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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: an Interview with Balli Kaur Jaswal

My interview with Balli Kaur Jaiswal on her new novel Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows has been published on Bookwitty today, 8 May 2017. The interview is reproduced below.

Balli Kaur Jaswal is a Singaporean-based author of Indian origin. She is the author of Inheritance, which won the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelist Award in 2014, and Sugarbread, a finalist for the 2015 inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is her third novel, for which film rights have been acquired. The novel’s premise is a young girl under the impression she will be leading a creative writing workshop at a gurdwara, or Sikh place of worship, in Southall, London. Instead, she is confronted with a room full of mostly bored Punjabi widows, some barely literate, who have enrolled in classes to pass the time. In an unexpected turn of events, the women discover they are able to narrate and share raunchy stories which are quickly transcribed by a young educated widow amongst their midst. Before anyone realizes it, the stories are being copied and circulated around London. Exploring the Punjabi Indian diaspora community via this vibrant group of women unearths a Pandora’s box of social mores. Despite its incredible title, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows is a fascinating exploration of how women fight for their space and how feminism is lived within the community today. Balli Kaur Jaswal kindly answered the following questions for Bookwitty:

What sparked this story?

I’ve had a lifelong fascination with questions surrounding identity, migration, women’s sexuality and notions of honor in close-knit communities, among other things. Those themes are prevalent in all of my writing. About ten years ago, I spent some time in Southall, London’s Punjabi enclave and I knew it was the perfect setting for a novel which explored these ideas. I was particularly interested in how elderly traditional women experienced and expressed desire in these male-dominated communities, and I started questioning what would happen if I got those women together and gave them a space to talk freely about what they wanted.

Bringing together the concept of the Brothers, a young band of men who have been indoctrinated with a militant version of religion, along with the rising confidence of women in the local Sikh community is well done. Was it inspired by real events?

This is one of the strangest things about writing – you create a fictional character or scenario and then you see it play out in real life and you’re either thrilled or horrified. In my case, it’s the latter. I made up the Brothers, and through multiple drafts of the novel, I kept pausing and thinking, “Would Sikh men do this? Has the policing gotten this zealous and organized?” I decided that I could afford to ask the reader to take that leap with me. Then, a few months after the novel sold, I read reports in The Guardian about groups of British-born Sikh extremists in the UK protesting interfaith weddings in the gurdwara and intimidating the family members. I remember thinking, “Oh my goodness, it’s the Brothers.” It was heartening to read responses from moderate Sikhs in the UK decrying these acts and calling upon these people to focus on the important issues that need urgent addressing in the community, like domestic violence and alcoholism.

Linking the deaths of Maya, Karina and Gulshan to honor killings in the story is impressive. Was the subject difficult to research?

It did hit a raw nerve. I actually read about honor killings when I lived in the UK because around that time, Jasvinder Sanghera’s memoir Shame had just come out and there was a lot of talk about it. What she went through to escape a forced marriage, and the advocacy work that she so bravely pioneered, are remarkable and inspiring. A few years later, she published a memoir of her experiences in supporting honor crime victims. The stories were heartbreaking, and they served as a reminder that her experience was part of a wider problem that still affects girls in this generation. I think what struck me most was the idea that loyalty to the community overrode common sense and conscience. In one of her books, she recalled giving a speech in a Punjabi community in England about being a victim of forced marriage, and she mentioned her work in raising awareness about honor crimes. Afterwards, women lined up to meet her and a few whispered into her ear that they had stayed silent while rebellious daughters or nieces had been sent to India and “taken care of.” I thought about this moment a lot when I wrote this thread into the narrative – it made sense to me that once the women found their voice to discuss their suppressed desires, they’d also find the courage to speak up and act on bigger injustices.

Offering different perspectives of women—modern, young and confident (Nikki), young and conservative (Mindi), young widow (Sheena), distraught mother and lonely wife ( Kulwinder), is a fascinating journey in understanding how women operate in a conservative patriarchal structure. How did you achieve this? Did you need to work on separate character sketches or did they all come together as you were working on the novel?

The best way to create a character is to think about how others would react to them. Nikki was easy enough to conceive because she was a lot like me and so many women I knew in my early twenties. For Mindi, I wanted a character from that same generation to counter Nikki and introduce us to the conservative and traditional “going back to our roots” subset. Mindi calls out Nikki on her one-sided take on social justice and liberalism, and actually reveals herself as somebody with more autonomy than we initially think. Sheena was a sort of bridge from Nikki to the widows. Quite literally: she did some translating, but also she was young and accessible and they developed a friendship which brought Nikki into the fold. Kulwinder was the anathema to Nikki, and I enjoyed alternating their perspectives because it really felt like a cat and mouse game between the protagonist and the antagonist. I would say all of the characters pivoted off Nikki, which is how I usually write – start with the main character and work out who everybody else is and how they help or hinder her.

Your novel seems to represent the second wave of feminism very well. From its references to Fem Fighters and feistiness as displayed by Nikki to the more moderate opinions offered by her sister who focuses on exercising her choice, even if it veers towards conservatism. Even with the bibis, the band of widows, different shades of women exist but they represent a range of women’s voices that could be representative of feminist movements. Did this involve research or did it happen naturally as a consequence of living your feminism?

The research in this area was experiential and anecdotal. I didn’t read up on feminist theory while writing this novel—it was definitely more about the day-to-day applications and how they become complicated by other facts of life. I attended a liberal arts women’s college as an undergraduate which forever changed the way I looked at the world. I found that in the years after, and even now, I’m drawn to people who have that perspective as well. I’m a little surprised when I meet people (women and men) who flinch when you bring women’s rights to the conversation because it’s 2017; who is still regarding “feminist” as a taboo word?

