Writers Workshop is a Calcutta-based literary publisher founded by the poet-professor
P. LalPurushottama Lal was an Indian poet, essayist, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder and publisher of Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958.-Life and education:...
in 1958. Over the next few decades it published many new authors in urban literature of the post-independence period. These authors later became big names.
History
Writers Workshop,
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
was first founded as a group of eight writers (P. Lal, Deb Kumar Das,
Anita DesaiAnita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
, Sasthibrata Chakravarti who wrote by the names of
Sasthi BrataSasthi Brata is an Indo-Anglian writer of fiction. He was educated at Calcutta Boys' School, Kolkata and then at Presidency College, Kolkata...
, William Hull, Jail Ratan, Kewlian Sio and Pradip Sen) in 1958. It was an initiative of
P. LalPurushottama Lal was an Indian poet, essayist, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder and publisher of Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958.-Life and education:...
(1929–2010), a professor of English at
St. Xavier's College, CalcuttaSt. Xavier's College is located in Kolkata, India, and is named after St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit saint of the 16th century, who travelled to India. It is an autonomous college affiliated to the University of Calcutta. It gained autonomy in July 2006, thus becoming the first autonomous college of...
. Although it mainly publishes Indian writing in English, it has also published books in other modern Indian languages. To date the press has published over 3500 titles of
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, novels,
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, and other literary works, with two main focuses:
experimental literatureExperimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
of the present day, and
translationTranslation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
from
SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and other classical
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n languages.
Writers Workshop ,
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
has published the first books by many authors who have gone on to become famous, including
A. K. RamanujanAttipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as a Indian poet, scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil,...
, Asif Currimbhoy,
Agha Shahid AliAgha Shahid Ali was a Kashmiri American poet...
, Adil Jussawalla ,
Arun KolatkarArun Balkrishna Kolatkar was a poet from Maharashtra, India. Writing in both Marathi and English, his poems found humor in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets...
,
Arvind Krishna MehrotraArvind Krishna Mehrotra is a noted Indian poet, anthologist, literary critic and translator.- Biography :Arvind Krishna Mehrotra was born in Lahore 1947. He has published four collections of poetry in English and one of translation...
,
Chandrakant BakshiChandrakant Keshavlal Bakshi was a Gujarati author. He was a son of Keshavlal and Chanchalbahen. He completed his primary education at Palanpur. Fans also address him as "Bakshi" or "Bakshibaabu".He completed his M.A. in History and Bachelor of Laws from Calcutta...
,
Chitra Banerjee DivakaruniChitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-American author, poet, and the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program....
,
Gieve PatelGieve Patel is a poet, playwright and artist, as well as a practicing doctor.-Early life and education:Gieve Patel was born in 1940 in Mumbai. He was educated at St Xavier's High School and Grant Medical College...
, Hoshang Merchant ,
Jayanta MahapatraJayanta Mahapatra is one of the best known Indian English poets.By all standards, Mahapatra's tryst with the muse came rather late in life. He took to writing poetry when he was into his 40s...
,
Joe WinterJoe Winter is a British educationist and poet who is renowned for translating poets Rabindranath Tagore and Jibanananda Das.-Biography:He was born in London in 1943 and educated, amongst others, at Exeter College, Oxford. He taught English in secondary schools in London from 1967 to 1994. Taking...
, Keki Daruwalla,
Kamala DasKamala Suraiyya was a major Indian English poet and literateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala state, South India...
,
Meena AlexanderMeena Alexander is an internationally acclaimed poet, scholar, and writer. Born in Allahabad, India, and raised in India and Sudan, Alexander lives and works in New York City, where she is Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College in the and at the CUNY Graduate Center in the...
,
Mani RaoMani Rao is an Indian poet and translator, writing in English .-Biography:Author of eight poetry collections, and a translation of the Bhagavad Gita as a poem, Rao has had poems published in literary journals including Fulcrum, Wasafiri, Meanjin, Washington Square, West Coast Line, Tinfish, and in...
,
Nissim Ezekiel' was an Indian Jewish poet, playwright, editor and art-critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English....
,
Pritish NandyPritish Nandy is a Indian poet, painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and film producer. He is Bengali by ethnicity. He was member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament representing Maharashtra based party Shiv Sena...
, R. Parthasarathy ,
Poile SenguptaPoile Sengupta was born in 1948 as Ambika Gopalakrishnan. Today she is one of the foremost Indian writers in English especially well known as a playwright and writer for children....
,
Ruskin BondRuskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist....
,
Vikram SethVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
,
Shiv KumarShiv K. Kumar is an Indian poet, playwright, novelist, and short story writer .-Early life and education:Shiv K Kumar was born in Lahore in 1921, and was matriculated from Dayanand Anglo-Vedic High School and did his M.A. at Forman Christian College, Lahore .In 1943, he joined D.A.V. College...
, Saleem Peeradina, William Hull,
Lakshmi Raj SharmaLakshmi Raj Sharma is an Indian author, novelist, and academician. He teaches English literature and literary theory. He is currently a Professor at the Department of English and Modern European Languages at the University of Allahabad, Allahabad. Recently his novel The Tailor’s Needle was...
etc... As Writers Workshop, Calcutta enters its sixth decade of existence, it has become an extremely important part of the literary history of India. These titles appear as hand-loom sari-bound volumes with exquisite calligraphy on them. Throughout its history, this alternative publishing venture has published authors without a distribution system to back it.
Perhaps the most important publishing venture Writers Workshop has undertaken is P. Lal's translation of the entire Indian epic
MahabharataThe Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
in 18 volumes (now appearing in press, 2005–2009).
After the death of P. Lal in 2010, his son
Ananda LalAnanda Lal is an Indian academic and theatre critic. He is the son of P. Lal, founder of Writers Workshop, one of India's oldest creative writing publishers, established in 1958. He is professor of English at the Jadavpur University, Calcutta...
, professor of English at
Jadavpur UniversityJadavpur University , is a premier educational and research institution in India.It is located in Kolkata, West Bengal and comprises two campuses - the main campus at Jadavpur and the new campus at Salt Lake...
in Kolkata, runs the publishing house.