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Kitaab Club is a Delhi-based reading community founded by Sneha Misran in 2014 that has grown from campus book discussions into a wider cultural and literacy initiative, hosting book swaps, author conversations, heritage walks, vinyl listening sessions, film screenings and punk events. The club has also worked on rural reading programmes and is now starting a free community library in Dallupura, East Delhi, with books, computers, reading spaces and facilities for local children and families.
Kitaab Club started in 2014 with Sneha Misran, then a Hindu College student, gathering people around books in empty Delhi University classrooms. What began as a student-led reading community has since grown into something much wider: a book club, literacy organisation, cultural programme and growing network of community libraries. Sneha’s sister Navya Misran, who joined Kitaab after entering Hindu College in 2019, is now its co-founder and creative director. Together, they have taken the club from campus rooms into cafés, parks, bookshops, galleries and music venues across Delhi.
Kitaab has found plenty of ways to turn a shared interest in books into an excuse to get together. One gathering might pair a book with a vinyl record, like its sessions around Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, where records by Ella Fitzgerald and Roberta Flack helped open up the world of the novel. Another could be a history walk through Lodhi Gardens, with readers moving through the city while discussing its past. There are book swaps where you bring something from your shelf and leave with another person’s pick, author conversations such as the launch of Muddasir Ramzan’s The Man from Kashmir, and evenings like After Hours with a Professor, where Dr Shashi Bhushan discussed the Constitution alongside conversations about Pyaasa, Guru Dutt, dissent and art.
Kitaab has hosted Poetry & Punk, pairing readings from the punk literary canon with a live set by Jaded Clowns, as well as Punks Day Out, which brought together poetry, graffiti, film, visual art and music. Its book-and-vinyl parties have featured live performances, records by MF DOOM and Madlib, and even art prints.
The organisation has worked across six states, running rural reading programmes, building libraries and reaching more than 10,000 readers. Now, it is taking that work to Dallupura in East Delhi, where more than 200 children already use a community space that also has a silai centre for local women and a health centre. Kitaab is turning existing rooms into a free community library for a neighbourhood of more than 150,000 people, many from migrant families, with Hindi and English books, comics, picture books, novels, encyclopedias, science and history books, computers, reading corners, artwork and shelves. They are accepting donations to make it happen.
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