New Delhi, Aug. 3 -- Ten years ago, Brigid Hughes, the founding editor and publisher of the literary magazine and imprint A Public Space, was rummaging through the $1 carton at the Housing Works' Bookstore in New York, when a title caught her attention. It was an old copy of a book with a cryptic name, W-3, by a writer called Bette Howland. Hughes had not heard of her before, though a blurb by none other than that icon of American literature Saul Bellow spoke highly of the writing.

As Hughes flipped through the book, her eyes were arrested by a random passage. "All I knew was this: I couldn't take it anymore, no longer could bear this burden of concealment. Things seemed bad enough without adding extra weight. I wanted to be rid of it al...