Welcome

The Bombay Duck Press is the indie publishing imprint of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings. Our goal: to bring South Asia’s greatest literature to Canada by publishing it in Canada.

There is a massive catalogue of historic and brand-new South Asian literature. Many of these books have never been published in Canada. 5000 years of literary culture that Canadians haven’t had a chance to read. 5000 years of literary wealth that Indians in Canada can’t access easily. Simply because there are no Canadian publishers dedicated to publishing these books.

The Bombay Duck Press aims to fill that gap.

Every year, we will publish a very small catalogue of beautiful books in digital and printed formats. Books from or about the lands of our origins. Books that sing the poems we have in us. Books that tell the stories that sound like us, the stories we long for.

We will be especially careful to always include marginalized voices—stories and poems told by women or Dalit writers or by those of minority faiths.

At the same time, we will not fall into the trap of the single story. To ensure we are not trapped in front of a mirror examining our vanities or our warts, we will include views of the subcontinent and its culture as seen through other lenses—writers such as Xuanzang, Camoes or Babur.

In the tradition of great bookmaking, we will illuminate the literature we publish with art and typography. Our digital publications will aim to go beyond standard ePubs to enrich readers with multimedia experiences and experiments, as well as email-based formats (similar to 100 Days of Dante or Dracula Daily—iykyk).

We will start with works in the public domain, but eventually we hope to publish new works by contemporary authors from India and the Indian diaspora.