English-language pulp fiction translates to success in India

Hindi and Tamil paperbacks, the gaudy equivalent of American dime novels and British penny dreadfuls, were a staple of old India, sold at the country's railway stations, bus depots and chai stands. Now, a push to translate them into English is creating new fans for the genre among middle- and upper-class Indians.

Thousands of such titles were published starting in the 1920s. Many are household names. They include campy vampire serials, supernatural thrillers, and a slew of Hindi crime novels featuring fast-talking detectives, multiple murders and crowds of prostitutes. Pulp fiction written in Tamil, a major language of South India, is peopled with Hindu sorcerers, overblown evil scientists and tortured inter-caste lovers.

"These stories are from the heart of India," said Kaveri Lalchand, co-director of Chennai's Blaft Publications, which has issued several popular English-language anthologies of Tamil yarns rounded up from household cupboards and coffeehouses. "What's great about them is that they're not being written abroad or by people sitting in universities."

Full report here Washington Post 

Chennai publishers revive Tamil pulp fiction

She peers out of the window of a book shop, causing shoppers in Delhi’s bustling Khan Market to pause a moment and give her a second look. Her gaze is sultry, her black wavy hair gathered by a silver trinket and adorned with jasmine petals. It’s not clear whether the shoppers are distracted by her voluptuous charms under the transparent white sari over her low-cut blouse, or by the fact that she is demurely sipping blood from a skull-shaped coconut. Either way, she is hard to ignore – which, as the cover of The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction Vol II, is precisely her purpose.

The book is the latest title from Blaft Publications, an independent publishing house in Chennai, India’s southernmost city. Its English-language versions of Tamil pulp fiction are reviving interest in this once wildly popular form of writing, which was at its peak from the 1950s to the 1980s – the days before cable television. Printed on cheap paper (hence the name), the books were published in pocket-sized versions convenient for long-distance journeys on buses or trains.

Full report here National

Natural-born thrillers

Surender Mohan Pathak is considered the master of suspense in Hindi. Thanks to Blaft and Sudarshan Purohit, the iconic Vimal series is now accessible to English readers

When Sudarshan Purohit read The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction he wondered if a similar exercise could be done for Hindi. Reacting to his blog post, one of the co-founders of Blaft, the Chennai-based publishing house, (www.blaft.com), Rakesh Khanna, asked if he would be interested in doing the translation. “And that's how I got into translation,” says Sudarshan.

The next step was deciding which books to translate. “The usual research resource, the Net, was not much help since Hindi pulp fiction is pretty much under the radar. However, I found an Orkut fan club dedicated to Surender Mohan Pathak.”

Sudarshan was sure he wanted to translate thrillers and in that genre, “Pathak was king. He inspires brand loyalty. His novels are real page-turners. The language is chaste Hindi, the plots are realistic and the writing is crisp and sharp. The novels feature serial characters, the two most popular being the investigative journalist, Sunil and the anti-hero Vimal.”

Full report here Hindu