Frederick Noronha founded and leads Goa,1556, an alternative book publishing initiative in Goa that has published 60+ mostly non-fiction titles in the small State, since its launch in 2007.
Noronha has spent a lifetime in journalism, himself collects books on Goa and reviews a range of non-fiction titles for the local and national media. He has been one of the early participants and contributors to cyberspace working out of Goa Goa, and has been part of some of the pioneering cyberventures that grew out of Goa. He is known for building cyber networks, including one for alternative publishers in India on Yahoogroups.
Goa,1556 — named after the accidental arrival of the first Gutenberg-type printing press in Asia four and half centuries ago — is credited for contributing significantly to encouraging access to the nascent book market in Goa. It was the first institutional awardee of the Vincente Verodiano Award (2012) for its initiatives in this field.
Its books are mainly in English, but Goa,1556 has also published the occasional title in Konkani, Portuguese and Spanish. Its aim is to serve smaller ‘peripheral’ reading communities (such as Goa, but not restricted to it) which may not be seen as viable markets for larger players in the publishing space. Another crucial goal is to make relevant, localised and affordable books available to readers, and promote the viability of limited print-run titles in small markets. Goa,1556 promotes the use of Free Software tools in publishing, local content, and intends to work more seriously both on writing for children as well as working on translations, particularly on languages of interest along the west coast of India (such as Konkani, Marathi and, for historical reasons, Portuguese).