Tamil Nadu’s Kalachuvadu Publications recently won the Publishing Next Industry Award 2023 for the Publisher of the Year. This is the second time the Nagercoil-based publisher has won the coveted prize, having previously won it in 2018.
Kannan Sundaram, publisher of Kalachuvadu Publications, says he is extremely delighted to get the award for the second time and dedicated it to the teamwork of the entire Kalachuvadu team during the whole year. Sundaram told Indian Printer & Publisher over a telephone call that it is the only Indian language publisher to win the award.
Sundaram said that apart from the business side of a publishing house, the Publishing Next Industry Awards look at what new things publishers are doing in their line of business. Kalachuvadu, he said, is always open to debutante writers and focuses on publishing books even if they are subversive and if the manuscripts are of good quality, the publishing house is willing to take the risk of provoking religious and political sentiments.
Sundaram had also previously won the Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite (the Knight of the Order of the Merit) from the French government for his contribution to the relationship between French and Indian publishing.
Launched in 1995, Kalachuvadu launched its first two books in 1996 and has since then published about 1,200 books in Tamil. The publication house lays special emphasis on writings from marginalized communities, women, and translations. A believer in high-quality work, it publishes ‘across genres’ to enable readers to get access to any kind of book and deliberately stays away from commercial publishing.
Kalachuvadu Publications publishes around a hundred books in Tamil in several categories each year. Sundaram said Kalachuvadu is well known for its classics series, which includes World Classics, Indian Classics and Tamil Classics. 15 – 20 % of the books launched from the publishing house each year are classics, with translations from foreign and Indian languages into Tamil for its World Classics and Indian Classics category.
Apart from classics, Kalachuvadu brings out Tamil books on poetry, history, politics, theater, environment, travel, spirituality, science, linguistics and grammar, Sundaram said. However, the backbone of the publishing house remains its keen attention to detail and sales and promotion of its titles with regular participation at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Paris Book Fair, and Chennai Book Fair, along with several other literature festivals and book events.
Kalachuvadu has established a strong presence in the translation sphere with books being translated into Tamil from all languages. The publishing house has translated directly from Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Konkani, Hindi, and Bangla and indirectly from Manipuri via English. Internationally, it has done about 30 languages – some of them directly, and some through bridge languages.
Sundaram said, “Our history of buying and selling rights of Tamil Books to other publishers is what sets us apart as not many publishers are focusing on this aspect. We want to take Tamil literature to the world.”
The focus of the publishing house in 2024 will remain on adding translations to and from new languages such as Greek, Armenian and Georgian, Sundaram concluded.
