Global Collective Publishers

The Female Gaze

Essays on Gender, Society and Media Dr Shoma A Chatterji

$25.99 • Hardback • 216 pages • 6x9 March 2022 • SOC028000 978-1-954021-69-3

Frank but scathing in her remarks, Chatterji in this collection of essays voices those who have been muted but not silenced. She scrutinizes the intertwined fabric of social and financial milieu that determines a woman’s place in society. Her observations on the systemic silence of women, the physical and mental abuse, the stereotypes that women are forced to live up to, are some of the many things that force you to stop and think. Ranging from issues that affect women and society to the representation of women in cinema, she goes through important societal issues one by one with a fine-tooth comb and analyses them through multiple lenses.

Women Detectives

The Untold History of Female Sleuths & Spies Moumita Bhattacharyya Subhankar Bhattacharyya

$24.99 • Paperback • 246 pages • 6x9 April 2022 • TRU010000 978-1-954021-61-7

The book chronicles the history of real-life women detectives. Beginning with Kate Warne (1833 –1868), the first female detective (who worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency and saved President Lincoln from being assassinated), the book goes on narrating the tales of some of the sharpest female sleuths who could rival the intelligence and vigor of their male counterparts including: Belle Boyd, who spied for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, riding her horse at breakneck speed between the lines to deliver her dispatches; Vienna-born photographer Edith Taylor, who spotted British traitors working for Stalin in the 1930s – among them, Kim Philby. Also presented is Corrie Ten Boom, who eight hundred men, women, and children from the Nazis during the German occupation of Holland in World War II. And not to be missed, Polish Countess Krystina Skarbe, who spied for Britain in German-occupied Europe only to be abandoned and then stabbed in a London hotel.

The Lady of Two Nations

Life and Times of Ra’ana Liaqat Ali Khan Raj Gopal Singh Verma

$24.95 • Paperback • 276 pages 5.5x8.5 • March 2022 • BIO022000 978-1-954021-87-7

A casual encounter between an Oxford University-educated scion of a Nawabi family and a comely young woman belonging to a Christian family of Kumaon transformed into a ‘happily ever after’ alliance. Their romantic entanglement had as its backdrop of the tug-of-war between Congress and Muslim League in undivided India. When Irene converted to Islam, her family ostracized her. Liaqat Ali Khan (1896-1951) went on to become the first Prime Minister of Pakistan and his wife Irene Pant (1905-90) attained fame as his wife and fondly came to be known as Gul-e-Ra’ana. After Liaqat’s assassination, the Begum brought up their two children alone and made a stellar contribution to Pakistan’s political, social, and cultural domains. She also served as the country’s finance minister and diplomat to several Western countries. On her return, she continued to work for empowerment of Muslim women of the country. She raised her voice against the dictatorial regime of Zia-ul-Haq. This book leaves no doubt that Irene Pant deserves to be counted as an iconic woman leader of South Asia, but we hardly know her.

Before the Break of Dawn

Secrets of the Namboodiri Women Devaki Nilayamgode Indira Menon

$19.99 • Paperback • 132 pages 5.5x8.5 • June 2022 • SOC028000 978-1-954021-79-2

Before the Break of Dawn: Secrets of the Namboodiri Women is a celebration of life in a Kerala Brahmin household. Most of the narratives start before dawn. The ordinary business of having a bath, the almost compulsory visit to the temple, the task of caring for the unapologetically patriarchal male Namboodiris, the retiring ladies of the house and the Irikkanammas, all following a strict code of conduct. One can smell the lazy smoke of the kitchen fires, the clatter of vessels being cleaned as the household gradually comes awake, brass lamps burnished to look like gold, the chill of the sleeping waters of the pond, the subtle fragrances of blooms easily identifiable by their smell alone, the simple but wholesome and highly repetitive meals of the day, interspersed with rare festival days, the highlight of which is obviously the feast, with the winding down of the day into soft nights where birdsong and fireflies are very much part of life.

Songs of the Night World

Subhankar Bhattacharyya

$18.99 • Paperback 72 pages • 5x8 January 2022 POE009000 978-1-954021-47-1

Songs of the Night World, a collection of 55 poems, is a bold critique of late capitalism and the degeneration of liberal values in the wake of sectarian politics and bigotry across the globe. Love is the only hope that can save civilization from the inevitable decline and fall in a hellish world. Bhattacharyya's epigrammatic use of words, an ironic undercurrent of conflict and tension, along with a free-flowing yet unsentimental lyricism, makes the collection one of the most awaited books of 2022.

Words Know It All

Madhumita Roy

$14.99 • Paperback 72 pages • 5x8 January 2022 POE024000 978-1-954021-27-3

A woman waits at an elusive platform amidst the abundance of nature with a melancholic yet supple desire. These poems by Madhumita have freed themselves from poetry’s time-honored dependence on theories and techniques (propounded mostly by men and dutifully abided by women) as if a woman is confident enough to break all the barriers of a male dominated society (even the theories) to fly higher and still higher with the wings of poesy.

