Translations of fiction are always something to look forward to: for they can mean encounters with new images, metaphors and sensibilities. The work of English translation from Indian languages assumes an added political significance at a time when large numbers of Indians can read only in English and enjoy only a colloquial hold over Indian languages. The institutional consequences of the rise of a dominant class of deracinated Indians are of course yet to be properly understood.
In this situation, one feels especially grateful for the quiet determination and diligent scholarship with which Mini Krishnan, editor of the recently launched Oxford Novellas series, and her colleagues elsewhere, have sought to make literary texts in bhashas available in English over the last many years.
The first publishing initiative of its kind in the country, the Oxford Novellas give exclusive space for a literary form which has seen classics such as Poornachandra Tejaswi’s Carvalho and Asokamitran’s Water in India (and elsewhere, George...
THIS ARTICLE IS PRICELESS...
To read this piece, and more such stories in India's most exciting and exacting magazine, plus get access to our 25-year archives goldmine, please subscribe.