The contrast between the open-mindedness of the widows compared to the more politically correct and careful opinions offered by the younger women such as Mindi is striking. Were these at any point modeled on real conversations and experiences you may have witnessed?

I really wanted to convey the idea that feminism comes in different forms and that one character can be conservative in some ways but quite progressive in others. We can also define modernity and independence depending on our contexts and what balance works for our circumstances. There isn’t a prescribed way to be a feminist; this is the major lesson for Nikki in the novel. Mindi and Nikki have differing definitions of “choice” and they exercise their independence in ways that put them at odds with each other. The widows come from an interesting perspective because they have been marginalized by patriarchal structures but they are also powerful matriarchal figures in a culture that respects and fears mothers. This is why there is room for them to speak up through these classes. I can’t pinpoint any actual conversations or experiences but I know that throughout my adult years, I have observed the various ways in which the same women who command respect are also silenced when their voices become too inconvenient for people in power.

A classic straitjacketing comment often used by women to ensure no one strays from the flock is “Women like us”. You use it sparingly but well in the novel. How well does the phrase sit with you?

I find it worrying when women buy into this narrative about how they should behave, but even more so when they start reprimanding other women. It’s an insidious way to maintain compliancy, and it has its roots in the larger policing carried out by men, especially in conservative communities. The fathers, brothers and uncles who want to keep “their women” in line are aware that there are spaces exclusively for women that they cannot enter, so certain self-appointed women do their bidding for them. “Women like us” sounds deceptively inclusive as well but it’s still about ownership – you can be part of the club but we’ll be charge of what you wear and how you speak.

Given how you show widows as women with real feelings and not individuals to be ignored, silenced and discarded, do you think that writing this novel will have repercussions on your personal life?

So far, I’ve received very positive responses from readers. The only repercussion I’ve faced is becoming a confessional for other people’s secrets, especially Indian women. They come to book signings and then they lean in and whisper these stories from their lives about their mothers doing special prayers after finding their birth control pills or their husbands being turned on by some of the saucier scenes in the novel. But I’m happy to listen!

What are the challenges that lie ahead for women’s movements?

Awareness of intersectionality is an issue. That’s the idea that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to feminism and especially that women from certain backgrounds are vulnerable to other forms of oppression which influence and compound their experience of sexism as well. I’ve experienced this firsthand; people who rally for feminist causes being quite ignorant of the hurdles faced by women from minority races. I know some feminists who will say, “I didn’t get that promotion because I’m a woman” but if you said, “I didn’t get that promotion because I’m a woman and I’m a minority,” they are dismissive or they say you’re playing the race card. I’m not sure where this glitch in the system came from—where if someone mentions suffering from more than one kind of institutional oppression, instead of empathizing, people get indignant and protective over their own stake in the issue. I hope we can resolve it with more open and judgment-free conversations.

Do you think diaspora fiction needs to be pinned down in the “thingyness of things” such as illustrated by Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows and those of the Bengali women as seen in Chitra Bannerjee Divakurni’s novels to resonate effectively with readers across the world or would a more general form of literary fiction be equally powerful?

Readers connect to novels that they can identify with, and I think the days of navel-gazing singular “who am I” narratives are probably over. That element exists in all diaspora fiction of course (and arguably in all literary fiction regardless of the audience or the cultural background of the characters) but it needs to converge with a larger narrative. I think it’s an exciting time for diaspora fiction because readers want to be challenged and they’re open to nuance. Some exoticism still exists but readers have a more savvy experience of other worlds now.

Who are the writers and other creative people who have influenced your writing?

The list keeps growing but a very early influence was Judy Blume because she told those stories that we needed to know. Like most people who grew up with her novels, I felt as if there was finally an adult in my corner, somebody who understood and didn’t judge the confusion of growing up. A number of writers exploring the migrant experience in the UK have shaped my perspective as well – Andrea Levy, Nikita Lalwani, Zadie Smith, Sathnam Sanghera and Meera Syal to name a few.

Balli Kaur Jaiswal Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows HarperCollins

8 May 2017

“The Accusation” by Bandi

18 04 , 2017 No Comments

These stories of fiction written by a North Korean writer and published under a pseudonym were smuggled out of the country in 2013. (Some reports say 2013 others 2014) “Bandi” which means “firefly” was born in 1950 and continues to be based in the country and is an official writer for the government. Written in meticulous longhand on the coarse brown manuscript paper used in North Korea, the book — a collection of seven short stories — is a fierce indictment of life in the totalitarian North. The stories closely follow the “seed theory,” a guideline of all North Korean writers, which requires them to structure their writing tightly around a core ideology — though Bandi uses the same device to attack the party line. For instance the stories will portray the indoctrination of the people and yet how forced it is but the people are unable to express themselves (“Pandemonium”), the desperate measures a son takes to meet his dying mother in the village except is condemned to forced labour for not having the required travel permit (“So Near, Yet So Far”), the mother who tries to pacify her easily frightened simpleminded infant but lives in mortal fear of Comrade Secretary discovering that it is the larger-than-life size portraits of Marx and Kim Il-sung that are the triggers (“City of Specters”) and innumerable instances of how food is rationed. In “Record of a Defection” the narrator’s family is reduced to the wavering class “because my father was a murderer—albeit only an accidental one, and one whose sole victim was a crate of rice seedlings.” The author’s identity is deliberately concealed even in the note from Do Hee-yun included in the book. Do Hee-yun is a representative of the Citizens’ Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.