The House of Rain

Dr. Sanjay Ghosh Moumita Bhattacharyya

$14.99 Paperback 92 pages • 5.5x8.5 • December 2021 POE025000 • 978-1-954021-89-1

The house of rain may or may not come across a shower, but the voyage will always beckon you to the forbidden lake, urging you to undertake a surreptitious journey to the land of nowhere, leaving your beloved garden behind. Is it not the moment you confront the inauspicious time and, under the dark new moon, holding the book with your pale, melancholy hands, read the last dialogue?

Rumi

A New Collection Farrukh Dhondy

$22.99 • Paperback 146 pages • 5.5x8.5 March 2022 POE009000 978-1-954021-23-5

Love, devotion, suffering, and longing mysteriously co-exist in the poems of Jalal-ud-din Rumi. Composed almost eight centuries ago, the deep spirituality and buoyant wisdom of the poems are a source of inspiration to millions today. Farrukh Dhondy's translations not only offer a modern idiom to the poems, but also faithfully keep intact their religious context. With selections from Rumi's masterpieces the Masnavi and Diwan-e-Shams, as well as his ghazals, this volume is a poetry lover's treasure-trove.

Everlasting Bengali Poems

Moumita Bhattacharyya

$14.99 • Paperback 72 pages • 5x8 June 2022 POE009000 • 978-1-954021-53-2

A collection of 100 Bengali Poems, the book handpicks the gems from the 1000-year-old history of Bengali poetry. It starts with the poets of the Charyapada (who wrote between the 8th and 12th centuries AD) to travel a lengthy path (along with Krittibas, Vidyapati, Chandidas, Krishnadas Kabiraj, Mukundaram Chakraborty, Daulat Kaji, Ramprasad Sen, and Bharat Chandra Roy) through the Middle Ages. Arriving at the Modern Age with Iswar Gupta, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Biharilal Chakraborty, Rabindranath Tagore, and others, it concludes with Jibanananda Das, the greatest poet of Bengal after Tagore.

Everlasting Bengali Rhymes

Moumita Bhattacharyya

$14.99 Paperback 72 pages • 5x8 • August 2022 • POE009000 978-1-954021-57-0

A collection of 100 Bengali Rhymes, this book contains the choicest chharas from the archive of Bengali rhymes. Some of them are still sung as a lullaby by Bengali mothers to their children. As a result, several chharas (by unanimous village poets) feature in the collection alongside the contributions by celebrated poets like Madanmohan Tarkalanker, Kusumkumari Das, Rabindranath Tagore, Jogindranath Sarkar, and Sukumar Roy.

Under the Shade of the Tree Named Bhaskar

Prasanta Maji

$18.99 • Paperback 144 pages • 5x8 20 facsimile images June 2022 POE009000 • 978-1-954021-43-3

The book is a kind of multi-hued diary, a first-person account (by the author) of the life and times of Bhaskar Chakraborty, one of the leading modern poets of Bengal. The book contains six essays, fourteen letters, eight poems, and twenty facsimile images. It effortlessly takes the reader down memory lane and prepares him for a more 'insightful reading' of Bhaskar's poetry.

The Immortal and Other Stories

Rik Bhattacharyya

$18.99 • Paperback 126 pages • 5x8 • April 2022 • FIC029000 978-1-954021-49-5

The award-winning author of the critically acclaimed Fan has returned with another spine-chilling thriller Amartya (The Immortal, winner of the Second Prize in Paulami Sengupta Fiction Competition 2020). The collection includes 9 other incredible short stories based on varied genres (horror, supernatural, thriller, humor, satire, and drama).

978-1-954021-45-7

Between Victory and Defeat

Subhankar Bhattacharyya

$14.99 • Paperback 40 pages • 5x8 December 2021 FIC037000

The novella is a political thriller that breathlessly narrates the inside story of the deteriorating student politics in Bengal during the early days of the 21st century. An admirer of Che Guevara, Abhi, the erstwhile GS (general secretary) of the college union, fights from the beginning with the shadows of his unknown enemies. And when he is about to enter into the heart of the matter, he gets devastated discovering the truth. An action thriller, the novella is not without a romantic angle. Does Diya, the bold and the beautiful fresher from the Department of English, nurture romantic feelings for Rishi, the newly elected GS from the rival union? Or does she have a weakness for Abhi, the defeated one?

