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Zubaan Books

Overview

Zubaan Books is an independent feminist publishing house based in New Delhi, India. Established as an imprint of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house, Zubaan focuses on books by and about women in South Asia, publishing across academic, trade, literary, and young adult categories.

Zubaan Books
Type Independent publisher
Industry Book publishing
Headquarters New Delhi, India
Origin Imprint of Kali for Women
Focus Feminist writing from South Asia
Languages Primarily English

Background

Kali for Women was founded in 1984 by Urvashi Butalia and Ritu Menon as the first feminist press in India. After Kali for Women wound down its operations, its founders set up two successor imprints: Zubaan, led by Urvashi Butalia, and Women Unlimited, led by Ritu Menon. Zubaan, an Urdu and Hindi word meaning "tongue," "voice," or "language," continues the tradition of publishing feminist scholarship and writing from the subcontinent.

Publishing programme

Zubaan publishes a broad range of titles, including academic monographs, fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, oral histories, anthologies, and books for younger readers. Subject areas include gender studies, sexuality, conflict, caste, labour, history, and the arts. The press has produced collaborative volumes with international academic publishers and runs dedicated programmes featuring writing from the Northeast of India and other underrepresented regions.

Imprints and series

  • Zubaan Academic – scholarly works in gender, history, and the social sciences.
  • Young Zubaan – books for children and young adults.
  • Various themed series on sexual violence, the partition of India, and women's writing from South Asia.

Significance

Zubaan is widely recognised as one of the principal English-language feminist publishers in South Asia. By continuing the work of Kali for Women, it has helped sustain a publishing space for women writers, gender researchers, and activist voices, and has contributed to the documentation of women's histories, partition narratives, and accounts of conflict and displacement in the region.

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