Penguin India celebrates 25th anniversary

Mumbai: Penguin Books India, one of India's largest publishers, on Thursday announced its 25th year anniversary celebrations which will be kicked off at the upcoming Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) and also begin with the launch of a special list of 25 popular titles.

Some of its best loved titles published by it in its 25 years—from Mahatma Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth and R K Narayan's The Guide to Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Shobhaa De's Starry Nights—will be given the classic Penguin branding with orange and white striped covers for the first time in India.

At the JLF being held from January 20-24, Penguin will also launch a whole range of collectibles and merchandise with an interesting collection of mugs, notebooks, cloth bags, and baggage tags that will be available across retail stores across the country. A Penguin Car will also be unveiled in Jaipur on January 21 at the Penguin 25 Party.

Apart from its strong following on social networking sites, its website and a robust book club and the Penguin APP for smartphones, there will be an all new Penguin India website for booklovers to connect to as well. Special editions of the popular Penguin Lecture, readings by renowned authors, and Spring Fever Festival, an open air library, will travel to various Indian cities reaching out to whole new audiences.

"Over two and a half decades, we've built a publishing brand in India that is instantly recognized and respected across the country," said Andrew Philips, CEO, Penguin Books India, in a release. "We will celebrate this year with a series of exciting events, activities, and initiatives throughout the year—in the process, we're going to celebrate the joy of reading, which is the theme behind our 25th year celebrations."

The publishing company will also, in the course of the year, be launching the ‘Give Back' campaign, the highlights of which would be a major corporate social responsibility initiative through the year, starting with the first quarter of 2012—when from Rs 25 from the sale of Popular Penguin will go to a charity fund.

The company now publishes more than 250 new titles every year and has an active backlist of over 3000 titles. Apart from English, Penguin also publishes in several Indian languages.