According to the New York Times, “In 2013, the manuscript was smuggled out, hidden among works of propaganda glorifying Kim Il-sung, the country’s founding president and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. . . . The Accusation was published in South Korea in 2014 by Chogabje.com, a conservative news website and publisher, but failed to gain much attention. Mr. Do persisted, pitching the manuscript to publishers abroad. ” Initially the reception to the stories was lukewarm until the French translation became a sleeper hit. Since then the stories have been translated into 18 languages and published in 20 countries and list is growing steadily. Here is a CNN report of the book reading organised at the border of South Korea and North Korea.

The book has been translated magnificently by award-winning translator Deborah Smith since despite the tough subject the stories read smoothly. On the surface the stories may seem to be acceptable propoganda literature and in no danger of being censored. Yet the off-the-cuff remarks of “starving slaves”, “grain riots”, “ration coupons” or the anger against medals which are given to those who “dedicate themselves solely to the establishment and preservation of socialism” since these useless chunks of iron would not fill stomachs manages to capture the simmering rage of Bandi at the totalitarian regime of North Korea. Every single story ends on a note where the protagonist bitterly realises that there is no escape from the pincer-like grip of the state authorities. Such as in the conclusion of “Record of a Defection”:

There is, of course, great peril in this. We might easily be shot by the coast giard or patrol boat, to be swallowed up like leaves in the wind and waves. And still, knowing this, we choose to bet our lives on this chance. Because we feel that to slide into oblivion would genuinely be better than continuing to live as we have been, persecuted and tormented. If fate intervenes, perhaps the hand of a rescuer might draw us to some new shore. Otherwise, we can only hope that our canoe on the vast blue will mark this land as a barren desert, a place where life withers and dies!

But the anecdote which sums up the suffocating living conditions of the citizens is in this story shared by the grandmother, Mrs Oh, in “Pandemonium”:

“Once upon a time there was a garden, surrounded on all sides by a great, high fence. In that garden, an old demon ruled by a great, high fence. In that garden, an old demon ruled over thousands upon thousands of slaves. But the surprising thing was that the only sound ever to be heard within those high walls was the sound of merry laughter. Hahaha and hohoho, all year round — becuase of the laughing magic which the old demon used on his slaves.

“Why did he use such magic on them? To conceal his evil misreatment of them, of course, and also to create a deception, saying, ‘This is how happy the people in our garden are.’ And that’s also why he put the fences up, so that the people in other gardens couldn’t see over or come in. So, well, think about it. Where in the world might you find such a garden, such a den of evil magic, where cries of pain and sadness were wrenched from the mouths of its people and distorted into laughter?”

Read The Accusation. It is a terrifyingly seminal publication of 2017 particularly at a moment in history when political winds of Right-wing are blowing globally. Many of the horrors described in these seven stories are only a short step away from what exists in other forward-looking nations, albeit different ideologies.

Bandi The Accusation: Forbidden Stories From Inside North Korea Serpents Tail, London, 2017. Pb. pp. 250. Rs 599 ( Distributed in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by Hachette India.)

18 April 2017

“The Photographer” by Meike Zeirvogel

13 03 , 2017 No Comments

In the wagon there is no space to sit. There are air holes running along the top of the train’s sides. Everyone has turned their face upwards in the hope of catching a fresh breeze. The train jolts and shakes but there is no space to fall. The only thing that is shoved around at their feet is the metal bucket. Initially no one uses it – after all, the journey should only take a couple of hours – but then the train halts for ages in open fields. The doors remain closed in case it begins to move again. First the children use the bucket, afterwards the men and eventually the women too, peeing into it while standing. To begin with Trude is still trying to think of what they will do once they reach Berlin. And she hopes they will return soon: she doesn’t want Albert coming home to an empty place. But even these thoughts eventually stop and all she wants is for them just to endure the journey. Every now and again she quietly asks, ‘Mum?’ Agatha replies with a ‘Hm.’ Peter is standing between the two women, his cheek against his mother’s stomach. Trude feels him breathing. A couple of times she nearly dozes off, but then with a start she regains consciousness. ‘Mum?’ ‘Hm.’ And she feels the breathing of her son.

And so it was that Agatha, Trude and Peter became part of the 11 million Germans who were fleeing westward in the 75 winter of 1945. None of them knew where they were heading. But they all hoped to return home soon. Little did they know that the world was changing behind them and borders were being redrawn. Their homes now belonged to others and they were crossing into a foreign land.

Meike Zeirvogel’s latest novel The Photographer is on the surface of it about Albert, his wife Trude, their son Peter and his mother-in-law Agatha, a seamstress. It is a quietly told tale which opens in 1920 but most of the action is set during the second world war. It revolves around this tiny family which is managing to live peacefully despite the raging war when suddenly Albert is picked up by the police and whisked away. For a while his wife Trude is mystified at his arrest and cannot understand what the matter is till she realises after seeing her ransacked home they were after the hidden radio. Albert and Trude used it to listen to music and dance every night. But to possess a radio during the war was considered a serious offence and Albert is taken away. Agatha had always disapproved of Trude’s marriage to Albert so had conspired to tell the local police. For a long time Trude is unable to fathom who let on to their little secret till she deduces it was her mother.

The Photographer is a seemingly deceptive simple story but is also complicated for the many layers to it. The relationship between the mother and daughter is worse than any imprisonment. It is living with the horrible truth about the mother’s distaste for Albert with Trude caught between that is like a slow death. Ironically it is the wisdom of the mother ( and her savings) that leads Trude and Peter to safety. The saving grace in the hostile environment of the family is Peter who is loved by all the adults in their own way and for whom they will do anything. Meanwhile Peter too has to figure out a way of surviving particularly when his father returns home with his own archaic expectations of how a young boy should behave. Later while setting up a business that slowly begins to flourish Agatha persuades Trude to join her as a seamstress.

