First-time women authors now have a better chance to have their work published by the National Book Trust.
The NBT — an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Human Resource Development — is launching,a new scheme titled the ‘Mahila Lekhak Protsahan Yojana’ (scheme to promote women writers), under which it will publish the first work of women authors in English or any of the 22 Indian languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The prospective authors should, however, be below 40.
“We will consider for publication books on any topic: science, literature, humanities, etc. This is part of our bid to help diversify the gender profile of authors and books, and give women a chance to think of a topic and pen down a book on it,” said an official.
The NBT will soon issue advertisements inviting first-time women authors below 40 to apply for their book to be published by it. It can also use its regional networks to advertise the scheme further. The works will be accepted if they are of good quality. There is no cap on the number of titles the NBT will publish, said the official.
The scheme follows a similar initiative the NBT launched for younger people last year. The earlier scheme, Nav Lekhan Mala, was launched to publish the works of first-time writers — irrespective of gender.
The scheme, under which 16 books were published this year, featured young authors writing on a range of subjects.
