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Queer Ink was founded in Mumbai in 2010 by Shobhna S Kumar as India’s first online queer bookstore.
What began as a response to the difficulty of finding queer books in India has evolved into an independent publishing and archival organisation dedicated to documenting, preserving, and sharing queer lives, histories, and literature.
Over the years, Queer Ink has expanded from bookselling into publishing, archives, a digital library, and public knowledge exchange. While the work has grown and changed, its purpose has remained constant: to make queer stories, histories, and knowledge more visible, accessible, and enduring.
Four Interconnected Areas of Work
- Publishing: Creating and circulating new queer literature and scholarship.
- Archives: Preserving personal, organisational, and community histories.
- Digital Library: Providing access to books, documents, oral histories, and curated collections.
- Public Engagement: Creating opportunities for conversation, learning, and knowledge exchange.
Together, these initiatives help ensure that queer stories are not only created but also preserved, discovered, and carried forward.
Why We Exist
Queer lives in India have often been under-published, under-documented, and under-preserved. Stories have disappeared. Records have been lost. Books have gone out of print. Community histories have remained scattered across personal collections, organisational archives, and individual memories.
As a result, many people looking for themselves in the historical record have found very little. Queer Ink exists in response to this absence.
We believe that literature, archives, access, and dialogue matter deeply:
- Publishing creates new knowledge.
- Archives preserve memory.
- Libraries make knowledge discoverable.
- QConversations keep knowledge alive through dialogue and community exchange.
Together, these elements allow ideas, experiences, and histories to circulate across generations. Our work is guided by a simple commitment: to strengthen the record of queer India and to make it easier for people to find, engage with, and contribute to that record. We are building not only for today’s community, but also for those who will come looking years from now.
"Publishing creates memory for the future. Archives protect the memory of the past. Between them lies the work of cultural continuity. - Shobhna S Kumar"
Leadership
Shobhna S Kumar founded Queer Ink in 2010 and has spent more than fifteen years building initiatives that connect publishing, archives, and public knowledge.
Working at the intersection of publishing and archives, she focuses on creating pathways through which queer stories, histories, and cultural memory can be documented, preserved, and shared. Her work is grounded in the belief that literature and historic preservation play an essential role in how communities understand their past, recognise themselves in the present, and imagine their futures.
Under her leadership, Queer Ink has grown from India’s first online queer bookstore into an organisation encompassing publishing, archives, a digital library, and public engagement initiatives.
Community & Collaborators
Queer Ink has always been shaped by collaboration. Over the years, writers, editors, archivists, researchers, librarians, designers, translators, students, volunteers, institutions, and collection contributors have all played vital roles in the development of this work.
We are profoundly grateful to the many individuals and organisations who have shared their knowledge, records, expertise, trust, and support along the way. While Queer Ink remains founder-led, it is sustained and strengthened by a wider community. Every book published, record preserved, and conversation hosted becomes part of a larger effort to ensure that future generations can find the stories and knowledge that came before them.
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