Indian newspaper
LeftWord Books is a New Delhi–based publisher that seeks to reflect the views of the Left in India and South Asia. Its Managing Director is Prakash Karat, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M).
The Chief Editor is Vijay Prashad and the Managing Editor is the actor-publisher Sudhanva Deshpande.[1][2]
History
LeftWord Books was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Naya Rasta Publishers Private Limited. It was conceived by a group of Leftist intellectuals including Prabhat Patnaik, Aijaz Ahmad, Indira Chandrasekhar, Prakash Karat, V. K. Ramachandran and N. Ram and sometimes regarded as "the English publishing arm of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)".[3] It is managed by the Managing Editor Sudhanva Deshpande, who had earlier worked with Tulika Books during 1994 to 1998 and continues to be involved with the theatre group Jana Natya Manch. LeftWord differs from Tulika Books, according to Deshpande, by being explicitly Leftist.[4]
The company runs the May Day Bookstore and Cafe in New Delhi, as well as Internet retailing, through which it sells books from various Leftist publishers including Tulika Books. It also has a membership-based book club, whose subscriptions served to form the seed capital of the publishing division. By mid-2000, the company established itself as a successful publisher with several well-subscribed titles.[1][2]
