Seagull Books: Difference between revisions

| founded      = 1982  

The function of English in India as a link language made it possible for plays composed in the regional languages to be brought onto the same platform and thereby widening the scope of national theater. The series attempted to enhance important play scripts with additional material to provide the interested student, scholar, theater person and reader with more complete access to the script. Theater, the cinema, theoretical writings on the cinema and art made up the initial catalogue of Seagull Books and since its inception, its focus has always laid in the direction of what might be termed as 'the human condition'.<ref name="karmayog.org">{{cite web|url=http://www.karmayog.org/nonmumbaiprofiles/nonmumprodis.asp?r=149&nonnpoproid=2865&state=West+Bengal&city=Kolkata|title=Seagull Foundation for the Arts|publisher=Karmayog}}</ref>

Today, Seagull Books is widely considered one of the world’s most respected publisher of literature in English translation. It publishes over 50 books a year, almost 80 per cent of which are translations from various languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Bengali, Norwegian, Dutch, Turkish and Hungarian, among others. Seagull’s titles are celebrated for their exquisite covers, designed by senior editor and graphic designer Sunandini Banerjee, and extraordinary production values. Seagull’s authors include some of the most revered names in twentieth- and twenty-first-century world literature, from Nobel Laureates Jean-Paul Sartre, Imre Kertesz, Elfriede Jelinek, [[Herta Müller]] and Mo Yan to Jorge Luis Borges, Antonin Artaud, Roland Barthes, René Char, Max Frisch, Frienrich Dürrenmatt, Thomas Bernhard, Christa Wolf, Ingeborg Bachmann, Urs Widmer, Jean Baudrillard, Guy Debord, Alexander Kluge, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Yves Bonnefoy, Philippe Jaccottet, Cees Nooteboom, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Maryse Condé, Mahasweta Devi, Pascal Quignard, Hélène Cixous, Giorgio Agamben, Antjie Krog, William Kentridge, Tomas Espedal, Wolfgang Hilbig, Sibylle Lewitscharoff, Ghassan Zaqtan, Alawiya Sobh, and Man Booker International Prize winner Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Contemporary English-language authors published by Seagull include Zakes Mda, Toby Litt, Tariq Ali, Dan Gunn and philosopher Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Seagull is committed to publishing young contemporary authors; emerging European authors brought to the international arena by Seagull’s translations include Dorothee Elmiger, Jan Brandt, Gunther Geltinger, Thomas Lehr, Florence Noiville, Lola Lafon, Abdourahman A. Waberi, Monica Cantieni, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Tilman Rammstedt and Abbas Khider, among others. Seagull has been publishing specifically dedicated series of translations under the French List, German List, Swiss List, Norwegian List, Italian List, Hungarian List and, most recently, Arab List and India List; it boasts a backlist of nearly 400 titles, many of which have been widely and very positively reviewed in the international press. Seagull is currently developing two eclectic and important series—Elsewhere Texts (edited by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Hosam Aboul-Ela, a list that focuses on non-European leftist scholarship) and Pride List (which brings forth queer writing from around the world).

==Other Projects==

In 1987, Naveen Kishore founded the Seagull Foundation for the Arts which was to function as a not for profit charitable trust.<ref name="karmayog.org"/> Under that trust, various activities are carried out, one of which has been the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre. The Resource Centre possesses a vast Arts library where for a nominal sum, one can become a member. Along with the Arts library, there are film and music libraries. Various activities related to performance in the arts are organized and carried out by the Resource Centre; ranging from dance recitals, play readings, photography exhibitions, book reviews to theater workshops. His background in showcasing in the arts helped Naveen Kishore channelise his energy into the Resource Centre. The selling and showcasing of art acts  as fundraisers for the revenue earned on the books is not always enough since most of the books published by Seagull are slow sellers and selling the art helps the company to raise money for its non profit enterprises as well as some of the profit activities.

{{Reflist}}