Narnia speaks Hindi now

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: who organised the successful Siyahi festival in Jaipur earlier this year.

Fiction, especially novels and short stories, do well in translation. But an autobiography that has caught the imagination of the public in its source language might also do very well in English translation. Dalit writing especially by women has a good market too, as do self-improvement and inspirational books. In Malayalam, new knowledge areas are keeping pace with popular fiction. So it is no wonder that the number of translated works is increasing. Hind Pocket Books did 30 titles last year, up from 20 the year before, with plans to soon bring out 50 titles a year. Penguin tries to maintain a balance of 50-50% between original Hindi titles and the translations.

Translations are slowly getting into award categories too. The Crossword Book Award recognises Indian language writing that has been translated into English. This year, Govardhan’s Travels by Anand CP Sachidanandan, translated by Gita Krishnankutty and Sankar’s Chowringhee translated by Arunava Sinha jointly won the best Indian Language Fiction Translation prize. Translated fiction now contributes approximately 5% of the total fiction sales at Crossword, says a spokesperson.

Price is a sensitive factor. While NBT and Sahitya Akademi have kept their prices low, experts feel factoring in the cost of translations pushes up the prices. With the Hindi market for instance being price sensitive, Sukumar’s readers are looking for hardbacks that cost as little as Rs150 but look as good as the English titles. But Dharmarajan points to a silver lining, that translations that used to cost around three times the original language texts have now dropped to just about twice the price.

Still the wind definitely blows more one way than the other. “Translation is definitely a two-way process, but we translate more from English into Hindi,” says Akber, with the content, saleability and of course the reputation of the author playing a role in deciding which books to translate. Adds Arya that it is critical to exploit the renewed interest in reading brought on by bestselling translations.