HarperCollins India publisher Karthika VK steps down

The sudden resignation of Karthika V.K. as publisher of HarperCollins India after one decade on the job came as a shock on Tuesday, leaving a trail of questions such as why she had quit suddenly despite having a hugely successful stint.

This comes a little over a year after Ananth Padmanabhan had replaced P.M. Sukumar as HarperCollins India CEO.

Karthika’s brilliant stint since 2006 was marked with the publishing of big names like Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga, Manu Joseph, S. Hussain Zaidi and Anuja Chauhan. Besides, HarperCollins India — part the Rupert Murdoch empire — published acclaimed poets like Karthika Nair and graphic novelists like Amruta Patil under Karthika’s leadership.

Over the past few years, almost no publishing company in India can claim the kind of critical success that HarperCollins has had. With the exception of marquee stars like Amitav Ghosh, Ramchandra Guha, Vikram Seth and, now, Arundhati Roy, it virtually has the who’s who of English-language writers from the country.

Karthika is also known for the personal relationships of empathy, trust and camaraderie that she had established with the writers whom she published.