Like with any conflict the second world war too was disruptive especially for the family. If people were fortunate to survive they did so with many hidden scars and learned to exist with new arrangements to their established relationships. There were subtle shifts and these hard-to-define transformations that occurred in families is exactly the grey area which Meike Zeirvogel explores. The war torn landscape may be a useful backdrop to the story providing immediate explanations for changing family dynamics. But at another level the war and the changing borders can function as a metaphor for the fluid changes that are constantly happening within a family unit at any point of time — like a slow dance. As Albert discovered as a professional photographer “Taking photographs of families is pretty straightforward – they all look the same, want to look the same.” And yet it is not.

Curiously this slim book lingers in one’s imagination long after one is done with it.

Read it.

The Photographer is published by Salt Publishing, 2017.

13 March 2017

Publishing newsletter, 27 Feb 2017

27 02 , 2017 No Comments

Recently Amazon India has been adding an “Import Deposit Fee” on to the imported books bought off its website.

When AmazonGlobal products are shipped to eligible countries, an estimate of the Import Fees will be levied on the items in your order for shipment to countries outside of the U.S. … The Import Fees Deposit is an estimation of the taxes and duties that may apply and isn’t an actual calculation. Customs regulations and tax rates applicable to certain goods may change between the date the taxes and duties were estimated and the applicable taxes and duties on the date of import into the destination country. The duty or tax rate is often determined by the classification of a good, which varies by country and region.

But books in India are not taxed nor does anyone have pay an import duty for bringing books into the country. So I am baffled by Amazon India levying this charge on to its customers who buy books? It will increase the final bill considerably. Increasingly regular Amazon clients, including Amazon Prime, are shifting to buying second-hand books on the premise that new books too are becoming more expensive to afford and these extra duties to be paid by customers will only further hamper online sales of books. Shouldn’t all stakeholders who are a crucial part of the publishing ecosystem strive for best practices or is that too idealistic a notion to hope for?

India is a price sensitive market for all goods and commodities but when it comes to books Indians think twice before spending. This is apparent by the flourishing trade in second-hand, pirated books and buying books by the kilo as is visible in local markets, pavements, railway stations and at crossroads. Some writers even consider it a backhanded compliment if they spot pirated versions of their books at any of these vendors. These books are sold at very low (read affordable) prices where the paper, binding and at times even printing is of poor quality but at least the text is easily available. These are exactly the characteristics which determine the pulp fiction market too – facts pointed about academic Awanish Kumar while discussing the Hindi writer late Ved Prakash Sharma and pulp fiction. Another socio-economic indicator which distinguishes between pulp-fiction and mainstream publishing is the very real social differences of class, as Mrinal Pande, noted journalist and daughter of renowned Hindi novelist Shivani, pointed out some years ago.

The two distinct strata of publishing co-existing within the local ecosystem is bound to have interesting consequences. It is already discernable with English publishing firms rapidly making provision for popular Hindi pulp fiction on their translation lists – good editorial move but underpinning it is sound economic sense to give readers what they are already familiar with. So instead of cogitating about piracy being 25% of the total Indian publishing industry probably the publishing professionals need to focus on getting great books to readers at the right price points. (And piracy or giving books away for free does not damage the sales of a book instead it boosts them as pointed out by Joanna Penn.)

Oh well! It is a conundrum not easily resolved to all stake holders’ satisfaction.

Having said that the engagement between writers and readers is thriving as evident by the huge success of the Urdu Literature Festival, Jashn-e-Rekhta, organised in Delhi. For more read the links on publishing gupshup and literary prizes.

Jaya Recommends

Vasudhendra’s Mohanaswamy

Maha Khan Phillips Curse of Mohenjodaro

Omar Saif Ghobadan’s Letters to a Young Muslim

JAYA

Life after “The Clifton Chronicles”: An Interview with Lord Archer

07 02 , 2017 No Comments

( My interview with popular writer Jeffrey Archer was published on literary website Bookwitty on 6 February 2017. The Clifton Chronicles are published in India by PanMacmillan India. )

The Clifton Chronicles by Lord Archer is about Harry Clifton, a dockyard worker’s son who rises to become a very successful author and hold a respectable position in society. The series arc is set across three generations in 20th century Britain. It begins during the First World War and ends with the Thatcher era.

While reading the Clifton series, I could not help but draw comparisons between Charles Dickens and Jeffrey Archer as extraordinarily popular authors of their times. Later I discovered that in an an interview Lord Archer acknowledged Dickens as one of his literary heroes. Each portrays characters embedded deeply in socio-economic divisions, while creating an atmosphere with their language, expressions and manner of engagement. Unlike in literary fiction, where much of the time is spent detailing dress and manners and manner of accents, The Clifton Chronicles focus on how to operate within specific socio-economic divisions. There is a nuanced reflection of what society was like. The character building does not happen much with authorial intervention, with long expositions about an individual, but is achieved through their engagement with the surroundings. The way Lord Archer captures the manners and speech reflecting the class of an individual may not be something to mention in polite society, but it is most certainly a discreet cultural language everyone is acutely aware of.

