New publishing imprint 'Amaryllis' launched

New Delhi, Jul 4 : A new literary fiction and non-fiction publishing imprint 'Amaryllis' boasts of forthcoming books by eminent personalities ranging from BJP leader Jaswant Singh and Magsaysay Award winning activist Sandeep Pandey to fantasy author Ashok K Banker and film actress Deepti Naval.

'Amaryllis', which means the lily flower, is an imprint of Manjul Publishing House that publishes books in Hindi and Indian language translations of international bestsellers, including the world renowned Harry Potter novels.

Speaking about her vision for 'Amaryllis' at the launch this weekend, its Head of Publishing Sanjana Roy Choudhury, who earlier worked as Editor-in-Chief for the prestigious publishing house Rupa and Co for 18 years, told UNI enthusedly that 'Amaryllis' would concentrate more on quality than quantity.

''Big publishing houses come up with around 20-30 books every month but we will publish only two or three. I am not interested in commerce. I would rather nurture my authors. They are more important for me than the balance sheet,'' she said.

Work on 'Amaryllis' started four months ago and it will publish 22 authors chosen by Ms Choudhury herself with some of them having two to three book deals.

The launch pad of the imprint is going to be a memoir 'Love in a Headscarf' penned by UK-based Muslim non-fiction writer Shelina Zahra Janmohamed. It will be released later this month, Ms Choudhury said.

When asked why she had opted for 'Love in a Headscarf' as a launch pad for 'Amaryllis', the Head of Publishing said, ''I just wanted to begin with a fun-filled and exciting book. It's about an educated Muslim woman in Britain trying to find both herself and her Mr Right through traditional Muslim means. She is a popular author there and has got a programme on the BBC.'' When asked about the prospects of producing bestsellers in a country where people still believe in borrowing books rather than buying them, Ms Choudhury was defensive in saying that Indians were indeed buying books, that was why so many Indian publishing houses were running.

She claimed that she had managed to make a niche for herself, despite international publishers and argued there was space for everybody.