Osian’s Literary Agency deals with fiction and general non-fiction (biography/memoir, narrative travel writing, current affairs and contemporary issues) and represents authors from across the world, with a focus on Asia.
We are the first literary agency in India with full organizational support and a dedicated team of experienced publishing professionals. The agency is headed by Renuka Chatterjee, who has spent 15 years in the publishing industry, starting with Penguin India in 1992. She was editor-in-chief of HarperCollins India for six years, between 1997 and 2003. Her last assignment was as chief editor, Roli Books. She has commissioned and published more than 300 titles in fiction and non-fiction. Senior editor Amrita Kumar has two decades of publishing experience and has nurtured some of India’s leading writers. Assistant editor Kavita Bhanot studied creative writing at Warwick University and has taught the subject in England and India.
The agency is a part of Osians, a multifaceted company that set up India’s first professional art auction house in 2000, and organizes Osian’s-Cinefan; Asia’s leading film festival devoted principally to Asia and the Arab world. Osian’s also has one of the finest collections of Indian and Asian art in the world, consisting of more than 140,000 artworks, including film posters and memorabilia. What makes Osian’s Literary Agency unique amongst literary agencies anywhere in the world is that its authors have access to the organization’s multifarious activities. “When you enter Osian’s, you enter an institution,” says Neville Tuli, founder chairman of Osian’s. “If you want to make a film, sell a painting or refer to our archives – all this is possible for any author that our literary agency will represent.”
Since starting in May 2007, the agency has already signed its first eighteen writers, including renowned, award-winning filmmaker Saeed Mirza, IT giant and head of Mphasis Jerry Rao and four newcomers; Omair Ahmad, Shalini Saran, Karan Bajaj and Madhulika Liddle. More recently, we have signed well known journalists Sheela Reddy and Shailaja Bajpai for their first novels, UK-based Rajorshi Chakraborti, whose first novel Or the Day Seizes You was shortlisted for the 2006 Hutch Crossword Prize and Ira Pande, whose biography of her mother, the well known Hindi novelist Shivani, was published by Penguin to much critical acclaim. We are also representing Rani Dharkar, whose first novel The Virgin Syndrome was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize when it was published, and Sarayu Srivatsa, who is well known as a writer in her own right, as well as co-author with the late Dom Moraes. We are especially pleased to have on our list, Jose Dalisay from the Philippines, whose novel Soledad’s Sister was short-listed for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize and Charlson Ong, also from the Philippines, whose brilliant epic novel, Banyaga: A Song of War, which deals with the Chinese immigration to the Philippines in the early 20s and 30s, is poised to become an international best-seller. We hope this will pave the way for us to work with more writers from the Philippines and other Asian and countries, who deserve international recognition. We are also very happy to be representing the estate of Raja Rao, who, along with R.K.Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand, was one of India’s foremost writers in English and one of the first to be published abroad. His first novel Kanthapura was published in the UK by George Allen and Unwin in 1938. His other classics include The Serpent and the Rope, The Cat and Shakespeare and The Chessmaster and his Moves.
We have negotiated good advances for the rights we have sold so far: the South Asian rights for Omair Ahmad’s novellas, Unbelonging and The Story-teller’s Tale have been sold to Penguin India and in Spain, in the Catalan language, to Pages Editors; Karan Bajaj’s novel Keep Off the Grass and Shailaja Bajpai’s Arranged Lives have both been sold to HarperCollins India while Saeed Mirza’s Ammi: A Letter to a Democratic Mother has been sold to East-West/Landmark Publishers. This was recently published, and is receiving a favourable response from literary critics and readers.
As our list grows, we are committed to discovering and nurturing fresh new voices, and putting Asian writers on a world stage, so they get as wide a readership as possible. We continue to search for the best writers from across the world, and to provide them with the committed, professional representation they deserve, helping them to reach the best publishers and to get a fair deal for their work.
We sell rights to our authors’ works into India and all major and upcoming overseas markets.We have a wide ranging network of contacts with publishers in the UK, US, France, Italy, Germany, Spain and other European countries, and are also establishing links with Japan, Turkey, the Arab countries, Korea and South East Asia. In order to provide our authors wider representation, we are pleased to be working with the following overseas agencies:
Raquel de la Concha, RDC Litera, Spain, Portugal & Brazil
