Purushottama Lal, poet and publisher of Calcutta, died on November 3rd, aged 81
Nov 11th 2010

Photo - Rosalind Solomon
THE books published by Purushottama Lal from his house in Lake Gardens, Calcutta (now Kolkata), from 1958 onwards were like no others in the world. Each slim volume of Writers Workshop poetry, fiction or drama—they tended to be slim—was bound in bright handloom cloth, and hand-stitched so tightly that it would open with a creak. The title pages and chapter-heads featured the swirling calligraphy of Professor Lal himself, done with a Sheaffer fountain pen. The type, at least until this century, was handset in a mosquito-infested shed by workers who did not know the language but could recognise the letters; and the galleys were printed on a flatbed treadle machine in the next-door garage of P.K. Aditya, who had kindly moved his car out for the purpose. In this form appeared the early works of Vikram Seth, Dilip Hiro and Anita Desai.
Full obit at The Economist