Penguin Random House to expand its local presence

On the eve of the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair, the annual international celebration of the global book marketplace, Penguin Random House, the world’s largest tradebook publisher, announced the extension and expansion of its commitment to local publishing in Asia, currently represented by its Penguin Random House North Asia and Penguin Random House India companies, with the launch of its Penguin Random House South East Asia publishing operation in 2019.

The mandate of the newly established company, to be based in Singapore, will be to discover and publish local and international voices across English-language adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction formats for Singapore and Malaysia, as well as from Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei, and Myanmar (Burma). At its outset, the company hopes to publish some fifty titles in print and digital formats, adding to the robust and diverse literary creativity of the region, which is seen as one of the most promising of the emerging publishing regions, with much great writing across genres in English and regional languages.

In June, Penguin Random House India further enhanced its presence in its home market with the acquisitionof Hind Pocket Books, one of the country’s oldest and most respected Hindi-language publishers.