Author: Arup SenGupta
Pages: 88
Year of Publication: 2011
Price: HB Rs 150 / $15 (USD)
ISBN:
978-93-5045-013-0 (9789350450130)

About the Author:
Born in 1951 in Kolkata, Arup K. SenGupta is a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta and was awarded the University Gold Medal for ranking first in his class. Professor SenGupta went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Houston, Texas. He has co-founded the Tagore-SenGupta Foundation, a charitable organization that focuses on issues pertaining to education, water and sanitation in the developing world.

About the Book:
A bilingual collection of poetry in Bengali and English with each version of a poem in both languages on corresponding pages.

Contents:
37 poems in Bengali and English

Author: Sukumar Ray (Translated by Satyajit Ray)
Pages: 28
Year of Publication: First published 1970, Second edition 1997, Third edition 2009.
Price: HB Rs 80, FB Rs 60
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-825-9 (9788181578259)
FB 978-81-8157-826-6 (9788181578266)

About the Book:
Satyajit Ray's translation of poems from his father's renowned Bengali collection, Abol Tabol.

Translator: Joe Winter
Pages: 200
Year of Publication: 1998
Price: HB Rs 150
ISBN:
81-7595-319-5 (8175953195)

About the Translator:
Joe Winter was born in London in 1943 and began writing poetry at the age of 19. He has taught English in secondary schools in London. His poems have been published by Writers Workshop, India in a series of 18 volumes. Many of his articles have appeared in The Statesman, Kolkata. He lives in Brighton.

About the Book:
This is the first complete translation of all the poems in Tagore's Gitanjali.

Author: Suseela P. Ravi
Pages: 116
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 250, FB Rs 200
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-921-8 (9788181579218)
FB 978-81-8157-922-5 (9788181579225)

About the Author:
Suseela Panda Ravi is a physician who practised in the United States for thirty years and returned to India in 2004. She attended creative writing workshops at Stanford University for two years. Her fiction has appeared in e-journals like Muse India and in magazines such as Katha Kshetre and India Currents. She received the first prize in fiction contests organized by Katha Kshetre in 2006 and Muse India in 2008. Dr. Ravi lives in Bangalore. This is her first work of non-fiction.

Teaser:
In her preface to the book, Dr. Ravi writes:

"Nothing in this book can substitute for years of hands-on writing under the tutelage of a gifted teacher. Short of availability of such an arrangement, this book humbly but eloquently fills the void for those writers who wish to start their creative journey as writers of fiction in English ...

The commonly held belief that writers are endowed with innate talent, and that it is not something that can be nurtured by reading books and taking courses in writing is not quite accurate. Very few writers belong to that 'gifted-writer' category; even they have to hone their skills to excel in their chosen field. Others will need greater effort to acquire the finesse that they know they lack. Some writers grow up surrounded by the right influences: growing up in a family of writers, having guidance from teachers, having easy accessibility to writing tools etc. If you come from a home where everybody speaks English, and you have read major writers like Shakespeare, Dickens, and Tolstoy, you have already had the opportunity to develop a sensibility for good literature. If you have not, don't despair. Perseverance in learning and practising pays good dividends."

Contents:
Preface / 09

CHAPTER 1
A Bit of History / 13
CHAPTER 2
The Basics / 16
CHAPTER 3
Characters in Motion / 21
CHAPTER 4
Plot / 27
CHAPTER 5
Point of View / 33
CHAPTER 6
Showing and Telling / 39
CHAPTER 7
The Role of Sensory Perception in Writing / 48
CHAPTER 8
Dialogue / 57
CHAPTER 9
"Style" – How to Say It / 61
CHAPTER 10
Revision / 76
CHAPTER 11
Going That Extra Step / 84

Bibliography / 91

APPENDIX: STORIES
A Cup of Tea by Paritosh Uttam / 95
The Scars by Vasundhara Ratakonda / 100
Home by Shruti Swami / 107

Author: Shivaji Sawant (Translated by P. Lal and Nandini Nopany)
Pages: 698
Year of Publication: First published 1989, Fourth edition 2011
Price: Rs 800
ISBN:
81-7189-002-4 (8171890024)

About the Book:
Our bestselling English translation of Shivaji Sawant's Marathi classic inspired by the story of Karna in Vyasa's Mahabharata. Professor P. Lal and Nandini Nopany, with Shri Sawant's permission, translated the book from the Hindi version by Om Shivaraj. Between 2008 and 2011, three new editions of the book have been printed.

Author: Daphne Gomez
Pages: 252
Year of Publication: 2011
Price: HB Rs 300, FB Rs 250
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-925-6 (9788181579256)
FB 978-81-8157-926-3 (9788181579263)

About the Author:
Daphne Gomez was born on 25 November 1948 in Trivandrum, Kerala. She completed her post-graduation in English and American Literature from Madurai Kamaraj University. She taught the same at Mar Ivanios College, Trivandrum, for twenty-four years. At present, Dr. Gomez is the principal of Lecole Chempaka, an ICSE school founded by her family twenty-five years ago. She is married to Vernon Gomez and has a son and daughter.