January 2022 • FIC004000 978-1-954021-71-6

Edgar Allan Poe

Selected Short Stories Edgar Allan Poe

$22.99 Paperback 232 pages • 6x9

One of America’s most influential writers, Edgar Allan Poe belongs to the ages. His first work, Tamerlane and Other Poems, was published in 1827, and today, almost two centuries later, he remains just as relevant. With an uncanny ability to reflect in the atmosphere that which takes place in the mind, Poe never disappoints. A thoughtfully curated collection of some of Poe's best short stories including The Cask of Amontillado, The Black Cat, The Tell Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, The Eight Chained Ourang Outangs, Some Words with a Mummy, The Oval Portrait, The Pit and The Pendulum, and The Fall of the House of Usher.

Sasi is Waiting, and other Stories

Sujatha Vimala Balakrishnan

$19.99 • Paperback 204 pages • 5.5x8.5 January 2022 • FIC029000 978-1-954021-65-5

Sujatha Rangarajan, is a name synonymous with Tamil literature. In this collection of stories, he takes us on a wild journey into different genres of fiction. He delves into science fiction in City Tours while The Sun depicts the horrible reality of a nuclear holocaust. In Secha, he captures violence in an incident of brutal mugging in the USA, while the ethical dilemma of police brutality is debated in Justifications. We also have The Edge, a psychological thriller, and the delightful story of Krishnaswamy titled The Horse. And finally, in his showstopper, Sasi is Waiting, the writer dissects the most basic of human emotions, Love, Fear, and Longing with just one question: How long will Sasi keep waiting?

Everlasting Bengali Short Stories

Moumita Bhattacharyya

$14.99 • Paperback 72 pages • 5x8 June 2022 • FIC029000 • 978-1-954021-55-6

A collection of 25 Bengali short stories, the book is a testimony to the assertion that the foremost writers of Bengali short stories (Rabindranath Tagore, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Manik Bandyopadhyay, Somen Chanda, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, and Rajshekhar Basu among them) can equal the greatest exponents of the genre including Maupassant, O Henry, Chekhov, and Tolstoy.

So Now You Know

Growing Up Gay in India Vivek Tejuja

$18.99 • Paperback • 148 pages 5.5x8.5 • April 2022 • BIO026000 978-1-954021-25-9

The year was 1991. Vivek was eight. He realized he was gay. Only he didn't: he just figured that he wanted to be different. And that he was in love - for want of a better word - with Deepak, his best friend. Then Mast Kalandar released, with Anupam Kher playing Pinku, a stereotypical gay character. And Vivek realized he didn't want to be Pinku. So he tried to walk differently, gesticulate differently, and speak in as gruff a voice as he could - all to avoid being Pinku. Funny, poignant, heartwarming, and heart-breaking all at once, this is a memoir of growing up gay in India in the 1990s, with Bollywood, books, and the Bombay sea for company.

The Kamal-Sunil Discourse

Prasanta Maji

$14.99 • Paperback • 32 pages • 5x8 December 2021 • SOC008000 978-1-954021-41-9

This book talks about the little-known Guru-Shishya (master-disciple) relationship between Kamalkumar Majumdar and Sunil Gangopadhyay. While Majumdar is one of the finest writers of fiction in inimitably ambiguous yet artistic prose (Majumdar is to us what Jorge Luis Borges has been to the West). During the second half of the twentieth century, Gangopadhyay has been one of the most popular novelists (of Those Days and The First Light fame) in Bengali literature to date. The intimate relationship shared by these two maestros and their exchange of ideas resulted in the ideation of several key concepts relating to contemporary art, literature, drama, and aesthetics. Maji's book delves deep into this camaraderie and invites the readers as quiet listeners to the discourse.

The Year that Wasn't

The Diary of a 14-year old Brisha Jain

$22.99 • Paperback 252 pages • 5.5x8.5 February 2022 BIO022000 • 978-1-954021-67-9

When Brisha made a New Year’s resolution to write a diary for the coming year, little did she realize that these entries would eventually turn into a treasure trove of experiences. The year 2020 brought forth a barrage of impossible challenges, monumental odds, and unforeseen calamities. The diary tells a story that’s much more than the sum of its entries—a tale of self-improvement, patience, strength, tenacity, and most importantly, inner peace. This was the year that turned several 14-year old boys and girls into adults as they dealt with issues that they could not have envisioned. This is not just Brisha’s diary, it is the diary of an entire generation that has learned to cope, hope, struggle, and survive through an epochal time.

NH44: Take Me Home

Anushka Dhar

$22.99 • Paperback • 236 pages • 8.75x8.75 January 2022 • YAN006000 978-1-954021-83-9

Anushka Dhar, a sixteen year-old, is a blossoming Mumbai-based writer who strives to engage in mindful, progressive conversations. Following in the footsteps of her father, Deepak Dhar, she aspires to join the film industry and leave her mark by continuing to tell stories such as this one about the Kashmiri Pandit exodus from the Valley. Placing that traumatic experience in context, she offers a panoramic view of the history of the region, emphasizing the injustice that continues to haunt the psyche of those who went into exile.

