Our Milestones

P. Lal founds WW with the help of a “magical circle” of writer friends including Anita Desai

First issue of the house journal, The Miscellany, containing Desai’s story “Grandmother”

WW enters literary criticism with the pamphlet titled Indian Writing in English: A Symposium

A. K. Ramanujan’s Fifteen Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology and Lal’s The Bhagavad-Gita see WW embarking on English translations of Indian literature, one of its key domains eventually.

Debuts of Gauri Deshpande (Between Births) and G. S. Sharat Chandra (Bharata Natyam Dancer)

P. Lal becomes de-facto sole proprietor of WW, takes up Visiting Professor positions overseas to fund WW and makes the design innovation of handloom sari-bound volumes, later adding gold-embossed titles in his calligraphy.

• This design won first prize in the National Printing and Binding Awards, received in Delhi by Tulamiah Mohiuddin, WW’s binder.
• Debut books: Under Orion (Keki Daruwalla) and Tribute to Papa and Other Poems (Mamta Kalia).
• Asif Currimbhoy entrusts WW with the publication of all his plays, starting with Goa.
• Nonsense Rhymes (Satyajit Ray’s transcreation of poems from his father’s renowned Bengali collection, Abol Tabol).

Debut: Bone-Sculpture (Agha Shahid Ali) and It Isn’t Time That’s Passing (Ruskin Bond’s first volume of poetry).

First WW book by an Asian author from outside India (Bangladesh): Shamsur Rahman’s Selected Poems translated by Kabir Chowdhury.

Debut: Shashi Deshpande’s collection of short stories, The Legacy

Debut of Vikram Seth, Mappings

First WW book by an author from South America (Guyana): Cyril Dabydeen’s novel, The Wizard Swami.

P. Lal inducted into the inaugural list of the Indian Publishing Hall of Fame, for “furthering the cause of Indian poetry in English”.

Translation of Shivaji Sawant’s Marathi classic Mrityunjaya by P. Lal and Nandini Nopany.

Debut: Stone to Fruit (Hoshang Merchant)

A Woman Speaks (Poile Sengupta’s first book of poetry)

Debut: City Times (Vihang Naik)

Debut: The Woman in This Poem Isn’t Lonely (Mukta Sambrani)

P. Lal begins to read his ongoing transcreation of the Mahabharata and comment on the epic every Sunday morning at interactive sessions later released on over 100 WW cassettes. (1999-2009)

River Poems (Mamang Dai’s first book of poetry)

To mark 50 years of WW, The Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry edited by Rubana Huq.

P. Lal passes on and Ananda Lal continues WW, discovering, editing, and publishing over 200 first-time authors up till the present.

Pradip Bhattacharya’s translation of Anushasana Parva completes the Mahabharata.