Words In Migration

They Made Headlines...

• My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose, translated by Arunava Sinha
• Chowringhee by Sankar, translated by Arunava Sinha
• Bharathipura, by Ananthamurthy, translated by Sushila Punitha
• The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, translated by Pritham K. Chakravarthy
• Litanies of Dutch Battery by N.S. Madhavan, translated by Rajesh Raja Mohan
• The Hour Past Midnight by Salma, translated by Lakshmi Holstrom
• The Fakir by Sunil Gangopadhyay, translated by Monabi Mitra

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In fact, the curious buzz around translated works now suggests that Chowringhee’s English success was more than a flash in the pan. Last month, four translations made it to the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature longlist and The Hindu Literary Prize shortlist, contesting in the category of original works in English. In The Hindu’s prize shortlist of seven books, three are translations. “The fact that so many translated works are in the running will mark a shift in the market and generate curiosity,” says author and literary consultant Mita Kapur. Authors previously restricted to regions are now on the national pedestal; their works are gaining pan-Indian readership.

“For a very long time, I resisted having my books translated because I was afraid the beauty of a language cannot be replicated in another language,” says Chandrakanta, a Hindi novelist whose work, A Street in Srinagar, is on the DSC longlist this year. “Gradually, I realised it was the only way I can share my stories about Kashmir, to which I belong, with more people. I want people to know that Kashmir is not only about militancy, there is a rich culture, history.” N.S. Madhavan, a Malayalam writer, echoes the sentiment: “If anything is lost in translation, I’ve got it back through a larger readership.”

In many ways then, translation is the big story of contemporary Indian literature. “In a post-colonial country like ours, we’re looking to anchor ourselves, searching subconsciously for identity and cultural security,” says Mini Krishnan, translations editor at Oxford University Press. Simultaneously, there is a sense that the Indian novel in English has, on that account, failed to portray the reality of Indian life, overlaid as it is with regional flavours; that gap, many believe, can be filled by translations of regional works into English. “Regional books have a deeper link with tradition and cultural reality, an unseen power that something written in English may not have,” says Mini.

This recognition of translations into English was bound to happen, says Aruni Kashyap, novelist and translator from Assam. “In the last few years, the English media has been talking about how Indian English literature has taken a turn to represent a darker India, but regional fiction has been doing it for so long,” he says. Sinha, the translator of Chowringhee, agrees: “Times have changed. Publishers are far more interested in contemporary translations because they realise there is already so much tested material out there. The whole body of contemporary Bengali, Tamil or Marathi fiction is far superior to Indian English literature because English is not a language we live as yet.”

The story of translations, of course, is as dynamic as its audience. “India lives in a constant state of translation, and now there is a steadily growing world interest in Indian literature,” points out Namita Gokhale, author and co-founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival. More crucially, what also marks a shift in the genre is a new brand of translators, who come with an altogether fresh approach and spirit. They may not enjoy the heavy-duty academic entry point of translation veterans like A.K. Ramanujan, William Radice, Gillian Wright and Sujit Mukherjee; their motivations, actually, are far simpler: to share what they enjoy reading with others who speak another language. For example, Aparna Chaudhari, a student who attempted Tagore’s He Shey when she was in school, translated the novel because she wanted to engage with it further. Then there is US-based software architect Rajesh Raja Mohan, who stumbled upon translation by “sheer accident”, and has already won an award for his first full-length book translation, Madhavan’s Litanies of Dutch Battery, which has been on the bestseller list in Hyderabad for a few weeks and is on The Hindu prize shortlist. “The new approach is not to get stuck with intangible notions, the trend is definitely towards making the text more accessible, more readable to targeted readers,” says Raja Mohan. Today’s translations are livelier, spicier, more animated, says Sinha.

Earlier, translators were from the official stream, those accustomed to translating files or textbooks. This is one reasons their translations were dry, unemotional pieces of exactitude. “Now, there are writers and poets who translate. This lends a whole new depth to their work,” says Ira Pande, writer and jury chair at the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

Susheela Punitha, a writer whose translation of U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Bharathipura has made it to both literary prizes, says, “New translation also signifies cross-cultural sharing, within and outside the country. The scaffolding of power in the translation process has disintegrated; the writer and translator engage in a dialogue through the text; style and structure flow from one language to another, giving the local greater life and validity through the global.”

Hit & double-run Pritham Chakravarthy with her successful pulp anthologies. (Photograph by P. Anil Kumar)

Translators and authors muse that publishers can now be a lot more ambitious with the number of copies they put out and how they market a translation. Says V.K. Karthika, editor, HarperCollins, “The time for translations is now. We have writing in the regional languages that’s among the best in the world. We are pioneering a trend where books in regional languages and their translations are launched together.” Meanwhile, Penguin, which already has a wide-ranging translation list, is looking to revamp with new translations of Khusro, Lal Ded, the Kama Sutra, the Gitanjali and Zafarnama. It’s also tapping young regional writers: next year, it’s bringing out Malayalam writer Benyamin’s bestselling, award-winning Goat Days. Katha, where translations have been nursed to life for more than two decades, is leading an initiative in translations for children. Literary events are taking the trend forward, and the Jaipur Literature Festival, where translations have been part of the agenda, will have an even greater focus on translations in the coming year. It’s still a story in the making, but one with good prospects, after all. The floodgates are sure to burst if one of the translations were to win the two big literary prizes coming up.