https://indianpedia.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Bhatkal_and_SenBhatkal and Sen - Revision history2026-07-31T06:02:15ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.45.4https://indianpedia.org/index.php?title=Bhatkal_and_Sen&diff=108946&oldid=prev>BrownHairedGirl at 13:32, 25 April 20212021-04-25T13:32:45Z<p></p>
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'''Bhatkal & Sen''' is a publishing partnership between Mandira Sen and [[Popular Prakashan]]. The company is based in [[Kolkata]] and publishes the imprints '''Stree''' and '''Samya'''. It is noted for publishing authors such as [[Kancha Ilaiah]], [[Om Prakash Valmiki]], [[Uma Chakravarti]], [[Gail Omvedt]], [[Manikuntala Sen]], [[Ashok Mitra]], [[V. Geetha]], and [[Bani Basu]],{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} and has prominent scholars such as [[Susie Tharu]] and [[Maithreyi Krishnaraj]] as editors.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} It publishes academic works in the social sciences, memoirs and classic fiction in translation in English and Bengali.<br />
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Popular Prakashan is a Bombay-based publishing firm established in 1920 by Ganesh R. Bhatkal, a former employee of [[Oxford University Press|OUP]] Bombay.<br />
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==Beginnings of Stree==<br />
Mandira Sen worked as a publisher's editor for [[Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|Houghton Mifflin]] among others in the US, until she returned to India in 1978. She worked for a year for Orient Longman, then set up Mandira, which published bilingual children's books; with English text on the [[verso]] pages and the same text in an Indian language on the [[recto]]. Some books were also published in [[Hindi]], [[Bengali language|Bengali]], [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]], [[Urdu]] and [[Gujarati language|Gujarati]]. The books were intended for export to help the children of non-resident Indians to learn their [[mother-tongue]]s. Distribution was a major problem, and in 1986 Mandira Sen met Ramdas Bhatkal of [[Popular Prakashan]] at an international book fair.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Bhatkal and Sen was set up in 1990, creating a new imprint "Stree" which publishes books dealing with women's issues and social sciences.<br />
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==The early years==<br />
During her time in the US, Mandira Sen had come into contact with many [[women's rights]] activists and she wished to use this experience to highlight the work that was being done concerning women's issues in India; and to help educate people about the movement and its contributions to civil society.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Stree's early titles fell into the following categories:<br />
# Scholarly translations of important texts in Indian languages by or about women that deserved to reach a wider audience.<br />
# Works of scholarship in the social sciences with an Indian context or sources, or by Indian scholars, with special reference to women, and<br />
# Popular works dealing with concepts and ideas of the women's movement with the objective of introducing them to Indian audiences.<br />
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Stree's first title was a translation of a Gujarati novel by [[S. J. Joshi]],{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}}<!--This fact template is re: the "first title" statement--> ''Anandi Gopal'', a fictional retelling of the life of the first Indian woman to qualify as a doctor. Many titles followed, including ''Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories'' edited by Nita Kumar ({{ISBN|81-85604-03-7}}), ''The Struggle Against Violence'' edited by [[Chhaya Datar]] ({{ISBN|978-81-85604-01-5}}), and other works.<br />
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==The Bengali List, and Samya==<br />
In 1996, the singer-songwriter [[Moushumi Bhowmik]] came to Stree as an editor. She began and developed Stree's Bengali lists, which included works such as Sambuddha Chakrabarti's ''Andare Antare'' (Inside, Within), on the lives of Bengali [[bhadralok]] women in the nineteenth century. There was also ''Pinjore Boshiya'' (Inside the Cage), a collection of essays by [[Kalyani Dutta]], edited by the School of Women's Studies at [[Jadavpur University]]. The third title was a translation of [[Kamla Bhasin]]'s ''What is Patriarchy?'' into Bengali.<br />
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The year 1996 also saw the inception of the Samya imprint. The occasion for this was the publication of Kancha Ilaiah's ''Why I Am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva Philosophy, Culture and Political Economy''. Ilaiah had been turned away by a number of publishers who felt his work was too controversial;{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Sen felt his critique of the caste system fitted in with Stree's parallel critique of patriarchy and gender, and began the Samya imprint (meaning 'equality' or 'fairness') in 1996 with his book.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Since then Samya has published Om Prakash Valmiki's ''Joothan'', an account of a Dalit's growing up under caste oppression, and Tirumaalvalavan's ''Talisman: Extreme Emotions of Dalit Awakening'', translated by Meena Kandasamy.<br />
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==Literary translations==<br />
Stree also publishes an extensive list of works in translation by women writers past and present. These include [[Sulekha Sanyal]]'s ''Nabankur'' (The Seedling's Tale) and [[Bani Basu]]'s ''The Birth of the Maitreya'' (Maitreyo Jatak). Marathi works translated into English include [[Kamal Desai]]'s ''Dark Sun and The Woman Who Wore a Hat'', [[Saroj Pathak]]'s ''Whom Can I Tell? How Can I Explain?'' and [[Malti Bedekar|Vibhavari Shirurkar]]'s ''Kharemaster''. Many of these books form part of the Gender Culture Politics series, edited by Susie Tharu.<br />
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Stree has helped to bring to a wider audience many forgotten memoirs by early women writers such as [[Lalithambika Antherjanam]]'s ''Cast Me Out If You Will'' which documents [[Namboodiri]] oppression of [[Nair]] women in nineteenth century [[Kerala]]. In this category falls Manikuntala Sen's ''In Search of Freedom: An Unfinished Journey'', a translation of her ''Shediner Kotha'' which traces the early years of the [[Communist]] movement in India.<br />
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== Theorizing Feminism series ==<br />
Stree also publishes a series "Theorizing Feminism" which includes [[Patriarchy (book)]] by V. Geetha.<br />
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== See also ==<br />
* [[List of Urdu language book publishing companies]]<br />
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==References==<br />
{{More footnotes|date=August 2011}}<br />
<ref>Unpublished interview with the publisher, 4 February 2007, by Rimi B. Chatterjee.</ref><br />
<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927195035/http://www.dgroups.org/groups/reservation4dalits/index.cfm?op=dsp_showmsg&listname=Reservation4dalits&msgid=233196&cat_id=8727 ]</ref><br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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==External links==<br />
*{{Official website|http://www.stree-samyabooks.com/index.htm}}<br />
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2011}}<br />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhatkal And Sen}}<br />
[[Category:Book publishing companies of India]]<br />
[[Category:Companies based in Kolkata]]<br />
[[Category:Indian companies established in 1990]]<br />
[[Category:1990 establishments in West Bengal]]<br />
[[Category:Publishing companies established in 1990]]</div>>BrownHairedGirl