Posts featuring Geet Chaturvedi

Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

October 20, 2023  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Eva Wissting, MARGENTO, and Zohra Salih

The latest in literary news from India, Sweden, Spain, and Denmark.

This week, our editors bring news of commendations, intercultural exchanges, and champions of free speech that highlight the need for bold voices and acts of solidarity. 

Zohra Salih, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India

Winter is here—not just in the air outside, but within our hearts. One finds it hard to write about literature and culture with genuine excitement in times like these, when Gaza, already deeply wounded, is bleeding again with little hope in sight. It feels anachronistic to mention the many literary festivals and prizes that are scheduled for this winter, as if one is inhabiting two distinct worlds: one with cause for celebration, another for mourning. At the very least, it seems right to acknowledge this disparity, and to consider the very real responsibility of all literary enthusiasts in bridging this divide, in keeping our eyes and ears open, and in being willing to allow for other truths and realities to be translated as part of our own.

On that note, the JCB Prize for Literature has announced its longlist for 2023, featuring four works in translation. Simsim by Geet Chaturvedi, translated by Anita Gopalan, and I Named My Sister Silence by Manoj Rupda, translated by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (who was himself longlisted for the prize previously), are both written originally in Hindi; The Nemesis, Manoranjan Byapari’s latest work, is translated from Bengali by V Ramaswamy, and it is also worth noting that this is the third time that the fiery writer has been featured on the longlist.

Perumal Murugan’s Fire Bird is also on the longlist, and was translated from the original Tamil into English by Janani Kannan. A professor of Tamil literature, Murugan’s works have garnered critical acclaim through translations, including Madhorubhagan (One Part Woman), his best-known work, which won the prestigious ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman in 2015, and caused massive uproar amidst conservatives because of its bold and feminist themes—leading to the author briefly declaring that he was ‘dead’ and retired from writing until the Madras high court judgment unequivocally upheld his artistic freedom. Murugan’s profound and incisive explorations of caste and its entanglement in every rubric of Indian society have also rightly led to his book, Pyre, being longlisted for the International Booker Prize this year, as well as his receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the seventh edition of the Ooty Literary Festival, which wrapped up this October. READ MORE…

Anita Gopalan on the Joys of Translation

April 27, 2017  |  in Interviews, Translator's Profile  |  by Poorna Swami

These references are woven inside the text, sometimes explicitly, sometimes covertly. They pulsate with meaning...

Anita Gopalan, a Bangalore-based translator, received the 2016 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation of the Hindi novella Simsim by Geet Chaturvedi. Despite India producing a wealth of literature, Gopalan is only the second Indian to have received this grant. Over email, Poorna Swami asked Gopalan about Hindi literature and translating Chaturvedi.

Poorna Swami (PS): So you have a rather unconventional literary background, and even worked for many years in the banking sector. How did you find your way into translation? What do you enjoy most about it?

Anita Gopalan (AG): Although I don’t have a conventional literary background, I am striking out on a new path that is only natural to me. You see, when I was young I wanted to become a writer. Our house in Pilani was filled with books and I had access to all kinds of texts. At age eleven, I started on unabridged Dickens, by thirteen, it was Bonjour Tristesse and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and I had already written a whole book of poems (in Hindi, English, and Marwari). I read my poetry out loud to all our house maids and they were the ones who lovingly listened to it. But something happened that even I can’t fathom—my last poem was about suicide, and that was that. I did not become a writer. Rather, I thrived doing math—Hilbert spaces, isomorphisms—and moved on to banking technology and had a wonderful career in that field.

Years later, I had to cut down on my hectic work schedule due to a health condition and suddenly there was a vacuum. “To believe you are magnificent. And gradually to discover that you are not magnificent. Enough labor for one human life,” Czesław Miłosz said, and that fit my condition perfectly. I again turned to writing, and Facebook became the medium for me to post my writings and music. Here, I became acquainted with the wonderful writer Geet Chaturvedi. Interestingly, his first work that I read was not poetry or fiction—the genres he is famous for—but a short essay on music. His splendid poetic prose and sharp insights were evident even in that post. I fell in love with his writings. It was his poems that enchanted me most. A couple of years ago, he suddenly asked me to translate them. I was taken aback. I hadn’t translated anything before, but at the same time I was thrilled.

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