Teaser:
“The title, Modes of Illusion in the Plays of Edward Albee may suggest the repetition of a timeworn preoccupation with American writers after the passing of the age of “innocence” and the materialisation of the illusory world of Gatsby. Yet, illusion is America’s albatross, which can never be separated from the American psyche because America itself was born of a ‘Dream’ that has given shape to its destiny. To Edward Albee (b.1928), the ‘American Dream’ becomes a personal metaphor. Albee’s parentage is unknown and he was an adopted child, a fact that made him say: “As an orphan you don’t have forebears. You’re the first person who lived, in a way” (Markowitz Online). If the first part of the statement is a lament, the second manifests the typical Albeean optimism in which lies the potential to transform a loss into a gain. He finds his parentage in the history of his mother country and to which therefore his destiny is umbilically bound by a quirk of fate.

Albee’s entanglement with the ‘Dream’ is not only closely related to the destiny of the nation which gave birth to him, but by an historical inevitability to the wider patterns of illusion as manifest in the history of nations that lived lives of garish opulence in ancient times. They had to suffer the consequences of not redeeming themselves in spite of oracles, soothsayers and prophets warning them of impending doom, if they did not give up their fascination for illusions. Albee’s worshippers of Dionysius, instead of celebrating the joy of life are mired in the dregs of illusion, as they live their “sad, sad, sad” lives playing games in new Carthage (Who’s Afraid? 3.191), or pretending to be Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, as Sam does in The Lady From Dubuque (1.14). George, a history professor in Who’s Afraid? reads from Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West (2.174), as the midnight orgy in his house turns into a ‘Walpurgisnacht’, a Witches’ Sabbath.

Since history and philosophy are closely intertwined, in Albee’s plays there can be seen another historical thread — the repetition of the patterns of philosophical history. Albee establishes the connection between science and history right from the start. If George is a professor of history in Who’s Afraid? Nick is a scientist specialising in genetics. Philosophers from the time of Plato four millenniums ago, and Augustine, two thousand years ago, have shown the connection between science and religion, but as scientific rationalism took over, the divinity in man was forgotten and the basic bond between science and faith snapped. Nevertheless, science in the twentieth century is showing the way to a reconciliation of the two opposites in “unity consciousness” as foreseen by the ancient intuitive philosophers.”

[From Chapter 1]

Contents:
Foreword / 9
Preface / 11
The Plays / 15
Chapter 1 – The Historical Patterns of Illusion / 17
Chapter 2 – The Death of the Dream: The Zoo Story (1960) to The American Dream (1961) / 37
Chapter 3 – The Corruption Total and Complete: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962) to All Over (1971) / 67
Chapter 4 – A Morality Tale: Seascape (1975) to The Lady from Dubuque (1980) / 115
Chapter 5 – Unity Consciousness: The Man Who Had Three Arms (1982) to Fragments (1993) / 139
Chapter 6 – Albee’s Idea of the Theatre / 168
Chapter 7 – Finding the Sun / 221
Appendix:
Taste of Albee / 233
Works Cited / 240

Author: R. Rabindranath Menon
Pages: 1224
Year of Publication: 2010
Price: HB Rs 850, FB Rs 650
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-937-9 (9788181579379)
FB 978-81-8157-938-6(9788181579386)

About the Author:
Born in 1926, R. Rabindranath Menon was a member of the Indian Administrative Service and held top positions in the Government and the public sector. He wrote poems in English, Malayalam and Kannada and had 11 volumes of poetry to his credit – 10 in English and 1 in Malayalam. He translated his own poems into Kannada and rendered Kannada poems into English as well. He was the recipient of several awards including the Poet Laureate Crown and Gold Medal from the United Poet Laureate Association. He was awarded a D.Litt from the University of Manila Centre, Manila, Philippines in 1971. R. Rabindranath Menon passed away in late 2010.

Teaser:
"This is a collection of over one thousand short poems ... less than one-fourth of which had appeared in their original form in ten published books, and many of which nevertheless have undergone additions and deletions so that they have the status of new poems in this Collection. Only selections from those old books appear here. The bulk of the poems in this Collection are new creations after my retirement from the Service in 1984; altogether new poems constitute more than three-fourth of this book."

