Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781625347916)

Finalist for the 2025 SHARP Book History Book Prize

During the two difficult decades immediately following the 1947 Indian Independence, a new, commercially successful print culture emerged that articulated alternatives to dominant national narratives. Through what Aakriti Mandhwani defines as middlebrow magazines--like Delhi Press's Saritā--and the first paperbacks in Hindi--Hind Pocket Books--North Indian middle classes cultivated new reading practices that allowed them to reimagine what it meant to be a citizen. Rather than focusing on individual sacrifices and contributions to national growth, this new print culture promoted personal pleasure and other narratives that enabled readers to carve roles outside of official prescriptions of nationalism, austerity, and religion.

Utilizing a wealth of previously unexamined print culture materials, as well as paying careful attention to the production of commercial publishing companies and the reception of ordinary reading practices--particularly those of women--Everyday Reading offers fresh perspectives into book history, South Asian literary studies, and South Asian gender studies.

Author: Aakriti Mandhwani
ISBN-10: 162534791X
ISBN-13: 9781625347916
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Language: English
Published: 07/08/2024
Pages: 296
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2024