Literary Chemistry

Ten years, and more than 400 titles. That's impressive. The Indian face of Penguin started off with the avowed objective of launching first-time Indian writers. In fact, the first batch of six books published in 1987 had two fiction debuts, one by Ranga Rao and the other by Shiv Kumar. Since then the imprint has seen more than 15 debut writers in fiction alone, prominent among them Nisha da Cunha, Gita Hariharan, Richard Crasta and Kiran Nagar-kar. The frequency of titles has also jumped from two a month to an average of 10 a month.

The company turnover touched Rs 10 crore in 1994 and is expected to touch Rs 12 crore this year. And though half the turnover comes from distributing imported Penguins, for a group to build such an impressive indigenous list merits hossanas by any standards.

The imprint has also managed to crack an enviable range of genres: fiction, poetry, biographies, translations, children's books, cookery and even the first family medical encyclopedia by an Indian publishing house. Discouragingly for the purists, the trend in the last three years has seen a move away from fiction and poetry. A development that wouldn't encourage the authors of the 30-odd unsolicited manuscripts that wend their way to Penguin each month. Says Renuka Chatterjee, associate editor at Penguin India: "We think we have done our bit towards launching new authors. Our fic-tion titles weren't doing all that well. We are going to be very choosy henceforth."

Something critics feel they should have been from the start. Comments Rukun Advani, editor at Oxford University Press: "They have given credibility to Filmfare and Stardust kind of material. Though they have published some good stuff, 70 per cent of it is rubbish."

While that might be an indirect reference to Shobha De, Zamir Ansari, marketing chief at Penguin, argues: "The marketplace is not determined by somebody in a university teaching James Joyce. We believe popular fiction has no parallel in De and the chemistry is there for anybody to try."

Chemistry which owes a lot perhaps to the combination of David Davidar, founder editor of Penguin India, and Ansari. The company, for instance, was the first to risk its neck by coming out with titles that retailed at 20 per cent above the market norm. Says Ansari: "We broke the hoodoo that the Indian reader wasn't a discerning one."

The group has also become more visible in book shops. But what Ansari touts as Penguin's biggest achievement is being able to get the big authors on their side—Vikram Seth, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Vikram Chandra and Gita Mehta among others. In roping in the big names, it is Davidar's personality and literary savvy that has played a crucial role.

But there are at least two big names missing, Amitav Ghosh and Mukul Kesavan. Ghosh reportedly refuses to be clubbed with the 'trash' Penguin has come out with in the past. But trash, as publisher Ravi Dayal says, is part of any publisher's menu and it would be unfair to pick on Penguin, especially as it supports a lot of publishing that otherwise wouldn't have seen the light of day. What is important, however, as Dayal observes, "is that budding and established Indian writers look on Penguin as a friend". In 10 years that's a fair achievement.