Prutha Goa

The dynamic duo of the publishing world in Goa, Leonard and Queenie Fernandes, prove that partnerships can be successful at every level: as spouses and as business partners. Their award winning publishing company CinnamonTeal Publishing, now called CinnamonTeal Design and Publishing, has come a long way since the initial stirrings of their book publishing venture. Leonard has a Bachelor of Engineering from Goa University and an MBA from the Ohio State University. He has worked at Tata Infotech Solutions, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield in Cincinnati, CarrefourSA in Istanbul, and at Bank One in Columbus. Queenie, a former student of Carmel College for Women, Goa, has a Master of Economics from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune and has experience in working on research projects for Maharashtra Industrial and Technical Consultants Limited (Mitcon) and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics. She has also been part of the India-Irrigation Impact Study Project of t

Amita Kanekar’s new historical novel Fear of Lions transports us into the world of Aurangzeb – a world of contradictions, where extravagant lifestyle and abject poverty are prevalent side by side…where a rebellion so powerful, led by a rumoured witch, threatens the Mughal Empire. This is Amita’s second novel after A Spoke in the Wheel, which was set during the period of Emperor Ashoka’s rule.  The novel took about 15 years to reach its culmination with the interspersion of other works such as The Portuguese Sea Forts of Goa, with Chaul, Korlai and Vasai along the way. It was mainly reworking the original writing and more in depth research that took up time. ‘I changed my attitude to the story and the way I looked at how it should be written because of exposure to ideas about caste, about anti-caste struggle, because basically this is an anti-caste story,’ says Amita.  The struggle of taking the research she had done and drawing a well-crafted appealing story out of it was a real one