'A Number Of Great Indian Writers Are Not Known In The Rest Of The World'

(Lakshmi Holmström was unwell when contacted for an interview over e-mail.However, she answered some of our questions, "not always in the same order,and sometimes combining more than one question.")

Tell us about yourself. How did you begin translating and why?
My first degree was in Eng Lit, my postgraduate work at Oxford Universitywas on R.K. Narayan; my critical concerns since then have been women’s writingfrom India, and Tamil literature. It feels as if it has been a naturalprogression into translation. I have done bits and pieces of translation formany years, and (like many others from the 1960s onwards) was inspired by thework of A.K. Ramanujan. The first piece of translation that I published wasAmbai’s short story, Yellow Fish which I included in my anthology, TheInner Courtyard, a collection of short stories by Indian women.

How much time do you normally take to translate a book?
How long does it take? How long is a piece of string? In some sense, atranslation is never finished, one can go on doing it better, doing itdifferently. The text isn’t fixed in time; the translator changes, languagechanges.

What has been your experience translating Karrukku considering the fact thatit is a complex book with a unique narrative?
I was deeply interested in Bama’s work even before Mini Krishnan asked meto translate Karukku. This is because I had just been translating an enormouslyinteresting novel called Koveru Kazhudaigal by Imayam just before that, and wasvery impressed (and moved) by what has become known as Dalit writing in Tamil. Isought out and read a good deal of this material, so it was both a challenge anda privilege to work on Karukku and to have the opportunity to meet andtalk to Bama.
Yes, I think it is unique as an autobiography for its outspokenness in someways, and its reticence in other ways. It speaks very directly from its angerand its pain - and I wanted desperately to convey something of that. I wanted toconvey something of its colloquiality and the way it speaks directly to thereader. But also its dignity, its hard-won self respect.

In the introduction to the book you say: Bama does not make any connectionbetween caste and gender oppressions. Didn’t you find that intriguing and didyou discover the reason why she didn’t do so in course of your translation?
Bama chooses not to make a connection in this, her first book, between casteand gender oppressions; she is single-mindedly focussed on the caste oppressionwithin the church, from her own individual experience. Of course I spoke to herabout it. But as she points out, Karukku was followed by Sangatiand Kisumbukkaaran, both of which move away from individual experience tothe experience of the community: Sangati is the story of a community of women, Kisumbukkaaranis a collection of short stories about the experiences of Dalit men and women.

Tell me, is translation a mechanical act or is there a lot of creativityinvolved?
It has never been a mechanical exercise. In any case, translation is never asimple case of rendering a text from one language to another, is it? There isthe difficult question of interpretation. And then the most interesting textsare ringed round with meanings, and an adequate translation ought to carrysomething like the same (or similar) range of meanings.

What is the state of translations in India? Is it true that it is not beingtaken all that seriously in India? I mean shouldn’t more works in other Indianlanguages be translated into English…
I think there is some excellent translation coming from India, but I thinkit would be useful to know what the readership is within the country, and whothe readers are of these translations. There is more we can do aboutdistinguishing between good and not so good translations, about the status ofthe source texts that are being translated, about how translated texts are read,reviewed and taught. I do believe that India is uniquely placed because of ourdifferent languages, and the absolute necessity of good translations if we areto know each other’s literatures and learn from them.

Don’t you think a number of great Indian writers have not been introduced tothe world because of the unavailability of their works in translation?
Of course a number of great Indian writers are not known in the rest of theworld. It is not simply a matter of the lack of good, lively, creativetranslations of well chosen authors, but the lack of mainstream publishers whowill take them on and give them the publicity they deserve.