Dickens may be very popular now and is the darling of academics worldwide, but soon after his death he was not much talked about. It was a while after his death, probably in the early 20th century, when it became fashionable to read and discuss him. Similarly, with Lord Archer’s novels there is a very deep silence amongst the literary establishment that exists in acknowledging him as a storyteller (in fact he makes some astute observations on the big literary fiction prizes in these novels). Surely commercial fiction like his has a reason to exist? Certainly the numbers of units sold worldwide, including in India, tell a pretty good story too – it is the kind of success literary fiction writers aspire to. So this deep distaste for popular literature is unfathomable? Probably the classical divide between “high” and “low” art continues to be deeply entrenched. Hence popular fiction like The Clifton Chronicles is seldom considered for literary prizes.

On finishing the series I corresponded with Lord Archer, facilitated kindly by his publishers, Pan MacMillan India. Below are edited excerpts of our correspondence.

Before you began writing The Clifton Chronicles did you broadly plot out a series arc?

No, initially I envisioned only three books, then five, but as I wrote, the characters grew and changed, and I needed to keep going in order to get them to where I wanted the saga to end. I rarely map out the whole plot of a book, although I do always have an idea of how I want it to end – though it sometimes takes a different direction half-way through!

Dickens and you serialised stories – he in Household Words and you with The Clifton Chronicles novels. Both have had the effect of keeping readers waiting in great anticipation for the next instalment. Why did you choose to write a series and not a single fat doorstop of a novel chronicling the Clifton and Barrington saga?

I looked on this as a new challenge as I’d never written a series before.

Creating and sustaining the plot for 3000 pages spread over so many decades must have required tremendous research and fact-checking. How did you do it? Do you work with a team of people?

I don’t have a team of people – I read a lot beforehand, and I have a researcher who helps me with some background research, and along the way I will speak to different experts in their fields if I’m writing about a particular subject or place for example.

How often do you revise your manuscripts?

I will write out a chapter maybe three times during the first draft, and then when my PA has typed up my handwritten pages, I’ll then work on them for several more drafts. I then discuss this with my editor and revise it again. So it could be revised a dozen times.

How do you name your characters? (There are so many!)

I’m always looking for new names to use – I might be watching TV and as the film credits roll, think ah, that surname is interesting, or be reading a newspaper and spot a name I haven’t used before which would suit a particular character. They could come from anywhere – I think I may even have used a couple of names from my local rugby team.

You have been publishing for more than four decades now. What are the transformations in this industry that you have witnessed?

The biggest change is of course the incredible rise in eBooks. But I think this has only changed the industry for the better – encouraging more people to read.

Have these in any way affected your style of storytelling and its productivity? How has it in particular affected the author-reader relationship? Has the demographic of your reader changed or remained constant?

My readership has grown with The Clifton Chronicles, and my fans might be 9 or 90!

Many claim your books to be inspirational for their stories of triumph, yet you portray society as it is. It makes me wonder if these books are semi-autobiographical. Are they?

Some of the characters and the events within The Clifton Chronicles series are certainly inspired by my own life and even people I knew. I was brought up in the West Country of England, so have always wanted to set a novel in that area. There is a little bit of me in Harry Clifton – we’re both authors for a start, and certainly Emma was based on my wife Mary.

Who is your favourite character in the book?

Lady Virginia, without a doubt. She turned into a fan favourite. I was going to kill her off after book three, but she demanded to continue!

What kind of books do you like to read?

I read many different genres including biographies and non-fiction for research, but my favourite is fiction, from the likes of Dickens, Dumas, H H Munro and Stefan Zweig.

Will you have these books optioned for a period drama?

I would love to see The Clifton Chronicles as a TV drama series.

What next after The Clifton Chronicles?

I have a new book of short stories coming out this year, and am currently working on my new novel.

7 February 2017

Guest post: Salil Tripathi on “Illuminating evening with Prabodh Parikh at Farbas Gujarati Sabha”

12 01 , 2017 1 Comment

( I read the following post on noted journalist Salil Tripathi’s Facebook wall. I am posting the text and pictures with his permission. He is working on a book about Gujaratis which will be published by Aleph Book Company.)

Illuminating evening with Prabodh Parikh at Farbas Gujarati Sabha.

Alexander Kinloch Forbes was a British administrator in India who loved Gujarat and the Gujarati language and became a scholar of the language. He came to India as a young man in 1840s and lived there till his death in 1860s. He was a senior administrator in Gujarat and went on to become a judge in Bombay. He set up a famous library in Surat and learned Gujarati with the poet Dalpatram. He wrote the classic history of “Goozeraat” in two volumes. When he died in 1865, Dalpatram wrote a collection, called Farbas Viraha. Forbes’s contribution in supporting Gujarati literature is enormous.

My great-great-grandfather Mansukhram Tripathi was a close friend of Forbes. (Tripathi himself was a leading essayist of his time and wrote Forbes’s biography). Upon Forbes’s death, Tripathi took lead in establishing Farbas Gujarati Sabha, an organisation that has stood the test of time.

I used to go to the Sabha at its old building, Congress House, with Kartik Bhagat for evening addas with Jayant Parekh, Rasik Shah, Nitin Mehta, and we met Naushil Mehta there when he had just moved back from the US. This was in the late 1970s. Kartik and I wrote Gujarati prose and poems, and we would be critiqued there by leading thinkers in Gujarati in Bombay – a fantastic formative experience. It is there that I discovered the magazine Etad, that Suresh Joshi had just launched in Baroda. Kartik and I were so inspired by Joshi, that we called the wall-paper we ran at New Era Pratyancha, after Joshi’s book. (Years later, Paula and Ashish would go on to edit it as well).

