. writers workshop status active founded 1958 1958 founder purushottama lal country of origin india headquarters location 169 92 lake gardens kolkata 700045 india distribution worldwide publication types books nonfiction topics literary criticism fiction genres poetry drama novels translations official website www.writersworkshopindia.com writers workshop is a calcutta based literary publisher founded by the poet professor purushottama lal in 1958 . over the next few decades it published many new authors of post independence urban literature . many of these authors later became important . 1 2 3 4 history edit the writers workshop 5 company was first founded as a group of eight writers lal deb kumar das anita desai sasthibrata chakravarti writing as sasthi brata william hull jail ratan kewlian sio and pradip sen in 1958 . it was an initiative of purushottama lal 1929 2010 6 a professor of english at st. xavier s college calcutta . although it mainly publishes indian writing in english it has also published books in other modern indian languages . to date the press has published over 3500 titles of poetry novels drama and other literary works with two focuses experimental literature of the present day and translations from sanskrit and other classical indian languages . writers workshop of india has published the first books by many authors who have gone on to become famous including a. k. ramanujan asif currimbhoy agha shahid ali adil jussawalla arun kolatkar arvind krishna mehrotra chandrakant bakshi chitra banerjee divakaruni gieve patel hoshang merchant jayanta mahapatra joe winter keki daruwalla kamala das meena alexander mani rao nissim ezekiel pritish nandy poile sengupta r. parthasarathy ruskin bond shiv kumar saleem peeradina vihang a. naik vikram seth and william hull among others who have been included in the golden treasury of writers workshop poetry 7 india . as writers workshop enters its sixth decade of existence it has become an extremely important part of the literary history of india . 8 its titles are printed as hand loom 9 sari bound 10 volumes with exquisite calligraphy on them . throughout its history this alternative publishing venture has published authors without a distribution system to back it . 11 perhaps the most important publishing venture writers workshop has undertaken is lal s translation 12 of the entire indian epic mahabharata in 18 volumes appearing 2005 2009 . 13 after purushottama lal s death in 2010 his family members now run his publishing house . references edit writers workshop completed 50 years of literary glory . indian express . october 4 2008 . p lal and the writer s workshop story . business standard . november 9 2010 . city remembers a great scholar & human . the times of india . kolkata india . november 14 2010 . i remember an idyll . tehelka magazine . 8 2 . january 15 2011 . the writers workshop team . writers workshop india . writers workshop india . retrieved 25 january 2016 . writers workshop fifty . the hindu . thehindu.com . retrieved 25 january 2016 . rubana huq ed . the golden treasury of writers workshop poetry . kolkata writers workshop 2008 . . asiatic journal at iium . asiatic iium journal of english language and literature . retrieved 25 january 2016 . a life in five acts . harmonyindia.org . harmony india a social initiative of dhirubhai ambani memorial trust . retrieved 25 january 2016 . biblio beauties . livemint . livemint.com . retrieved 25 january 2016 . beyond the ordinary the calligrapher of calcutta 45 . telegraphindia.com . telegraphindia . retrieved 25 january 2016 . p lal obituary . theguardian.com . theguardian.com . retrieved 25 january 2016 . puroshottama lal sought to transcreate an epic . thenational.ae . thenational.ae . retrieved 25 january 2016 . the p. lal transcreation of the complete epic text in 18 volumes . writersworkshop india . writersworkshop india . retrieved 25 january 2016 . writers workshop . harmony magazine . 50 years of writer s workshop . the hindu . march 1 2009 . external links edit official website http tehelka.com i remember an idyll 2 http www.harmonyindia.org hportal virtualpageview.jsp page id 19310 retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title writers workshop & oldid 701733980 categories book publishing companies of indiacompanies based in kolkata1958 establishments in indiapublishing companies established in 1958literary publishing companies navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was 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