978-1-954021-77-8

Ramayana

A Comparative Study of Ramakathas A.A. Manavalan C.T. Indra

$32.95 • Paperback 416 pages • 5.5x8.5 March 2022 LIT008020

The story of Rama has been a part of our lives for ever, but most of us are unaware that the story has as many variations as there are versions. In the author’s own words, Valmiki’s Ramayana has taken several ‘incarnations’ due to the efforts of many great writers who wanted to bring the story to their own people in their own language. In his book, Professor A. A. Manavalan, an eminent scholar in the field of comparative literature, has painstakingly made an intensive and analytical study of the Rama story in 48 languages including the folk tradition. Professor Manavalan’s main focus is on how the receiving language’s rendering could make a greater impact than the original in the popular imagination of the people.

When the Clock Struck 12

15 August 1947 Shailaja Nair

$18.99 • Paperback • 116 pages 5.5x8.5 • February 2022 • FIC014000 978-1-954021-85-3

We had just won independence, but all was not well, the horrors of the partition were very real. Living in the heart of a simmering Delhi, eightyear-old Ashok and Priya can't wait to meet their friends Asghar and Afshan. But the elders won't agree. That is when sequestered in their hall, they overhear a plan: A plan to murder a Muslim family. As the kids try to find allies and save their friends, they must face people blinded by hate and personal vendetta. Will they succeed or lose their friends forever? Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous events of independence and partition, When the Clock Struck 12 is a tale of innocence, unity, and courage, but most importantly, of friendship.

Kashmir: The War of Narratives

Bashir Assad

$22.99 • Paperback • 252 pages 5.5x8.5 • May 2022 • POL062000 978-1-954021-81-5

The stereotypical Kashmir narrative runs on a grinding machine of disinformation, half truths, and concocted accounts unrelentingly flowing from Pakistan. This is an obfuscation of truth. Through the cruel, merciless arms of terrorism, atrocities, and pain have been inflicted upon the Kashmiris. Hair-raising terrorist atrocities over more than 30 years tell the story of how Pakistan has ripped apart the life and happiness of Kashmiris. It is never easy to challenge the narrative constructed by Pakistan on Kashmir. This is not an exoneration of the state for its faults and follies. But Kashmir desperately needs a new intellectual discourse. It needs new perspectives. The beneficiaries shall be all of us: We, our loved ones, our society—all of Kashmir that wants to live an abundant, enriched, and peaceful life.

Revisiting the Educational Heritage of India

Sahana Singh

$32.95 • Paperback 308 pages • 5.5x8.5 May 2022 EDU016000 • 978-1-954021-75-4

Long before the first European universities appeared, India already had multi-disciplinary centers of learning that fueled a knowledge revolution around the world. This book fills a dire need to chronicle the great educational heritage of India. It describes a unique ecosystem which ensured that Gurus and Acharyas handed the lamp of learning to generations of students. Historically, the book covers a vast time span from ancient India’s traditions to the deliberate destruction of its heritage. It also outlines steps that can be taken today to incorporate the most relevant aspects of ancient learning systems into the current structure of school and university education.

Arise, Chicago

Moumita Bhattacharyya Subhankar Bhattacharyya

$24.95 • Paperback 226 pages • 5x8 February 2022 REL033000 • 978-1-954021-51-8

This is a book of questions and answers written specially to inspire students across the globe. It has attempted to document Swami Vivekananda’s historic voyage from Bombay to Chicago in 1893, introducing Spiritual India to the Materialistic West. The authors meticulously researched every minute detail of that memorable journey that influenced Indian and global history. It was his famous lectures at the Chicago World Parliament of Religions in September 1893, and later the foundation of Vedanta Society (still thriving) in New York in 1894 that paved the way for yoga in the USA and the birth of modern yoga (including Pranayama and meditation) as a transnational movement.

Bengal Famine

An Unpunished Genocide Syama Prasad Mookerjee Sudip Kar Purkayastha

$22.99 • Paperback 288 pages • 5.5x8.5 • April 2022 • HIS017000 978-1-954021-73-0

This book is a commentary on the 1944 book Panchasher Manwantar by Syama Prasad Mookerjee. In his book, Syama Prasad argues that the famine of 1943-44 that is said to have caused the death and displacement of three million people was a man-made disaster. The acute food shortage was deliberately created by the Churchill government to punish a rebellious, militant Bengal. The colonial government burned the boats that carried grain, promulgated an anti-hoarding act that prevented farmers and householders from keeping even small buffer stocks, while hoarding by private lobbies was allowed resulting in huge price rise. This policy was actively supported by the communal practices of the local Muslim League government. casemateipm.com • celticbooks.com • customer service: (610) 853-9131