author, and new interesting photographs. Also, winner of the Crossword Award for Popular Books 2005.

Rahul Bhattacharya is the biggest new literary talent to come out of India in recent years. He was born in Bombay in 1979 and now currently stays in Delhi. He won great acclaim as a cricket writer – he has written in the Wisden magazine, Cricinfo etc and then wrote an outstanding first novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care

About the books

The Sly Company of People Who Care

When a young Indian journalist quits his job to take a year off in Guyana, he discovers a country of epic indolence, lush rainforests and decaying houses where an array of alluring characters, Indian and African, have made a new world.
Among the motley crowd of seasoned rogues and Samaritans, people trying to escape or accept their colonial legacies, he falls for Jan, a sexy ‘cooliegal’, who transports him to a new place—within himself and in the world. Acute and lyrical, The Sly Company of People Who Care is a quixotic journey in which dreams, destinies and desires cross and drift apart.

‘Quick, cool, astonishingly assured, it awakens with its landscapes and characters a Conradian sense of wonder’ PANKAJ MISHRA
‘Exuberant and often arresting . . . what a remarkable and exquisite world Bhattacharya has made’ THE NEW YORK TIMES
‘Bhattacharya’s understanding of displacement and drifting comes from a completely original place, and he has all of the humour and sharpness of the young Naipaul . . . This book, and this writer, are here to last’ INDIA TODAY

Pundits from Pakistan

In the spring of 2004, the Indian cricket team headed to Pakistan to play a historic series. The mood was tense with political provocations and security fears. But as the archrivals met on the field to play thrilling cricket, a rare spirit of bonhomie spread through the tour. From the markets of Lahore to the streets of Peshawar, ordinary Indians encountered the small courtesies and deeper friendships that would make the tour unforgettable.
Pundits from Pakistan brings vividly alive the magic of the game—the matches, the players, the cheering crowds—and chronicles an emotional and hopeful time, as witnessed by a young Indian discovering Pakistan. Funny, warm and superbly written, it is a classic of its kind.

‘One of the most entertaining and stylishly written pieces of non-fiction I’ve ever read’ -KAMILA SHAMSIE, NEWSLINE
‘A beautiful and brilliant work, the best cricket book I have encountered in many a long year’ -----PETER ROEBUCK

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For an interview with the authors, excerpt requests, exclusive pictures, review copy please contact:
Diksha Wadhwa at +91 11 46131444/ 9811729886 or drop a mail at diksha.wadhwa@in.penguingroup.com

Post Date:

Tuesday, May 8, 2012