Last evening, Farbas trustee and my good friend Prabodh Parikh showed me around its magnificent collection – over 32,000 books – where i had the thrill of holding in my hands a book gifted to my greatgrandfather, Tansukhram Tripathi (Mansukhram’s son – he, too was a Sanskrit scholar and essayist, and a cousin of Govardhanram Tripathi, who wrote Sarasvatichandra).

I thought that as I resume my search into Gujarat and its asmita, this library was an excellent starting point!

Old manuscripts, most of them are in Sanskrit

Prabodh Parikh admiring an old Sanskrit text.

Rast Goftar and Satya Prakash

First edition of Dalpatram.

The library has German books as well.

Salil Tripathi holding a book that once belonged to his great grandfather

A volume commemorating Govardhanram Tripathi on his centenary.

Bachubhai Ravat’s Kumar.

Old volumes of the magazine, Vismi Sadi (20th century).

Back issues of Navneet Samarpan. Editors Kundanika Kapadia and Ghanshyam Desai come to mind.

12

Jaya’s newsletter 6 ( 7 Jan 2017)

07 01 , 2017 No Comments

Happy New Year!

January is an extremely busy month in terms of literary events. There are back-to-back literary festivals, book fairs, book launches and more. There have been some exciting announcements such as Amazon India launching Kindle in 5 regional languages. The annual NBT World Book Fair is now held 7-15 January and will showcase India’s cultural heritage. India is a significant book market. So it is no surprise that once again the Australian Council for the Arts is bringing a team of publishers to India for B2B interactions in January 2017. Later this week the Hindu Lit Fest happens in Chennai, followed by Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival 2017 and Jaipur Literature Festival celebrates its tenth anniversary. Here is a preview.

As always the Costa Book Awards were announced at the beginning of the new year. And Etisalat Prize released its shortlist.

And for those based in Delhi, I will be in conversation with the wonderful novelist Chitra Bannerjee Divakurni about her latest novel, Before We Visit the Goddess. It is at 6:30pm on Monday, 16 January 2017, India International Centre, New Delhi.

Publishing Jobs and Appointments

Sameer Mahale has joined Penguin Random House India as General Manager, Sales. He was earlier at HarperCollins
Manasi Subramanian moves to PRH India as Senior Commissioning Editor responsible for acquiring literary fiction and nonfiction.
There is a vacancy for Publisher, Scholastic India, Delhi. The person has to have minimum 6-8 years of experience in children’s and young adult literature. Please send resume to Neeraj Jain, Managing Director ( [email protected] ).

New arrivals ( Dec – early Jan)

Eric Bulson Little Magazine, World Form Columbia University Press
Narayan Rao Text and Tradition in South India Permanent Black
Emma Dawson Verghese Genre Fiction of New India Routledge India
Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers The Bestseller Code Allen Lane
Keith Houston The Book Norton
Prashant Reddy T. and Sumathi Chandrashekharan Create, Copy, Disrupt: India’s Intellectual Property Dilemmas ( with a foreword by Dr. Shamnad Basheer) OUP
Romila Thapar Indian Society and the Secular Three Essays Collective
William Dalrymple and Anita Anand Kohinoor Juggernaut
Jan Brandt Against the World ( transl. Katy Derbyshire) Seagull Books
Hannah Kent The Good People Picador
Maha Khan Philips The Curse of Mohenjadaro PanMacmillan India
Sarvat Hasin This Wide Night Hamish Hamilton
Ryan Lobo Mr Iyer Goes to War Bloomsbury
Laksmi Pamuntjak Amba Speaking Tiger Books
Sanchit Gupta The Tree with a Thousand Apples Niyogi Books
Andrei Sinyavsky Strolls with Pushkin ( transl by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy & Slava I. Yastremski ) Columbia University Press
Armando Lucas Correa The German Girl Simon & Schuster
Martin Cruz Smith The Girl from Venice Simon & Schuster
Kate Furnivall The Liberation Simon & Schuster
Jeffrey Self Drag Teen PUSH
Lucy Sutcliffe Girl Hearts Girl Scholastic
Yona Zeldis McDonough Bicycle Spy Scholastic Press
Elizabeth Laird Welcome to Nowhere Macmillan Childrens Books

Interesting links

Graphic novels radically rooted in Indian market
The Great AI Awakening How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself. ( An excellent article!)
Andrew Wylie’s Global Approach to Agenting
Vijay Prashad on “The essentials of socialist writing”
“Juggernaut turns a page” A profile of the publishing house on
On Meville House blogs an interview with a bookstore which closed down: An Interview with BookCourt’s Zack Zook
Alt-right Milo Yiannopoulos’s cynical book deal with Simon & Schuster.
Profile of sci-fi author, Ken Liu, bridging America and China
Guwahati gets its first braille library
In 2016, Hindi Literature Became the Voice of the Marginalised
The nonfiction of my feminism by Amrita Narayanan
Interview with Daisy Rockwell, Author, Artist and a Hindi-Urdu Translator
Interview with Namita Gokhale on her new novel, Things to Leave Behind.
Harvard discovers a few of its library books are bound in human flesh ( 2014)
Photo album of Madras Literary Society ( estd. 1812) by Vikram Raghavan
Most Women In Publishing Don’t Have The Luxury Of Being Unlikeable

7 January 2017

An Interview with Daisy Rockwell, Author, Artist and a Hindi-Urdu Translator

07 01 , 2017 1 Comment

( This interview was first published on Bookwitty.com on 20 December 2016 )

Daisy Rockwell is an artist, writer and Hindi-Urdu translator living in the United States. Rockwell grew up in a family of artists in western Massachusetts. From 1992-2006, she made a detour into academia, from which she emerged with a PhD in South Asian literature, a book on the Hindi author Upendranath Ashk and a mild case of depression. Upendranath Ashk was a Hindi writer, based in Allahabad, who began publishing in pre-Independent India but soon, due to his irascible temperament chose to self-publish much of his later work. Daisy Rockwell met the Hindi writer on a few occasions in the 1990s and began translating his fiction with his permission. Unfortunately Ashk never saw Daisy Rockwell’s publications. Daisy Rockwell’s diligent dedication to the task shines through the quality of the English translations that were ultimately published. The translated literature is a pure delight to read; smooth and evocative of the early and mid-twentieth India they are set in.

