Posts filed under 'Bangladesh'

Why are so few South Asian translations published in the U.S.? (Part IV)

September 3, 2014 | in Essays | by Mahmud Rahman

Perhaps it is we translators who must take the initiative.

Read all posts in Mahmud Rahman‘s investigation here.

An unfortunate reality is that there are not enough good translators working in South Asian languages. There are some in the subcontinent and elsewhere; but in the U.S.—presumably where it is most likely that translators might approach U.S.-based publishers—there are only a handful. If you look at the directories at ALTA, PEN, or Words Without Borders, these languages barely register. You will find a few working in Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali, but hardly any in Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telegu, Nepali, Sinhala, or other languages.

The emergence of translators here is also largely a matter of chance.

On the Dearth of South Asian Translations in the U.S. (Part I)

August 4, 2014 | in Essays | by Mahmud Rahman

“It’s a serious problem when so few titles and literature from so few languages find their way to American readers.”

Read all posts in Mahmud Rahman’s investigation here.

Until about ten years ago, whenever I visited Bangladesh, a journey “home” every three to five years, I would make my way to a small bookshop in Dhaka’s New Market. Zeenat Book Supply was one of the few places that carried English titles from India. There were better shops for books in Bangla, and subcontinental writing in English I could find in the U.S. What I sought at Zeenat was books in translation. These would sometimes be wrapped in plastic, other times coated with dust, the edges dirt-brown. Here I would find fiction that had originally been written in languages I didn’t know: Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam.

When I had the good fortune to visit Calcutta, I would discover more.

What discoveries I returned with! Raag Darbari, Shrilal Shukla’s biting small-town satire. Karukku, Bama’s brave memoir as a Dalit Christian. Desert Shadows by Anand that took me into the corrupt world of an Indian prison.

Unless a used copy lands somewhere by chance, such books are not found in U.S. bookstores. Unless you were teaching Indian literature or someone who keeps up on South Asian writing outside English, you would probably not know about these titles.