Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Feb 2: Westland, one of India’s largest publishing houses, is being shut down by e-commerce behemoth Amazon, much to the dismay of book enthusiasts.
Amish Tripathi, Chetan Bhagat, Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Rujuta Diwekar, Preeti Shenoy, Devdutt Pattanaik, Anuja Chauhan, and Ravi Subramanian are among the bestselling authors whose works have been published by the publishing house, which was acquired by Amazon in 2016 from Trent Ltd, a Tata Group subsidiary.
“After a thorough review, we have made the difficult decision to no longer operate Westland. We are working closely with the employees, authors, agents, and distribution partners on this transition and we remain committed to innovating for customers in India,” Amazon said in a statement.
The closing announcement came as a shock to the editors, Westland team members, and the company’s public relations firm, who were only informed about the decision today, according to a staff member who requested anonymity. It was especially heartbreaking for bestselling fiction author Ashwin Sanghi, who published his first novel with Westland in 2008 and gone on to publish a “dozen books” in the years thereafter.
“It is sad to see the exit of a publishing institution. The Westland team is one of the finest in the business and there are many emotions and memories of my publishing journey with them that shall always remain with me,” said Sanghi.
Westland, one of India’s leading English-language trade publishers, was founded in 1962 and publishes print and electronic books in a variety of categories, including popular and literary fiction, business, politics, biography, spirituality, popular science, health, and self-help.
‘Context,’ which publishes award-winning literary fiction and non-fiction; ‘Eka,’ which publishes the best of contemporary writing in Indian languages and translation; ‘Tranquebar,’ which publishes the best new fiction from the Indian subcontinent, as well as the eponymous Westland Sport and Westland Business; and Red Panda, which publishes a variety of books for children of various ages.
Several authors and followers of the Westland took to Twitter to voice their disappointment over the closure of a “wonderful publishing firm.”
