{ 1 comment }
From the category archives:
India
These days, it’s no secret that translated literature gets short shrift. It has become a well-known fact that just three percent (or less) of all literature published in the United States is translated from another language. These days, too, its hardly less well-known that many publishers and book pages still shy away from translated lit for fear that the taint of a foreign language will chase away coveted consumers.
Still, translation is in a much better place now than even ten years ago. Thanks to the work of some inspired publishers and advocates, the worth of translated lit—and our gross negligence in not publishing more of it—is becoming better known. We’re even getting a certain amount of access to some of the best contemporary writing the world outside the United States has to offer.
So far we’ve come, yet still so far to go. We have the Tolstoys, yes, we even have the Murakamis, but there is so much classic and contemporary literature still out there that has never been published in English—never ever. So, to acknowledge all that’s out there, to inspire readers to thirst for more literature not originally written in English, and to do a service for those publishers in search of the next great translated book, we offer this collection of recommendations.
We’ve talked to some of the top translators into English working today; we’ve talked to publishers big and small; we’ve talked to agents, journalists, and foreign-language authors. We’ve asked them all for the best books that still aren’t in English. And have they responded. They’ve told us TRANSLATE THIS BOOK!, and now we pass that on to you.
Just as I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably never finish my “lifetime reading list” within the allotted time, along comes The Quarterly Conversation with a reminder that there are whole worlds of literature yet untranslated into the world’s de facto lingua franca [Latin was my only "foreign" language in high school].
Although there is a lot of wonderful writing in English from India, there is a rich literary tradition in Bengali that remains untranslated. As I’m unlikely to pick up a thorough knowledge of that language over the next few decades, I’d like to read more in translation.
{ 0 comments }
via hinduonnet.com
Photographer Preston Merchant has been traveling the world documenting the global diaspora of people from India. Indo-Carribean “Chutney Soca” music, South African “bunny chow,” Manhattan Bhangra nights, and more.
The resulting book (forthcoming) should be fascinating.
{ 0 comments }
Some lovely moments… captured in Mumbai I think?
{ 0 comments }
Nandan Nilekani inspired Thomas Friedman‘s famous “flat world” buzzphrase with the simple observation that technology and globalization had opened doors to developing countries as never before. In a new book of his own, Nilekani, the co-founder of Infosys, outlines the cultural and political shifts underway (and still incomplete) in India. Here’s an interesting point from the book as summarized in a review in the Economist:
It is easy to forget that many Indians once viewed computers as “man-eating machines”, entrepreneurs as predators and the English language as a cause of “brain fag”. The country that feared a “population bomb” now celebrates its “demographic dividend”. These ideas took a circuitous route into favour. English, for example, was retained as a language of government and education, not because of its literary charms or commercial appeal, but because the southern states and the downtrodden castes hated Hindi more. [more here]
It is a fascinating story of unforeseen changes in ideas and institutions, and the next chapters in India’s history will no doubt hold many surprises too. There is nothing inevitable about economic growth, liberalization, and social change. But, with one of the few economies expected to grow in 2009, what happens to India is vitally important to the rest of the world–not to mention her own billion or so people.
{ 0 comments }
A.R. Rahman’s Slumdog Oscars are sparking interest in contemporary music from India.
Hopefully, the resulting trend is flowing in this direction and not this one.
{ 0 comments }
Edward Luce, a correspondent for the Financial Times, drew on his years in India and his eye for business and policy to explore the emerging Indian economy. So far, it appears to be a judicious and balanced account of the rise of a new, democratic world power. It’s not all a tale of “India Shining,” as the boosters call it, nor is it a story that ends with last November’s massacre in Bombay. More later.
{ 0 comments }
Can Western artists observe, imagine, and interpret “The Other” in ways that aren’t implicitly or explicitly denigrating? A murmuring controversy over Danny Boyle’s Bombay epic Slumdog Millionaire has raised the question. Chitra Divakaruni writes in the Los Angeles Times:
…the objection that only Indians (preferably, only Indians living in India) can truly understand the complexities of their country and show an authentic India… arises out of a misunderstanding of the nature of art. Decades of abuse from Orientalist writers who have objectified and denigrated India in order to promote an agenda of Western superiority have fostered this mind-set.
But the world is different now. It has moved past colonialism — and even post-colonialism, I dare say — into globalism. It is a world in which we can know more about each other — and hear each other’s uncensored voices. Thus, it is now far more possible for artists, regardless of their race, to create a valid representation of a culture, if they have done their homework and are passionate about portraying the truth as they see it.
That argument may seem a little glib to those who embrace the dominant academic paradigm established by Edward Said. But just as scholars have begun to chip away at the edifice of Said’s theories of Orientalism, artists–visual, literary, and cinematic–have continued to circumvent historical and national barriers. I’d like to think that, as a notorious Western classical music fan himself, Edward Said would be gladdened by a more confident and respectful globalism among artists.
{ 0 comments }
