Out of Print

About Out of Print

Out of Print is an online literary journal devoted to short fiction bearing a connection to the Indian subcontinent, written in or translated into English. Founded by the Bangalore-based writer and editor Indira Chandrasekhar, it went live in 2010 and has published quarterly issues ever since, reaching its 60th issue in mid-2026. The journal is published at outofprintmagazine.co.in and maintains a free, openly accessible archive of its entire run — fifteen years of South Asian short fiction that readers can consult without payment. Its tenth anniversary was marked by an anthology co-published with Context Books in 2020, reissued in 2023. Described on its own site as an award-winning literary journal, Out of Print has become one of the most durable homes for short fiction from the subcontinent.

Founding in 2010

The idea for Out of Print arose, in founder Indira Chandrasekhar's account, in the "relatively arid landscape of 2008," when there were very few platforms featuring work from and connected to the subcontinent. Chandrasekhar — a scientist, fiction writer and literary curator whose collection of short stories, Polymorphism, was published by HarperCollins, and who co-edited the anthology Pangea for Thames River Press — first discussed the seed of the idea with early readers including James Brunner, Mira Brunner and Samhita Arni, whose encouragement helped turn the concept into a working magazine. When the journal went live in 2010, it was conceived from the outset as a place where the strength of a story, and the editors' response to it, would determine selection — an "alternate and intangible filter" that the magazine says it remains committed to.

Editorial philosophy

Out of Print was founded on the principle that short fiction deserves a dedicated, serious platform and that editorial judgment should rest on the quality of the writing rather than on metrics of success. The journal does not seek thematic coherence in its issues; instead, each story is chosen because the editors see something in it, a method that the founder says can produce an apparently random but subliminally connected set of pieces. The journal set out both to welcome emerging writers — many of whom send their very first submissions to Out of Print — and to appeal to well-known and established writers, giving readers a standard of good stories against which new work could be measured. The site's design reflects this reader-first philosophy: the layout, developed with counsel from Jayadeva H, Chicku Jayadeva and their team at Resource, emphasises simplicity and a calm reading space, while the visual identity was shaped by Yamuna Mukherjee of Kiri Design, Bangalore.

What the journal publishes

Each issue of Out of Print typically features around nine stories, accompanied by an editor's note that introduces the selection. The stories examine the concerns of the subcontinent in many modes — funny, serious, reflective, first person, third person, linear, surreal — and the editors have noted how often their protagonists are engaged in a subterranean search for something. Issue 60, for instance, included Anjum Hasan's "Like a Scene from All Those Movies," set in a Bangalore of more than twenty years ago and republished with the author's own commentary on revisiting the story decades after it was written. Issue 55 featured Vrinda Baliga's "Breakout," the winner of the inaugural Bangalore Writer's R K Anand Prize for short fiction, alongside stories set everywhere from an old Bombay chawl to a forest trek.

The translation programme

A substantial share of the journal's content is translated fiction, reflecting the linguistic diversity of the subcontinent. The fiftieth issue was built largely around translations: "Mother Bereft of Traces" by the Telugu Dalit writer Joopaka Subhadra, translated by Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar; "Twilight" by the Tamil Dalit writer Bama, translated by Anjum Khan; "The News" by Hari Krishna Kaul, translated from Kashmiri in a collaborative process by Kalpana Raina, Tanveer Ajsi, Gowhar Fazili and Gowhar Yaqoob; and "A Song of Love and Thirst" by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated from Bangla by Arunava Sinha. Issue 33 paid tribute to the Urdu writer Mustansar Hussain Tarar on his eightieth birthday and to the Hindi writer Krishna Sobti, carrying one of her earliest and most celebrated stories, "Sikka Badal Gaya," in Daisy Rockwell's translation under the English title "The Currency has Changed." The journal has also published reprints, such as Amit Chaudhuri's "Ajitesh Uncle" from a 1998 anthology, and original English stories by writers including Sumana Roy and Vandana Singh.

Contributors and editorial community

The journal's contributor list ranges from debut authors to some of the most decorated names in South Asian writing. The editors have acknowledged the writers who contribute, the artists who share their work and the readers who support short fiction from the subcontinent as the three constituencies that sustain the magazine. Early readers who helped set the tone included Ajit Chandrasekhar, Jai Brunner, Ila Pinglay and Mary E. Brunner, alongside the Brunners and Samhita Arni. The editorial team has grown over the years — a 2016 editor's note named Ram Sadasiv and Leela Levitt as editors carrying the project forward from the tone set by its founders — and the journal continues to credit the diversity of editorial approach within its team as a strength of each issue.

Design and cover art

Out of Print has paid consistent attention to visual presentation, commissioning original cover art for its issues. The cover of the 25th issue was by the photographer Dayanita Singh; the cover of Issue 55 was by the artist Bharati Kapadia. The emphasis on calm, focused design — a legacy of the early collaboration with Kiri Design — distinguishes the journal from the denser layouts of many online magazines and reinforces its identity as a space for unhurried reading. As the site has been refined and updated over the years, the editors have said they intend to keep the pivotal aspects of the original design in mind.

Anniversaries and the anthology

Milestone issues have been occasions for stock-taking. The 25th issue's editor's note thanked the many people who had played a seminal role in creating, setting up and running the journal. The 50th issue, released in late 2023, brought together invited authors the editors had long admired but who had not previously appeared in its pages, alongside respected translators. The tenth anniversary was marked in print: an anthology celebrating ten years of the magazine was co-published with Context Books in 2020 and reissued in 2023, carrying a selection of its stories to bookshops and to readers who had never encountered the journal online. The 58th issue, appearing in the journal's fifteenth year, reflected on what it means to run a literary magazine and on the importance of the free archive the journal has built.

The free digital archive

One of the journal's most significant achievements is its archive: fifteen years of South Asian literature, free and accessible to all. The editors have argued that while writing in English on the subcontinent may be associated with a specific literacy, the journal's archive establishes that it is not irrelevant — and that commentary by writers in English adds, in a critical way, to reflection on how and where society stands. For students, researchers and general readers, the archive functions as a searchable library of contemporary subcontinental short fiction and translation, spanning the 2010s and 2020s. The journal is published from Bangalore, a city whose literary culture — including institutions such as Sangam House and the Bangalore Literature Festival milieu — has provided a natural home for the project.

Place in Indian letters

Within Indian literary publishing, Out of Print occupies a distinctive niche as a journal devoted exclusively to short fiction connected to the subcontinent. Trade directories of Indian online magazines have listed it since its early years as a platform for short fiction with a subcontinental connection, open to both established writers and first-time authors. Its combination of original English writing, ambitious translation, professional design and a free archive has made it a reference point for the short-story form in South Asia. Sixteen years after it went live, the journal continues to publish quarterly issues, sustained by the conviction on which it was founded: that a good story, well chosen and well presented, needs no other justification.