Renuka Chatterjee

Renuka Chatterjee is a veteran of the Indian literary industry, beginning her career in the late 1980s as a journalist with The Times of India, where she helped launch the country’s first color weekend supplement, The Saturday Times. In 1992, she transitioned into publishing as an Associate Editor at Penguin Books, eventually rising to become Editor-in-Chief at HarperCollins India (1997–2003). Her distinguished career includes leadership roles at Roli Books and Westland Ltd, and she briefly founded her own literary agency, The Boxwallah, in 2013, representing acclaimed authors like Ashwin Sanghi and Karan Bajaj. Since 2014, she has served as Vice-President of Publishing at Speaking Tiger Books, where she oversees commissioning, editing, and international rights. With nearly three decades of experience, she remains a pivotal figure in shaping contemporary Indian literature and navigating global publishing rights.

Sanchit Toor

Sanchit Toor is a multilingual researcher-translator and the Head of Projects at the Ashoka Centre for Translation. His interests range from early modern literature to modern literary and cultural publics, especially the movement of languages, ideas, texts, and lives. Formerly a Young India Fellow and a Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellow, Sanchit has degrees in literature, liberal arts, and neuroscience. He has also been a Visiting Faculty of Haryanvi and Brajbhasha languages at Ashoka University and has edited the multilingual volume, Kabir: Walking with the Word (AfterWord, 2024).

Subir Day

Subir Dey serves as the Curator-at-Large for Kunzum Bookstores in Delhi-NCR, where he is credited with transforming the traditional retail space into a vibrant literary hub. Working closely with founder Ajay Jain, Dey oversees the meticulous curation of titles across genres—specializing in rare editions, graphic novels, and classics—to move away from “algorithm-based” selling. Beyond curation, he is a key organizer of Kunzum’s high-profile literary events, including the Spring Fest and author interactions with figures like International Booker winner Geetanjali Shree. He also manages the Kunzum Book Clubs, fostering a dedicated community of readers through structured meet-ups and the “Bookseller for a Day” initiative. His work focuses on “evangelizing a return to reading” by creating a culture of deep engagement between authors and bibliophiles.

Leonard Fernandes

Leonard Fernandes moved from enterprise software into the world of books in 2006, beginning with DogearsEtc, an early peer-to-peer bookselling platform. He soon co-founded CinnamonTeal Publishing, bringing retail self-publishing to India and earning the British Council Creative Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2010. He later co-created Publishing Next and its Industry Awards, now key fixtures in India’s publishing landscape. His passion for bookselling led to The Dogears Bookshop (2016) in Goa and, more recently, the Goa Book Fair (2023). A founding member of the Independent Bookshops Association of India, he also mentors new publishing professionals through various teaching roles.

Raman Shresta

Raman Shresta is a bookseller, publisher, inn-keeper and events curator at Rachna Books, Gangtok. Started by his family in 1979, he grew Rachna Books into a space for creativity and literary culture in Sikkim. Under Raman’s watch, Rachna Books has been an integral part of modern Sikkim’s cultural identity particularly for the youth.

Swati Daftuar

Swati Daftuar is an independent journalist, editor, and literary consultant. She is Consulting Editor at Speaking Tiger, commissioning fiction, translations, and idea-driven non-fiction. Previously, she served as Executive Editor at HarperCollins India and Deputy Editor at The Hindu, and she founded Delhi’s community-led Annual Book & Bake Sale. She also hosts The Bookshop Inc. Book Clubs and writes on books and culture for Scroll and The Hindu. Her first novel is set to be published by HarperCollins India in 2026.

Arcopol Chaudhuri

Arcopol Chaudhuri is a Rights & Media Executive Editor at HarperCollins Publishers India. He is a publishing professional with over thirteen years of experience, eleven of which are at HarperCollins India. His core areas of work are book-to-screen adaptations, audio publishing, and foreign rights sales. Prior to joining HarperCollins, Arcopol was a Commissioning Editor at FiNGERPRINT! Publishing.

Kulpreet Yadav

Kulpreet Yadav, a graduate of the Naval Officers’ Academy, served in the Indian Coast Guard for two decades, during which he successfully commanded three ships. Retiring as a Commandant in 2014, he transitioned into writing, authoring numerous books across diverse genres, including military history, espionage, and true crime. His military history books, The Battle of Rezang La (Penguin, 2021) and The Battle of Haji Pir (Penguin, 2024), have garnered widespread recognition. Beyond writing, Kulpreet is also an actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur.

Jatin Varma

Jatin Varma is a leading voice in India’s pop culture space, an entrepreneur, creator‑economy mentor and architect of India’s fandom ecosystem. He founded Comic Con India and led its evolution from a comics convention into India’s largest pop-culture experiential platform spanning comics, gaming, cosplay and storytelling. Beyond events, he invests his time and vision into mentoring storytellers, building creative infrastructure and enabling platforms where fan‑driven narratives can flourish. In 2025, he transitioned into an advisory role at Comic Con India to focus on scaling impact across the culture‑economy.

