A world without translation would be impoverished: Writer Geetanjali Shree
The International Booker Prize winner talks about her newly translated book 'Our City That Year' and an upcoming novel
by Amit Dixit · India TodayISSUE DATE: Oct 7, 2024
(NOTE: This is a reprint of a story that was published in the India Today edition date October 7, 2024)
“A world without translation would be an impoverished place,” says International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree. She is back with a newly translated book, Our City That Year. In this Q&A, she talks about her latest work, the realm of translation, and her upcoming novel.
Q. Translations of your books into English have introduced you to a global audience. While Ret Samadhi was written in 2018, its translation was published in 2022. Our City That Year, however, is a much older novel. What drove the decision to translate this particular book over others?
The timing of the translations of my writings depends on translators and publishers. I never look for prospective translators and publishers. Incidentally, the French translation of Ret Samadhi came out two years before the English translation did. Two publishers had, prior to now, shown interest in Hamara Shahar Us Baras, which has just come out as Our City That Year, but the project fell through. A blessing in disguise—I got Daisy Rockwell and Penguin and they are the best!
Q. Can you tell us briefly what the book is about?
The book traces the corrosion of common human decency and the growth of a divisive relationship full of mutual suspicion, intolerance and violence and hatred between the two major communities that have co-existed in this country for centuries. It worries about the rise of narrow prejudices which have begun to colour the language even of the so-called secularists. Where is this lack of generosity on all sides coming from? What ignorance and untruths are spreading? And indeed, where is gone the largeness and beauty of religions that so many of us have grown up on?
The main protagonists in the book are educated university people—the intelligentsia—who are sincere and committed, but must look inwards to face their own shortcomings and not think the fault all lies far on the other side, where supposedly the bigots live.
Q. Do you feel Our City That Year has relevance for our times?
The book was relevant when it first came out. Sadly, more and more of the world has made it increasingly relevant.
Q. How involved were you in the translation process?
Daisy and I have developed a wonderful rapport. We go into discussions and clarifications alongside the translation and then the final call is taken. Usually hers, unless I have a huge objection, which is rare.
Q. How do you view translation? Do you feel certain things are difficult to translate or get lost in translation?
A world without translation would be an impoverished place. There are always things that are difficult to translate. But that is precisely the translators’ challenge and the litmus test of their imagination and creativity. Good translation is also transcreation. Some things may be lost, but things will also be gained. And the work reaches out to that many more people.
Q. What drew you to writing a political novel? How do you choose the subjects of your books?
All my writing is political. They question existing attitudes and relationships and are a re-look and re-positioning of them.
Perhaps we only recognise the ‘political’ when it is quite explicitly so? And also only when we recognise the subject as political?
In literature ‘political’ expresses itself differently from activism and journalism. In the latter two, you step forward and speak up, in literature you take two steps back and wonder, question, worry. Your concern is not just immediate but belongs to a much larger time-span. A sense of urgent immediacy may sometimes impel the writer and then she has to negotiate this dilemma of the immediate and the beyond, much like it were a tight rope she has to walk on.
Subjects of my novels are all around me and in me. They play their own dynamics and choose their moment to unfurl and concretise on the page. Different pressures and impulses come together to make a work of art.
Q. Are you working on any new novel at the moment and, if so, what?
Yes, it is ready for publication. Its name is Sah-sa. Giving it a slow last look. Read it!