All things academic

Launch Cambridge University Press opens shop in the city

Sunil Mohan, Manas Saikia and Rajeevan Karal of Cambridge University Press India. Photo: Special Arrangement

They are the oldest continually-operating book publisher in the world and now the 477-year-old Cambridge University Press (CUP) has opened shop in the city. “It's our seventh store in the country and the only one outside the metros. Such is our relationship with Kerala with its enthusiastic English learners,” says Manas Saikia, managing director of CUP India.

“Over the years there has been a constant demand for English Language Teaching (ELT) material in Kerala, much larger than elsewhere. It really is quite an attractive market for us here. Besides we have been working closely with universities and schools in Kerala and have had repeated requests from the institutions and academics for a one-stop shop for our books,” he adds.

At CUP's store at Ambujavilasam Road near Statue, which was inaugurated last week, one can find material aplenty on ELT, dictionaries, reference books, journals, grammar books, vocabulary books, guides for Cambridge English Examinations, and so on.

The hot-sellers are the ELT books, which are available for all levels of learners and teachers, books on professional English and academic English and even books on American English – all suitably adapted for Indian readers and mainly written by Indian authors.

Mind your language

“The concept of speaking and learning

pro-pah English a.k.a. British English, is rather outdated. Instead, the general trend, in India and abroad, is to learn to speak ‘globally intelligible' English. Learners prefer and demand to learn English by relating the language to local cultural references rather than through Western situations. For example, a reference to sunbathing would most often draw a blank with Indian learners simply because it is something that they cannot culturally relate to. So we have taken care to produce the books in a very Indian context to make it easy for learners,” say Rajeevan Karal, vice-president of the company and Sunil Mohan, the general manager.

The shop also has quite a number of humanities and social science, maths and science books for school and college students.

A bestseller in this is a maths made easy series titled I Did It , written by Indian author Sudha Mahesh.

There are also books on a range of subjects from astronomy to music to wildlife to law.