Narnia speaks Hindi now

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Kumar of the State Institute of Languages, Kerala (SIL). Since SIL was established to encourage the production of higher level academic books in Malayalam in 1968, Kumar says all the major Malayalam publishers have come out with academic, literary or popular translations.

Leading publisher of Hindi books, Hind Pocket Books has been publishing translations from Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati for 30 years. Publisher Shekhar Malhotra estimates that the Hindi translations market is worth about Rs 50 crore. Katha, which has been a translation pioneer in contemporary India, translates from 21 Indian languages. Founder Geeta Dharmarajan estimates the children’s market alone to be at around Rs 70 crore, of which the Hindi market is about 30-40%.

Westland editor Nilanjana Roy informs us that they are also translating English books into other Indian languages — from literary works like Saeed Mirza’s Ammi to self-help books like the Chicken Soup for the Indian Soul series. Wisdom Tree began with the Hindi translation of The Alchemist a couple of years back but, as publisher Shobhit Arya says, the book exposed them to a unique readership — readers who are well versed in both English and Hindi. So the group is now expanding into more translations, including those from Marathi into English.

Beyond regionalisms

Dharmarajan points out that bhasha books didn’t have lucrative markets because most Indians were not literate and educated citizens weren’t interested in educating the underprivileged. But “things are changing dramatically with more young people going to school What we do is help good stories break the shell of regionalism and encourage their further translation into other languages.”

Routledge editor Jaya Bhattacharya Rose adds that there’s new disposable income in regional languages. And with people not just looking at text books but also others, publishers only stand to benefit from a cross pollination that will expand their stable of authors. As Kumar says, although the percentage of translations is presently around 20-25% in Malayalam, it has the scope to expand to 50% of the total market.

Author and translator Ira Pande adds, “Bhasha literature is about small towns and villages. That is where the greatest changes have traditionally taken place. It is important to get this across so that, hopefully, this may one day cross-pollinate our slick English writing with new ideas and idioms.”