Tanvi Shivam

Tanvi Shivam is a visual communication specialist and creative professional who has made a distinct mark in the Indian publishing industry through her expertise in marketing design and brand identity. She currently serves as the Marketing Designer at Simon & Schuster India, where she is responsible for crafting the visual language of book campaigns, digital assets, and promotional materials for some of the country’s biggest bestsellers. A graduate in Graphic and Communication Design, she previously worked with the prominent independent house Roli Books, where she contributed to the aesthetic development of their high-end illustrated titles and non-fiction. Her work focuses on the intersection of storytelling and design, ensuring that literary works resonate with modern audiences across social media and retail platforms. Beyond her corporate role, she is recognized in the Delhi literary circuit for her involvement in community-centric book initiatives and collaborative projects that bridge the gap between art and literature.

Angshuman Chakraborty

Angshuman Chakraborty spent two decades in international education publishing, with roles starting spanning editorial, systems and data, operations, and product and portfolio management, and managing an editorial-centred business unit. In 2024, he quit his job as Director of Publishing to pursue his dream of reading, talking about, and publishing comics in India. Angshuman has been reading comics since he could read, and has so many loves that, in 2018, he started For the Love of Comics on YouTube to wax lyrical about everything that captures his heart. He has a couple of degrees in Literature and Creative Writing somewhere, buried under piles of comics.

Arpita Das

Arpita Das is Founder-Publisher of the independent publishing house Yoda Press and Editor of the South Asia list at Melbourne University Publishing. She is also Associate Professor of Writing at Ashoka University. Das writes a regular column on Indian publishing for the New York-based Publishing Perspectives.

Aakriti Mandhwani

Aakriti Mandhwani is associate professor of English in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR, India. She is the author of Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India (UMass Press, 2024); Everyday Reading: Hindi Middlebrow and the North Indian Middle Class (Speaking Tiger, 2024). She is co-editor (with Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay and Anwesha Maity) of Indian Genre Fiction: Pasts and Future Histories (Routledge, 2018).

Yogesh Dashrath

Yogesh Dashrath is a book lover and the current Publishing Manager for Storyside India. An IIM-Lucknow graduate, he has over 20 years of experience, including roles at HCL Technologies and ING Bank in Europe. A dedicated bibliophile, he successfully pitched and launched Storytel’s audiobook concept in the Indian market.

Karthika V.K.

Karthika V.K. is a powerhouse in Indian publishing, widely regarded as one of the most influential editors and publishers in the country. Since 2016, she has served as the Publisher at Westland Books, where she navigated the house through its major transition from Amazon ownership to its current home at Pratilipi. Over her three-decade career, which includes transformative stints at Penguin Books and HarperCollins India, she has been instrumental in discovering and championing literary icons like Aravind Adiga (launching his Booker-winning The White Tiger) and Amish Tripathi. In 2025, she continues to lead Westland’s diverse imprints—Context, Tranquebar, and Eka—focusing on bold political non-fiction and high-quality translations. Her reputation is built on her “author-first” approach and her unique ability to balance commercial blockbusters with rigorous, award-winning literary works.

Manjula Narayan

Manjula Narayan is a distinguished journalist and the National Books Editor at the Hindustan Times, where she has spent over a decade shaping the literary discourse in India. She is the host of the popular weekly podcast Books and Authors, where she has interviewed hundreds of global and Indian writers, including Nobel laureates like Amartya Sen. In late 2025, she curated her highly anticipated “Top 10 Reads of the Year,” highlighting a surge in memoirs and works exploring the intersection of caste and the Indian internet. Beyond her editorial work, she is a frequent jury member for prestigious awards like the Crossword Book Awards and a regular speaker at major literary festivals such as the Kerala Literature Festival. Her criticism is known for its focus on social justice, popular culture, and the evolution of non-fiction in the subcontinent.

Aatreyee Ghosh

Aatreyee Ghosh is a dynamic figure in the Indian literary and arts management space, recognized for her work in literary festival curation and book marketing. Since 2022, she has served as the Marketing and Publicity Manager at Westland Books, where she plays a key role in launching diverse titles under imprints like Context and Tranquebar. Previously, she was the Creative Manager at Apeejay Oxford Bookstores, where she curated high-profile cultural events and served as the Festival Manager for the Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob. In 2022, she was selected as a fellow for the British Council’s International Publishing Fellowship, an initiative connecting Indian and UK publishing professionals to foster global literary exchange. Her expertise lies in bridging the gap between authors and readers through innovative experiential marketing and large-scale literary programming.

Manasi Subramaniam 

Manasi Subramaniam is a publishing leader and cultural strategist working across literature, international rights and cultural policy. Until December 2025, she was Editor-in-Chief and Vice-President at Penguin Random House India, where she led the literary publishing programme and built a globally influential catalogue of writers from South Asia. Over the course of her tenure, books she published won the Booker Prize, International Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize and JCB Prize, among others. Her editorial work is known for combining literary ambition with political acuity, particularly in contexts shaped by censorship, dissent and democratic pressure. Her work now sits at the intersection of publishing, cultural diplomacy and international advocacy, with a focus on translation, cross-border literary infrastructure and freedom of expression. She is a Yale World Fellow, a Stanford Fisher Family Summer Fellow, a Raisina Young Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Somak Ghoshal

Somak Ghoshal is writer and critic with two decades of experience in media and publishing. He has been on the jury of the Crossword Award, Tata Literature Live! Award and JCB Prize for Literature. He is the author of three books for young readers.