About us

Tranquebar is a literary imprint of Westland Books, a growing Indian trade publishing house. Both Tranquebar and Westland belong to the Landmark Group: with over 11 giant bookstores in Chennai, Delhi, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Pune, Baroda and Lucknow and more planned, Landmark is the country’s largest bookstore chain.

Tranquebar is about intelligent new writing, Indian and otherwise. It’s about a bunch of people who love books and the book business. It’s about treating “translations from the vernacular” with the same respect that we give to “Indian writing in English”, because when you get down to it, there isn’t that much difference between the two. It’s about finding the next great Indian writer, and also, if s/he’ll come to us, about finding the next great Scandinavian or Bolivian writer. It’s about encouraging and working with authors who understand that the best definition of their job is, simply, story-teller. It’s about publishing the best stories we can find, so that we have the pleasure of reading them ourselves. It’s that simple. Really.