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 |
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.
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.
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.