Westland to publish first Hindi title

New Delhi, Aug 23 (PTI) Publishing house Westland has tiedup with Hind Yugm to bring out its first original Hindi title- a coming-of-age novel ‘Musafir Cafe’ by Divya Prakash Dubey. ‘Musafir Cafe’, the story of two young individuals Sudhaand Chandar who despite not wanting to get married andsettling down end up in an unplanned live-in relation, will bereleased on Hindi Diwas, September 14. Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO of Westland, says about theventure, "At Westland, we understand the immense potentialHindi publishing holds and are committed to nurture thismarket. "I learnt about Hind Yugm through their association withAmazon where their titles are regularly featured among the toptitles in Hindi. What I found exciting is the fact that HindYugm publishes commercial fiction in Hindi, which in a wayparallels our publishing programming in English." According to Shailesh Bharatwasi, Editor of Hind Yugm, ‘Wehope the partnership with Westland will help us reach out toreaders in smaller towns and cities that e-tailers aren’t ableto penetrate. It’ll boost the distribution of these books andbenefit the overall Hindi books industry." Westland is not new to the Hindi speaking markets. In 2011, it first published the Hindi edition of Amish’S’The Immortals of Meluha’ – ‘Meluha Ke Mritunjay’ and sincethen trying to expand its readership in Hindi by bringing outtranslated versions of several of its bestsellers. It has alsopartnered with Yatra Books to bring out books in several otherregional languages like Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.PTI ZMNANS