[Extract taken from the author’s note]

Contents:
1015 poems

Author: Jaya Varma
Pages: 416
Year of Publication: 2011
Price: HB Rs 500, FB Rs 400
ISBN:
HB 978-93-5045-000-0 (9789350450000)
FB 978-81-5045-001-7 (9788150450017)

About the Author:
Jaya Varma (nee Bhattacharyya) was born in 1945 in Calcutta. She completed her graduation in Philosophy (Honours) from Calcutta University in 1965. She moved to Chandigarh in 1966 and lived there for the rest of her life except between 1987 and 1992, when she lived in Pune. She was trained in Rabindrasangeet and classical music and became the Director and Composer of the reputed Chandigarh Choir. Outside of music, she was the Associate Director for Biplab Roy Chowdhury’s award-winning Oriya film, Nirbachan. She has also written a novel (Made in Heaven) and two collections of short stories (Till Death Do Us Part and Children and Other Stories). A book containing her articles on spirituality, All for One God was published by Writers Workshop, India in 2009.

Mrs. Varma was diagnosed with pancreas cancer in August 2007 and she passed away in the early hours of May 27, 2008. This book, published posthumously, comprises her translations and interpretations of songs by Rabindranath Tagore, compiled by her husband, Keshav Varma.

Teaser:
“The devotional songs of Tagore, though beautifully written in simple, poetic words, had in each of them deep messages, camouflaged, that spoke of profound Hindu doctrines of our ancient scriptures – which very few recognized, let alone spoke, discussed or wrote about.

What I did was that I took off from each of these songs, and after touching the simple word-meaning on the surface, flew on the wings of my imagination and poetic urge ... to a zone far above, deep into the serious practices for evolving spiritually and finally realizing God – precisely what I think Tagore meant to convey, which is valid for everybody, be he a Hindu, a Christian, Buddhist or a Muslim. This effort is not meant to be a work of ‘Translation’, but ‘Interpretation’, mine, to convey what I think Tagore meant to say.”

[Extract taken from the author’s note]

Contents:
73 songs by Tagore, Mrs. Varma’s translations and interpretations

Author: Madhusree Gupta
Pages: 90
Year of Publication: 2009
Price: HB Rs 200, FB Rs 150
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-905-8 (9788181579058)
FB 978-81-8157-906-5 (9788181579065)

About the Author:
Madhusree Gupta grew up amidst the splendours and shocks of Calcutta – a city of diversity, providing her uniquely different perspectives, which have helped her in her literary career. After completing both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Jadavpur University, she pursued a career in academics and is currently an honorary lecturer, associated with a Ramakrishna Mission College. Her stories and poems, in Bengali and English, have been published in several Indian magazines. She is the author of the novel, Sita, published by Writers Workshop, India (2008), and the popular Learn English in 30 Days (2007).

Teaser:
“Sucharita was walking alone in the garden. From time to time she was eyeing the sky. It was past four o’clock and it was already time for the neighbourhood children to swarm into her garden. Sucharita was sure that the children wouldn’t be coming that day to play for the sky was heavily overcast. Sucharita tilted her head skyward and saw large black clouds gently, very gently swimming across the limitless sky painting it in black and grey.

It’s so hard to recognize right now the blue sky, which existed only an hour ago – thought Sucharita. Yes, indeed, storms are powerful and they change the face of the sky so easily with their clouds and thunders. Life’s storms are just the same. Within seconds they can blow away all the sunshine from human lives, blotting away all colours. Sucharita kept on philosophizing with her eyes fixed on the sky.

“A-un-ty” – a soft voice was heard. It jerked Sucharita’s mind back to reality. She smiled as she saw Abhimanyu standing at a little distance. She was so pleased to see him.”

[Extract taken from “When Hymen Weeps”]

Contents:
Alone / 9
The Dream-Weaver / 16
Rosy Memsaab / 22
In Search of Inheritance / 27
Noorjahan / 34
When Hymen Weeps / 40
The Nightqueen / 44
Mirror Image / 48
A Trip to Hell and Back / 55
Come Back Doel / 58
The Silver Round / 64
Rumination / 73

Author: Madhusree Gupta
Pages: 79
Price: HB Rs 120, FB Rs 100
Year of Publication: 2008
ISBN:
HB 978-81-8157-747-4 (9788181577474)
FB 978-81-8157-748-1 (9788181577481)

About the Author:
Madhusree Gupta grew up amidst the splendours and shocks of Calcutta – a city of diversity, providing her uniquely different perspectives, which have helped her in her literary career. After completing both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Jadavpur University, she pursued a career in academics and is currently an honorary lecturer, associated with a Ramakrishna Mission College. Her stories and poems, in Bengali and English, have been published in several Indian magazines. She is the author of the popular Learn English in 30 Days (2007).

Teaser:

1.

"Her hair was covered with dust and dirt and her clothes were torn and dirty. Her eyes grew misty as she gazed blankly before her. She knew not what to do. She was alone. She was frightened. A sense of utter helplessness engulfed her as she kept on waiting.
Sita was waiting. She was waiting for hours that seemed interminable. She was waiting for Jhantucharan. She needed money. She needed help and emotional support."

Contents:
32 Chapters