Thiruvananthapuram: Better late than never. This reasoning seems to have prompted the Congress party in Kerala to launch a book publishing wing, taking a leaf from the Communists and the Sangh Parivar who have left their imprint in the world of letters.

A meeting of party leaders and fellow-travellers from literary and cultural realm convened here recently by the Pradesh Congress president Ramesh Chennithala have fine-tuned the proposal to start Priyadarshini Publications.

To start with, the Congress book-houses will be coming out with 10 books in January next, with the list topping novels and short stories from eminent Malayalam writers Kakkanadan and Madhavikutty (Kamala Das as she writes in English). "It is not political motives that molivated us to venture into book publishing. Literary and cultural considerations are more important for us. We plan to cover the entire spectrum of the printed word literary, academic, and children s literature," member-secretary of the publication venture, Dr. M R Thampan, told PTI.

Side by side new titles, bringing out works of national stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal nehru and Rabindranath Tagore would be an objective. Piryadarshini had roped in some reputed academics like eminent historian M G S Narayanan for coming out with academic titles in Malayalam.

"Being a Congress-sponsored venture, we don t want to pretend that we are totally above politics. But we are keen to make a clean distinction between public-interest books and political literature. To serve the party s ideological purposes we would be helping in the preparation and publication of party literature as well", Thampan said.
Source : PTI