Booker Prize For Geetanjali Shree May Be A Great Moment For Hindi Literature, But Not Enough For Indian Translations

The euphoria over Geetanjali Shree’s International Booker Prize win has lar­gely to do with the fact that a work in translat­ion, especially from a language like Hin­di, has received £50,000 as reward—an astronomical sum. It’s a great moment for Hindi literature, but it will do precious little for literary translations in India, which grapple with woeful lack of funding, say publishers and translators.

The government established Sahitya Akad­emi in 1954 because it was difficult for indep­endent, unfunded and unfinanced publishers to undertake translations in a multilingual country with 22 Scheduled languages, 122 reg­ional languages and 1,726 mother tongues (at the last count). “It was understood that no private player could support such a labour-intensive endeavour for long,” says Ritu Menon, author and publisher/founder of Women Unlimited. For a majority of publishing houses, both indie and big, translation work has to be subsidised. “No one can sustain a tran­s­l­ation-­only programme; it’s just not possible. With long gestations and slow returns, it can only be a labour of love,” says Menon.

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Literary translation is not economically feas­i­ble. If a stray translation wins an award, the publisher can feel justified for backing the eff­ort. Otherwise, it doesn’t make commercial sense even for people like Menon, who has published translations of Qurratulain Hyder and Ismat Chu­ghtai’s works for over 30 years. Women Unl­i­mited is an associate of Kali for Women, India’s first feminist press, which Men­on established in 1984 with Urvashi Butalia. She didn’t conceive it as a commercial venture, but as a non-profit.

Activist and author Gita Ramaswamy fou­n­ded Hyderabad Book Trust (HBT) with a similar obj­ective: HBT had to stand on its own feet without external funding. This meant shoestr­ing budgets, low salaries and paym­e­nts to translators and aut­hors, and no-expense accounts. In this ecosystem, she loo­ked for pass­i­o­nate tra­n­s­lators. “We were lucky that in the 80s, there were a few people dedicated to translating into Tel­ugu. We were also lucky that bi-lingualism and tri-lingualism prevailed. But after Andhra Pra­desh’s linguistic bifurcation, the need for multi-lingualism has been erased,” she says.

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HBT managed to publish great translations at minimal cost because many authors allowed it to translate gratis. Forty years lat­er, the situation has changed drastically. “While tra­n­slations into and from Telugu have incre­ased substantially, as have the number of publishers involved, quality has taken a beating,” says Ram­a­swamy. Today, aut­hors and English language publishers rarely give away translation permits.  In West­ern countries, the­re are agencies like PEN, Arts Council, etc that fund writing or translation, to give literature a fillip. “Writing in Indian langu­ages gets no such support. Our corporates fund temples but not literature. A society that does not value its literature can’t live by religion alone—it can only go downhill, as is happening in India,” says Rama­­swamy.

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Today, translations happen in all directions—to and from Indian languages, as well as to and from English—but the individuals who have been associated with such ventures are people committed to the idea of translation. Geeta Dharmarajan started Katha in 1988 to introduce Indian readers to the richness of its languages through the Katha Prize Story series: “I was under the illusion that these translations would transform lives. I belie­ved that we could help people in entr­e­n­ched poverty and sorrow to translate their own lives, or to better understand the human predi­c­ament from literature.” Today, she wishes there were ways to stand up against “the robbing of the helpless, the earth and its myriad cultures”.

In 2010, the Union ministry of culture foun­d­ed the platform, Indian Literature Abroad (ILA), to project India’s literary canon on the world stage. It aimed to translate works written in 24 langua­ges in India into eight foreign lang­u­ages. But when the ministry refused to release the promi­sed funds, ILA slipped into irreleva­nce. The proj­ect was later transferred to the Aka­demi, fol­l­o­wing a suggestion by the founder-director of Jaipur Lite­ra­t­ure Festival (JLF) Namita Gok­hale, who had once served as a member of the Centre’s committee to anchor the programme. Along with Neeta Gupta and Shu­­chita Mital, Gokhale co-fou­n­ded Yatra Boo­ks in 2005. Its core activity was translati­ons—­­it published 500 titles in English, Hindi, Marathi, Guja­rati, Telugu, Bengali and Urdu before it wou­nd up in 2021.

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Literary awards for translations, like the JCB Prize or the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, makes no difference to 99 per cent of translations that get publis­hed. For a majority of translators, there is no pecuniary incentive. National Book Trust’s grants for translators are nominal. Mini Krishnan, who ran a successful translation progr­a­mme during her stints with Macmillan and OUP, has now tied up with 14-odd private publishers, including HarperCollins India, Penguin Random House and Niyogi Books, to co-ordinate a project of Tamil-to-English translations. It is a buyback programme—500 copies of every book published are bought by the Tamil Nadu government. 

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Corporate support for translations is hard to come by. Shinjini Kumar, co-founder of Indian Novels Collective (INC), a not-for-profit initiative to promote Indian storytelling in translation, par­t­nered with Speaking Tiger and JSW Foundation after she started the collective in 2017. Their first two books were translated by Daisy Rockwell and Jerry Pinto—Usha Priyamvada’s Fifty Five Pillars and Red Walls and Vishram Bedekar’s Battleship, respectively. The collective was born when she realised ‘the need for building a dialogue around Ind­ians novels in translation’. She recollects:  “Our concern arose from the lack of visibility for regional literature, even though some quality tra­nslations had started to appear. We felt this could be achieved using digital media, partnering with litfests, and working with publishers.”

Indie publisher Seagull Books stays afloat with fun­ds from European age­­ncies and embassies by tra­n­­sl­ating works from their countries. “No book ever becomes a profit centre. Some compensate for oth­ers,” says its editor  Bishan Samaddar.

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In such a scenario, the onus of translating literature in Indian languages rests upon a creaking Sahitya Akademi. “Our core activity is translati­ons,” says Sreenivasarao. The Akademi’s ann­ual translation award is given to books across 24 lang­uages. But the amount, Rs 50,000 for each translation, is too little in excha­nge for the arduous task.

Awards can help put a translated work on the literary map. But they hardly make any difference to the world of translations.

(This appeared in the print edition as "No Country for Translations")