LeftWord Books is a

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

–based publisher that seeks to reflect the views of the

Left Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * ''Left'' (Helmet album), 2023 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relativ ...

in India and South Asia. Its Managing Director is

Prakash Karat Prakash Karat (born 7 February 1948) is an Indian Communist politician. He was the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from 2005 to 2015. He served as interim co-ordinator of CPM after the death of incumbent General Secr ...

, the former General Secretary of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a Communism in India, communist List of political parties in India, political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electora ...

, or CPI(M). The Chief Editor is

Vijay Prashad Vijay Prashad (born 1967) is an Indian-born American, author, journalist, political commentator, and Marxism, Marxist intellectual."I came to Marxism against my self-interest. Born into affluence, I was raised in an revolutionary city (Calcutta, ...

and the Managing Editor is the actor-publisher Sudhanva Deshpande.

History

LeftWord Books was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of ''Naya Rasta Publishers Private Limited''. It was conceived by a group of Leftist intellectuals including Prabhat Patnaik, Aijaz Ahmad, Indira Chandrasekhar,

, V. K. Ramachandran and N. Ram and sometimes regarded as "the English publishing arm of the

". It is managed by the Managing Editor Sudhanva Deshpande, who had earlier worked with

Tulika Books Tulika Books is an Indian publisher of scholarly and academic books in the humanities and social sciences, with a "broadly left perspective." The Chennai-based Tulika Publishers is a sister company of Tulika Books. History Tulika Books was f ...

during 1994 to 1998 and continues to be involved with the theatre group

Jana Natya Manch Jana Natya Manch (People's Theatre Front; Janam for short) is a New Delhi–based amateur Theatre of India, theatre company specialising in left-wing street theatre in Hindi. It was founded in 1973 by a group of Delhi's radical theatre amateurs ...

. LeftWord differs from Tulika Books, according to Deshpande, by being explicitly Leftist. The company runs the May Day Bookstore and Cafe in New Delhi, as well as Internet retailing, through which it sells books from various Leftist publishers including

. It also has a membership-based book club, whose subscriptions served to form the seed capital of the publishing division. By mid-2000, the company established itself as a successful publisher with several well-subscribed titles.

Book series

* LeftWord Classics * SIGNPOST: The Issues that Matter

Selected titles

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

, ''King Leopold's Soliloquy'', . *

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

, ''The Gigantic Casino: Reflections on the World Financial Crisis'', . *

Hugo Chavez Hugo or HUGO may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Hugo (film), ''Hugo'' (film), a 2011 film directed by Martin Scorsese * Hugo Award, a science fiction and fantasy award named after Hugo Gernsback * Hugo (franchise), a children's media franchise ...

, ''The South Also Exists'', . * Carlos Ferrer, ''Becoming Che'', . * Teo Ballve,

, ''Dispatches From Latin America- Experimenting Against Neoliberalism'', . * John Harriss, ''Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital'', (also issued by London: Anthem Press). *

E. M. S. Namboodiripad Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad (13 June 1909 – 19 March 1998), popularly known as E.M.S. Namboodiripad or simply by his initials E. M. S., was an Indian communist politician and theorist, who served as the first Chief Minister of ...

, ''History, Society, and Land Relations: Selected Essays'', . * Thomas Isaac, Richard W. Franke, ''Local Democracy and Development: The Kerala People's Campaign for Decentralized Planning'', (also issued by Rowman & Littlefield, *

, ''Subordinate Ally: The Nuclear Deal and India-US Strategic Relations'', . *

Harkishan Singh Surjeet Harkishan Singh Surjeet (23 March 1916 – 1 August 2008) was an Indian Communist politician from Punjab, who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from 1992 to 2005 and was a member of the party's Polit Bu ...

, ''History of the Communist Movement in India, Vol. 1: The Formative Years, 1920-1933'', . *

Richard Levins Richard Levins (June 1, 1930 – January 19, 2016) was a Marxist biologist, a population geneticist, biomathematician, mathematical ecologist, and philosopher of science who researched genetic diversity, diversity in human populations. Until his ...

, ''Talking about Trees: Science, Ecology, and Agriculture in Cuba'', . *

Utsa Patnaik Utsa Patnaik is an Indian Marxian economist. She taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, from 1973 until her retirement in 2010. Her husband i ...

, ''The Agrarian Question In Marx And His Successors'', . * Aijaz Ahmad,

Irfan Habib Irfan Habib (born 10 August 1931) is an Indian historian of ancient and medieval India, following the methodology of Marxist historiography in his contributions to economic history. He is known for his strong stance against Hindutva. He has au ...

, Prabhat Patnaik, ''A World To Win: Essays on the Communist Manifesto'', . * A. G. Noorani, ''The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labour'', . * A. G. Noorani, ''Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection'', . * Dwijendra Narayan Jha, ''The Many Careers of DD Kosambi'', . *

, ''The Darker Nations- A Biography of the Short-Lived Third World'', . * Vijay Prashad, ''War Against the Planet: the fifth Afghan war, imperialism, and other assorted fundamentalisms'', . * Archana Prashad, ''Environmentalism and the left: contemporary debates and future agendas in tribal areas'', . * N. Ram, ''Riding the Nuclear Tiger'', . * Praveen Swami, ''The Kargil War'', . * Parvathi Menon, ''Breaking Barriers: Stories of Twelve Women'', . * Ninan Koshy, ''Under the Empire: India's New Foreign Policy'', . * Govind Deshpande, ''Selected Writings Of Jotirao Phule'', ,. * C. P. Chandrasekhar, Jayati Ghosh, ''The market that failed: a decade of neoliberal economic reforms in India'', . * Prabir Purkayastha, Ninan Koshy, M. K. Bhadrakumar, ''Uncle Sam's Nuclear Cabin'', . * Madhura Swaminathan, ''Weakening welfare: the public distribution of food in India'', . *

Githa Hariharan Githa Hariharan (born 1954) is an Indian writer and editor based in New Delhi. Her first novel, ''The Thousand Faces of Night'', won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the best first novel in 1993. Her other works include the short story coll ...

, ''From India to Palestine — Essays in Solidarity'', . * K. Chandru, ''Listen to My Case!'',

References

{{Reflist 1999 establishments in Delhi Book publishing companies of India Leftist organisations in India Publishing companies established in 1999