Rockwell has written The Little Book of Terror, a volume of paintings and essays on the global war on terror (Foxhead Books, 2012), and her novel Taste was published by Foxhead Books in April 2014. Her translation of Ashk’s well-known novel about the evolution of a writer Girti Divarein was published by Penguin India as Falling Walls (2015), her collection of translations of selected stories by Ashk, Hats and Doctors ( 2013); and her new translation of Bhisham Sahni’s legendary novel about the partition of India, Tamas ( 2016).

An Interview with Daisy Rockwell, Author, Artist and a Hindi-Urdu Translator - Image 1

An Interview with Daisy Rockwell, Author, Artist and a Hindi-Urdu Translator - Image 2

How did you choose Hindi to be the language to master and translate from?

I wandered into Hindi in college and never really wandered out again. I loved learning languages and had studied French, Latin, ancient Greek, and German. I wanted something less familiar and happened to take a social sciences course with Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, who spoke of her life doing research in India, so I decided to sign up for Hindi. Translation was something one had to do anyway in graduate school, but I was fortunate to take a translation seminar with AK Ramanujan shortly before his death, and that illuminating experience has stayed with me always.

How do you select a text to translate?

It’s hard to say. Often a text chooses you, rather than vice versa. I wrote my doctoral dissertation about Upendranath Ashk, and always wanted to translate his work, though that project fell by the wayside. Eventually I took it up again because it wouldn’t let me go.

Do you have any basic guidelines that you follow while translating? For instance is it crucial to convey the authentic form of Hindi used in the language of origin or is it important to stress readability in the destination language?

What’s important to me is that the translation reads as well as the original, and that the reader in English can get the same feeling from it that the Hindi reader might (despite the vastly different reading contexts).

If the text you decide to work upon has been translated before into English, do you ever read it or do you like to approach your project with a fresh perspective?

I would never retranslate something that was already done well. I first check the existing translation against the Hindi in the opening chapter. If I decide to retranslate it, I keep the other translations at hand and consult with them, as though I were sitting among friends. Even if I think the previous translator did poorly, I recognize that he or she may see things in ways that would escape me, or know things I don’t know. Translation is a lonely business, and the other translators keep me company. I argue with them, listen to them, curse at them, and lean on them. Much of Hindi literature has not been translated, however, so retranslation is actually a rare luxury.

What has been the most exciting challenge you have encountered while translating Hindi?

Translation is almost always challenging, but rarely exciting.

What form of Hindi are you most comfortable with? Does it belong to a particular period of Hindi literature?

Because of Ashk and Bhisham Sahni, I have become really strong in 1930’s-40’s Punjabi-centric Hindi. I know all kinds of architectural details and articles of clothing and turns of phrase. Oddly, contemporary writing can be much more difficult for me.

Does translating Hindi while based in USA create any cultural challenges or is the immersion in your text so complete that your geographical location is immaterial?

It’s terribly challenging, but Twitter and social media have changed things dramatically. Much of the translating I’ve done would be difficult in India or Pakistan as well, without the reach of social media. There is much in novels of the earlier part of the 20th century that cannot be found in dictionaries nor in contemporary discourse. It’s not stuff most people know. I have to hunt high and low for definitions of some terms, and I depend greatly on my twitter friends for help in this regard.

Do you think it is “easier” to publish translations of Hindi literature as compared to when you first started in the 1990s? If yes, what are the possible reasons for this growing interest?

It is easier to publish them in India. In the US, I have yet to find a publisher for any of my translations. In India there is definitely a growing interest in translations and a growing respect for non-English language literatures. I am not sure how this happened, but I am thankful for it, and all signs point to continued growth in publication and interest.

How do you define “original text” as opposed to the “transcreations” authors such as Bhisham Sahni and Upendranath Ashk undertook with their own works when translating into English — a style not uncommon among many bilingual writers? Won’t the “revisions” to the text done later by the authors themselves be considered as “original” text? Which version do you opt to use in your translation?

I think bilingual authors should avoid translating their own work as much as possible. It seems most writers cannot withstand the temptation to alter the original while translating. They are the author, after all, so they have the right–but in doing so they deprive the English readers of the original text. At times, they alter the original beyond recognition, as in the sad case of Qurratulain Hyder’s translations River of Fire and Fireflies in the Mist. It is also often the case that bilingual people are rarely the same writer in two languages. Sahni translated Tamas himself, for example, but his English writing style was brittle and high-brow; though he knew English extremely well, he didn’t know the kind of English that Tamas would have been written in. The Hindi of Tamas is strikingly clear, succinct, and unadorned. His translation was unable to capture that. Hyder’s English was also perfect, but she clearly believed that the material must be presented differently to English readers and changed her works in sometimes very peculiar ways. And despite the fact that her English was perfect, I don’t believe that she wrote as well in English as she did in Urdu. It wasn’t a matter of being correct or not, but a matter of flow and style. In the case of the Sahni family, there was recognition that their father’s translation did not quite capture the spirit and they generously gave permission to retranslate. Sadly, Hyder’s heirs, following her wishes, refuse to grant permission to anyone to retranslate the books, so they remain off-limits to English readers, except for in their transcreated versions.

