Our Story
Founded in September 2014, Speaking Tiger Books is one of India’s most acclaimed independent publishing companies.
Our List and Authors
We publish primarily in English. Our list comprises fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama from South Asia and the rest of the world, with a strong emphasis on new voices and diversity.
Among the authors we publish are celebrated veterans and exciting new names, including: Nayantara Sahgal, Jerry Pinto, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Wendy Doniger, Bama, Shanta Gokhale, Ravish Kumar, Omair Ahmad, Mark Tully, Harsh Mander, Nandita Haksar, Ruskin Bond, Easterine Kire, Madhavi Menon, Manjushree Thapa, Keki Daruwalla, Gulzar, Purushottam Agrawal, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Saif Mahmood and Eka Kurniawan.
Our List and Authors
We publish primarily in English. Our list comprises fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama from South Asia and the rest of the world, with a strong emphasis on new voices and diversity.
Among the authors we publish are celebrated veterans and exciting new names, including: Nayantara Sahgal, Jerry Pinto, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Wendy Doniger, Bama, Shanta Gokhale, Ravish Kumar, Omair Ahmad, Mark Tully, Harsh Mander, Nandita Haksar, Ruskin Bond, Easterine Kire, Madhavi Menon, Manjushree Thapa, Keki Daruwalla, Gulzar, Purushottam Agrawal, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Saif Mahmood and Eka Kurniawan.
Our authors have won or been on the shortlists of all major literary prizes in South Asia, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Crossword Book Award, the Hindu Literature Prize, the DSC Prize, the JCB Prize, the Tata Literature Live Awards and the AutHer Awards.
One of our key areas of focus is Indian and international literature in English translation, and among our award-winning translations are fiction and non-fiction by authors such as Lakshmibai Tilak, Baburao Bagul and Daya Pawar (Marathi); Salma, Bama and Imayam (Tamil); Shrilal Shukla and Usha Priyamvada (Hindi); Saadat Hasan Manto (Urdu); Gaddar (Telugu); Eka Kurniawan (Bahasa); Burhan Sönmez (Turkish); Sukumar Ray (Bengali) and Manoj Kumar Panda (Odia). Our acclaimed translators include Shanta Gokhale, Jerry Pinto, Arunava Sinha, Daisy Rockwell, Kalyan Raman, Ravi Shanker, Annie Tucker and Padma Narayanan.
We also publish books for children in our Talking Cub imprint, launched in December 2015. Authors who have published with Talking Cub include Ruskin Bond, Paro Anand, Bulbul Sharma, Ranjit Lal, Subhadra Sengupta, Bijal Vachharajani, Shabnam Minwalla and Khyrunnisa A.
In late 2019, we launched the Speaking Tiger Classics line with translations of the abhangs of Janabai, Soyrabai and other Marathi women poet-saints and the vachanas of Allama Prabhu; and retellings of Kashmiri folktales.
The Team
The Speaking Tiger team includes, among others, Ravi Singh (publisher and co-founder), who has been in the industry since 1994 and was formerly publisher and editor-in-chief of Penguin Books India and co-publisher, Aleph Book Company; Renuka Chatterjee (VP, publishing), an industry veteran who was deputy publisher at Penguin India in its early years, and then chief editor at HarperCollins, Roli and Westland; and Sudeshna Shome Ghosh (head of Talking Cub), who was editorial director of Puffin, the children’s imprint of Penguin India, and Red Turtle, the children’s imprint of Rupa.
The Partners
Om Arora, the legendary proprietor of Variety Book Depot, is among the most admired names in the Indian book industry.
Vikas Phadnis pioneered innovative education services in India as co-founder and vice chairman of EuroKids. As founder and CEO of Auctus Capital Services, he now mentors a range of start-ups.
Manas Saikia, who co-founded Speaking Tiger with Ravi Singh, is a publishing veteran with decades of experience. He was MD of Cambridge University Press India until 2014 and is now MD of FEEL Books.