The eighth edition of the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) this January hosted a two-day publisher’s meet, including a Publishers Rights’ Table. As France was the guest nation of the edition of the main festival at Kozhikode, prominent French publishing professionals were in attendance, making it an even more prestigious and enriching event.
As a part of this initiative, the KLF team and the French Book Office brought publishers from France and India together for professional meetings at The Raviz Business Hotel in Kozhikode on the 24 and 25 January 2025. The first day marked a series of sessions introducing the market for publishing in India and France, followed by one-on-one rights meetings after lunch on Day 1 and through Day 2.
The sessions were inaugurated by a round of welcome addresses by Satish Chapparike, the coordinator for the Publisher’s Meet, poet K Satchidanandan, the festival director at KLF, and Thierry Mathou, the ambassador of France to India.
Ishita Gupta, the publishing director at Yoda Press, gave a brief introduction of the Indian publishing landscape. This was followed by a critical discussion between Ravi Deecee from DC Books, Kannan Sundaram representing the Tamil market and Arunank Latha from Chaaya Books on the challenges of working within the book markets in South India.
Neeta Gupta, the publishing director at Tethy Books and a member of the executive committee at the Ashoka Centre for Translation, gave us a rough outline of the market for translations in Indian Languages.
The presentation was followed by a discussion on the importance of translation from, into, and between Indian languages with Kannan Sundaram from Kalachuvadu, Sameer Joshi from Manohar Granthamala, Purnima Tammireddy from Elami Publication, Poulomi Chatterjee from HarperCollins and the young disruptor Aananth Daksnamurthy, founder of Two Shores Press, operating between Tiruchirappalli and New York.
Nicolas Roche, director of the French International Book Office, gave an overall panorama of the French market followed by a discussion on how translated works are received in France. Sabine Wespieser (Sabine Wespieser Publishing) and Tiffany Gassouk (Gallimard) gave interesting perspectives from both an independent publisher’s point of view as well as the perspective of a large conglomerate like Gallimard.
The French initiative was supported by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Institut Français as part of the strategy for exporting Cultural and Creative Industries internationally.