Your two creative pursuits — painting and translations can be exacting and very fulfilling. Do they in any way influence each other? For instance if you are tussling with a particularly challenging piece of translation does it get reflected in your painting and vice versa?

I’d like to think they’re connected, but if they are, the connection is not clear to me. I’ve occasionally illustrated translations or discussions of translation, but most of the time they are quite separate in my mind.

Is your preference only for literary fiction or would you try pulp fiction or even poetry in the future?

I’ve always been a high literature kind of gal. I never read pulp fiction (except for Blaft’s Tamil Pulp Fiction!) at all. There are plenty of translators who could do that, at any rate, but classics, in particular, require a great deal of reflection and research, and that’s where my niche lies. I have been translating some poetry lately though, such as Shubham Shree’s Poetry Management, and Avinash Mishra’s untranslatable poems on Hindi orthography . I’ve also been translating some poetry by Mangalesh Dabral, which has not yet been published.

An Interview with Daisy Rockwell, Author, Artist and a Hindi-Urdu Translator - Image 3

Madras Literary Society, estd. 1812

07 01 , 2017 1 Comment

( The following pictures were posted on Vikram Raghavan’s Facebook page. I am reposting them here with his permission. 7 January 2017 )

Dr. Annie Besant renews her subscription to the Madras Literary Society.

Kindle books in Indian languages could be a game changer: What Amazon’s new initiative will mean for publishing in Indian languages

05 01 , 2017 2 Comments

( My article on Kindle books being introduced in Indian languages was published in The Mint on 21 Dec 2016. )

Photo: iStock

Amazon India has announced that Kindle will launch digital books in five Indian languages—Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and Malayalam. The titles include Ishq Mein Shahar Hona by Ravish Kumar (Hindi), Rajaraja Chozhan by Sa. Na. Kannan (Tamil), Mrutyunjay by Shivaji Sawant (Marathi), Ek Bija Ne Gamta Rahiye by Kaajal Oza Vaidya (Gujarati), Aarachar by K.R. Meera (Malayalam) and Mayapuri by Shivani (Hindi). Kindle devices seventh generation and above will support Indic scripts, enabling readers to access such books.

This is a move that could be a game changer in India. Amazon India has moved methodically to embed itself in Indian publishing. First, it launched Kindle with free lifetime digital access provided by BSNL, but only for English e-books. In November, the acquisition of local publishing firm Westland—known for its commercial fiction best-sellers and translation programme—was completed at reportedly $6.5 million (around Rs44 crore), a small portion of the $5 billion allocated by Jeff Bezos as investment in India. In fact, Seattle-based Amazon Publishing’s translation imprint, AmazonCrossing, has surpassed all other publishers in the amount of world literature it makes available in the US. This was first highlighted in December 2015 by Chad Post, publisher, Open Letter Books, on his influential website, Three Percent. In October 2015 AmazonCrossing announced it had a $10 million budget to invest in translations worldwide. It is probably no coincidence that Amazon India vice- president and country manager Amit Agarwal has been inducted into the Bezos core team, which is responsible for its global strategy.

In an email, Post responded to the news, saying: “This seems like a great thing for Indian readers and anyone interested in Indian literature. Amazon’s stated goal is to make as many books available in as many formats to as many people as possible, and this program is a strong move in that direction. Increasing digital access to these books will be huge—it greatly expands the potential audience, and could help AmazonCrossing expand into publishing Indian writers in translation. AmazonCrossing published 60 works translated into English in 2016, which is far more than any other publisher. The majority of these titles are translated from German, French and Spanish, but AmazonCrossing has expanded into doing works from Iceland, Turkish, Chinese and Indonesian, so it makes sense that they would be interested in finding books from these five Indian languages.”

In India, this announcement could not have come at a more opportune moment. With demonetization, Indians who prefer dealing in cash are perforce moving to digital payments. Also, by July 2017, it will be mandatory for all handsets manufactured, stored, sold and distributed in India to support the inputting of text in English, Hindi and at least one more official Indian language, and support reading of text in all these languages, thus making it feasible to read books other than English on the Kindle app too.

Kannan Sundaram, publisher, Kalachuvadu, welcomed the decision: “We hope it will increase our revenue from e-books which is pretty low now. Tamilians are spread all over the world. It is near impossible to reach hard copies to them. So this will boost the chances for them to read Tamil books of their choice.” Best-selling author Ashwin Sanghi called it an “outstanding initiative by Amazon India. It’s about time that vernacular writing moved out from the confines of paperback. It will also enable out-of-print books to be made available now.” Another best-selling author, Amish Tripathi, said this will address the inadequate distribution and marketing of Indian language books, for the much larger market is the one in Indian languages. “I am personally committed to this and am very happy that of the 3.5 million copies that have been sold of my books, a good 500,000 of them are in Indian languages.” Others remarked upon the best global practices it would bring to local publishing.

Well-known Hindi lexicographer Arvind Kumar says it will influence reading patterns by encouraging cross-pollination of literature across cultures by “opening new avenues for translation of two-way Hindi to English and other Indian languages which are being introduced on Kindle, and from many non-English languages like French and German or, say, Latin American into Hindi”. Mini Krishnan, OUP, too endorsed it, saying readership in the Indian languages is healthy, so “a highly portable personal library will surely do well”.

21 December 2016

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