In 2009 India was centre stage at the London Book Fair Market Focus, delivered by the British Council in partnership with The London Book Fair.  The programme took a fresh look at the commercial opportunities that 21st century India has to offer, while building on the thriving trade and cultural relationship that already exists in particular between India and the UK.  We also provided a helpful booklist of Indian titles.

Around 75 stands were taken by the Indian book industry at last year’s Fair, double the space taken by India in 2008. These included publishers from across the spectrum - including Academic, Art and Children’s publishers and companies providing publishing solutions - giving a taste of the broad range of India’s services and products. Publishers attended from all over the country, from New Delhi, Chennai, Pondicherry, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai, reflecting the diversity of the Indian publishing industry.

As well as a full and diverse programme of seminars and gatherings at the London Book Fair, there were events held at Foyles, The British Library, Shakespeare’s Globe as well as eight other cities around the UK.

Writers involved included Vikram Seth, Amit Chaudhuri, Girish Karnad, Tarun J Tejpal, K Satchidanandan, Chetan Bhagat, UR Ananthamurthy, Ramachandra Guha, Sankar, Nandan Nilekani and Sunil Ganguly as well several UK authors with strong India connections such as Daljit Nagra, William Dalrymple, Martin Buckley, Michael Wood, Neel Mukherjee among others. Overall 15 Indian major languages were represented in 40 events spread across a week as part of India Through Fresh Eyes initiative, making it the largest festival of Indian writing outside the subcontinent to date.

The keynote address that inaugurated the fair was by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, who took part in a conversation with UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband where they discussed Indian diversity, democracy, development and the links of all three to its domestic and foreign policy.