Jaya Chatterjee

Jaya Chatterjee – Editor

Yale University Press editor with fifteen years of experience publishing award-winning non-fiction

Overview

I began my publishing career in the trade book division of W.W. Norton & Company, and joined Yale University Press in 2009.


At Yale, I have acquired and edited trade and scholarly non-fiction, including a Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner, National Jewish Book Award finalists, and books shortlisted and longlisted for the Cundill History Prize, shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. My books have been bestsellers, and have been warmly reviewed in Arts & Letters Daily, Commentary, Dissent, the Economist, the Financial Times, the Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, the Literary Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Nation, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, the New Republic, Publishers Weekly, the Times Literary Supplement, the Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. They have been serialized in the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, Harper’s Magazine, and Lapham’s Quarterly, too.


I have contributed book reviews and essays to the Los Angeles Review of Books, NPR's website, Ploughshares, and the Times Literary Supplement. In addition, I have shared my knowledge of the industry as a faculty member and panelist at workshops for prospective authors and employees at colleges, universities, and literary festivals around the world, and currently volunteer for the Association of University Presses.


In recognition of my contributions to the industry, I was named a finalist for the Yale Publishing Course's Innovative Leader Scholarship, ranked #1 among editors of history, politics, and current affairs books by Publishers Marketplace, profiled by the Wellesley College alumnae magazine and by Publishers Weekly (which, along with the American Booksellers Association, named me a top professional in publishing), and awarded fellowships to travel to Finland, Sweden, and Turkey.


As a freelancer for Reedsy, I welcome opportunities to provide book coaching, editorial assessments, editing, and proofreading for manuscripts that will be self-published.


Photo Credit: Lovelee Paws Photography LLC

Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs Geography History Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies Music Political Science & Current Affairs Religion & Spirituality Travel
Languages
English (CAN) English (UK) English (US)

Work experience

Yale University Press

Sep, 2009 — Present

W.W. Norton & Company

May, 2007 — Aug, 2007 (3 months)

Portfolio

Shadows at Noon

Joya Chatterji

A groundbreaking view of South Asian history in the twentieth century that underlines the similarities and intertwined cultures of India and Pakistan“[A] definitive new 20th-century thematic history of the Indian subcontinent that rejects hegemonic conceptions... read more
The Great Transformation

Odd Arne Westad

Yale University Press

The first thorough account of a formative and little understood chapter in Chinese history Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke fr... read more
What Really Went Wrong

Fawaz A. Gerges

Yale University Press

An ambitious revisionist history of the modern Middle East What Really Went Wrong offers a fresh and incisive assessment of American foreign policy’s impact on the history and politics of the modern Middle East. Looking at flashpoints in Iranian, Egyptian, Syr... read more
A captivating biography of one of the world’s greatest adventurers, the itinerant Mughal Princess Gulbadan, based on her long-forgotten memoir“Finally, a serious consideration of Gulbadan’s achievement.’”—Kirkus ReviewsSituated in the early decades of the magn... read more
On Wars

Michael Mann

A history of wars through the ages and across the world, and the irrational calculations that so often lie behind themBenjamin Franklin once said, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” But what determines whether war or peace is chosen? Award-winning so... read more
My Egypt Archive

Alan Mikhail

A prominent historian provides an engaging on-the-ground account of the everyday authoritarianism that produced the Arab Spring in Egypt “A visceral and perceptive study of life under autocracy.”—Publishers Weekly An unmatched contemporary history of authorita... read more
A pioneering history of cross-cultural knowledge that exposes enduring fractures in unity across the world’s largest continentThe nineteenth century saw European empires build vast transport networks to maximize their profits from trade, and it saw Christian m... read more
The Globalization Myth

Shannon K O'Neil

A case for why regionalization, not globalization, has been the biggest economic trend of the past forty yearsThe conventional wisdom about globalization is wrong. Over the past forty years as companies, money, ideas, and people went abroad more often than not... read more
The story of the diverse communities of Eastern Europe’s borderlands in the centuries prior to World War II “A powerful combination of history and personal memoir . . . A richly contextual, skillfully woven historical study.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Fo... read more
Taliban

Ahmed Rashid

A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Following the U.S-Taliban peace deal of February 2020 - and the U.S's promised withdrawal from Afghanistan - the Taliban began terrorizing Afghan security forces, civilians and the government in Kabul. By August 2021, the group h... read more
A leading historian’s guide to great-power competition, as told through America’s successes and failures in the Cold War“If you want to know how America can win today's rivalries with Russia and China, read this book about how it triumphed in another twilight ... read more
The War on Music

John Mauceri

A prominent conductor explores how aesthetic criteria masked the political goals of countries during the three great wars of the past centuryThis book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the twentieth century. John Mauceri argues that the history... read more
Goering’s Man in Paris

Jonathan Petropoulos

A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art worldBruno Lohse (1911–2007) was one of the most notorious art plunderers in history. Appointed by Hermann Göring to Hitler’s special art looting agency, he went on to supe... read more
The Emperor’s New Road

Jonathan E. Hillman

A prominent authority on China’s Belt and Road Initiative reveals the global risks lurking within Beijing’s project of the centuryChina’s Belt and Road Initiative is the world’s most ambitious and misunderstood geoeconomic vision. To carry out President Xi Jin... read more
The Woman on the Windowsill

Sylvia Sellers-Garcia

A true story of violence and punishment that illuminates a transformative moment in Guatemalan historyOn the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Díaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair ... read more
The definitive biography of Soviet Jewish dissident writer Vasily Grossman If Vasily Grossman’s 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhen... read more
An eloquent call to draw on the lessons of the past to address current threats to international orderThe ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could s... read more
Iran

Abbas Amanat

A masterfully researched history of Iran from 1501 to 2009“The defiant spirit of [Iran] is brought to life in this monumental history of the past 500 years.”—Richard Spencer, The Times (London)“A majestic work that goes a long way in unraveling . . . the count... read more
A groundbreaking look at the future of great power competition in an age of globalization and what the United States can do in response The two decades after the Cold War saw unprecedented cooperation between the major powers as the world converged on a model ... read more
The story of North Korea's information underground and how it inspires people to seek better lives beyond their country’s borders One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from ... read more

Jaya has 22 reviews

Professionalism

Quality

Value

Responsiveness

Steve P.

Steve P.

Sep, 2024

Sorry for the belated response. I was gone for several weeks and I know Jaya was unavailable for a while as well. Just in the last two weeks have I been able to spend quality time with Jaya's editing of my proposal and sample chapters, and I want to confirm that this was a hugely positive experience. I appreciated her sharp eye and insights and I think, after making most of her suggested revisi...
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Stef K.

Stef K.

Aug, 2024

I had the pleasure of working with Jaya as my developmental and content editor as was highly satisfied with the experience. Jaya was incredibly kind and always made me feel supported throughout the editing process. She was also extremely responsive, always getting back to me quickly with thoughtful feedback. Her diligence in reviewing my work was evident, and the tips she provided were not only...
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Nicole R.

Nicole R.

May, 2023

Jaya has been a fantastic editor for my manuscript right from the start. I was impressed by her background, which is one of the reasons I hired her. She delivered everything on time and was responsive to all my questions. She is a true professional and an absolute pleasure to work with. If you’re looking for an editor, look no further! I highly recommend Jaya and would hire her again in the fut...
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Danial J.

Danial J.

Feb, 2023

Working with Jaya was great. Her experiences working at Yale University Press really caught my eye. Got rid of tons of typos throughout my manuscript, and she made it much more professional. I would definitely look to hire her again in the future!
Jerry S.

Jerry S.

Dec, 2022

Everything went as expected.

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