Hindi and Tamil pulp fiction, in translation, is winning converts among English readers
The just-concluded Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in Mumbai saw the launch of Surender Mohan Pathak’s latest pulp fiction novel, Daylight Robbery, in English translation. Pathak’s novels were all originally written in Hindi, and have only recently been translated into English to reach a wider audience.
Pathak’s books aren’t alone when it comes to translations from Indian languages to English in this genre. Random House India has also jumped onto the translation bandwagon and will soon produce, for example, translated volumes of Urdu writer Ibn-e-Safi’s Jasoosi Duniya series.
Is it paradoxical that vernacular pulp fiction is being rediscovered at the same time as Indian literary writing in English is growing popular. Literary critic (and Business Standard columnist) Nilanjana S Roy does not think so. She says, “It’s just a sign that we do have a wide readership in India which reads in English, and which is looking for a variety of reading that hasn’t been provided by Indian literary fiction in English.” According to her, the response to pulp fiction has been good because “this is what has been missing from the IWE [Indian writing in English] scene — good, trashy, popular writing”.
Full report here Business Standard
Showing posts with label Kala Ghoda festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kala Ghoda festival. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The lure of the local litfest
Almost the first person I run into at the David Sassoon Library at Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda festival is an old schoolmate who now heads one of India’s top-100 companies. We met just a few weeks ago at the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF).
“I’m here for the headliners,” he had said then, explaining that the JLF allowed him to maximise his (rare) holiday time by corralling Niall Ferguson, Steve Coll, Lawrence Wright and Anne Applebaum in one location. Surprised that he would be attending sessions on children’s writing, local Mumbai histories and Dilip Chitre’s poetry at the much-smaller Kala Ghoda literary festival, I ask whether he comes here often. “Yes,” he says, and introduces me to three other men from the corporate world. “This might be smaller, but it’s our best chance to catch up with local writers. I’m here every year.
Kala Ghoda is relaxing in a way that the increasingly adrenalin-fuelled JLF can no longer be. The latter offers a kind of intellectual crack cocaine; it’s exhilarating, attention-getting, but “restful” is not the word that comes to mind if you’re attending back-to-back sessions at the Diggi Palace.
Full report here Business Standard
“I’m here for the headliners,” he had said then, explaining that the JLF allowed him to maximise his (rare) holiday time by corralling Niall Ferguson, Steve Coll, Lawrence Wright and Anne Applebaum in one location. Surprised that he would be attending sessions on children’s writing, local Mumbai histories and Dilip Chitre’s poetry at the much-smaller Kala Ghoda literary festival, I ask whether he comes here often. “Yes,” he says, and introduces me to three other men from the corporate world. “This might be smaller, but it’s our best chance to catch up with local writers. I’m here every year.
Kala Ghoda is relaxing in a way that the increasingly adrenalin-fuelled JLF can no longer be. The latter offers a kind of intellectual crack cocaine; it’s exhilarating, attention-getting, but “restful” is not the word that comes to mind if you’re attending back-to-back sessions at the Diggi Palace.
Full report here Business Standard
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