Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is either an ‘accidental’ editor who strayed into publishing from a career in finance and accounts or an ‘accidental’ finance person who found his calling in publishing. As editor at HarperCollins Publishers India and Penguin Books India, he set up the copy editorial team and helped launch what came to be regarded as the go-to cinema, music and culture list in Indian publishing, almost exclusively publishing first-time authors who have gone on to become the most recognized names in cinema writing in the country, as also working out co-pub arrangements with organizations like the Satyajit Ray Society. Books commissioned and edited by him have won the National Award for Best Book on Cinema six times and the inaugural MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Award for Best Writing on Cinema. He also initiated a joint cinema imprint with MAMI, the first of its kind in Indian publishing. He has published authors like Satyajit Ray, Gulzar, Arun Shourie, Rishi Kapoor, Anita Nair, Manu Joseph, Rakhshanda Jalil, Vishal Bhardwaj, among others. As chief editor at Om Books International, he has published books across a wide spectrum of genres.