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The Hindu
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Kanishka Gupta's open door policy
Kanishka Gupta, 43, is likely the most popular book agent in the country right now. One strategy that has helped him go from being an outsider who 'didn't know the ABC of agenting' — and someone whom publishers fobbed off by saying they didn't pay author advances — to an industry insider who runs the largest literary agency in South Asia, is that he always keeps his doors open. 'I don't say, tune mujhe kitab nahi di, katti (You didn't give me your book, so I won't speak to you),' he says. He once helped a journalist-author conduct an auction for her book despite the fact that she didn't want him to be her agent. In turn, she introduced him to many writers. In an insulated and competitive field, Gupta's open door policy is rare. Now he's the agent for feminist lawyer Indira Jaising's conversational biography with Ritu Menon; says he can tell if ChatGPT is the real author of a piece of writing by the overuse of words such as 'tapestry' and 'align'; and promises to send me an award-winning book published in 2019 that he's re-pitching for publication in the U.K. and the U.S. because he has 'never read a book like this'. He's talking about Numair Atif Choudhury's Babu Bangladesh!. Choudhury died in a freak drowning accident in Japan a year before his book was released. He may not yet have discovered an Arundhati Roy in his slush pile, like literary agent David Godwin once did, but Gupta now has an author roster that includes two International Booker winners in four years. He is the agent for Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp (translated by Deepa Bhasthi), which recently bested around 150 entries to win the prestigious prize. He was also translator Daisy Rockwell's agent when she and author Geetanjali Shree won the 2022 International Booker for Tomb of Sand. Agent 'by accident' Gupta was also representing two books of Shehan Karunatilaka when the Sri Lankan writer won the 2022 Booker Prize (Gupta got a shoutout in the victory speech alongside Godwin). His author Avni Doshi's Burnt Sugar was shortlisted for the Booker in 2020. Gupta says he's been the agent for around 1,700-1,800 published books so far. As Heart Lamp propels bookstore sales across the country, Gupta has been inundated with translation offers. '…Malay, Sinhala, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Arabic… a Georgian publisher is interested, the Polish book is a big deal,' he rattles off at 2x speed, adding that he has also received invites from 30 literature festivals. Gupta became an agent 'by accident'. In school he had 'zero interest' in books. As a teenager, he suffered from 'life-threatening depression' and a few years after, he began writing a book. Somehow, due to regular visits to Delhi book shops, he developed an interest in publishing. 'I kept observing and Googling,' he says. His own book was rejected by publishers at first because it was overwritten. But in classic Gupta style, he worked on his own writing, read voraciously and made it to the longlist of the now discontinued Man Asian Literary Prize. At 21, he was that pesky author who would email agents repeatedly (he still has half-a-dozen manuscripts, 'one worse than the other'). The people connect He had two short stints working with literary stalwarts Namita Gokhale and Mita Kapur and, in 2008, he started Writer's Side to give authors editorial feedback. Two years later, when he signed on his first client, Anees Salim, then an unknown author, Gupta became a literary agent. 'There was a lot of opposition, confusion, uncertainty from the publishing industry,' he says about the early years. 'I had no credentials, some were not keen on working with me, but I always stayed in touch with people and that worked for me.' When his business thrived, Gupta began sharing his observations about the publishing industry. 'I'm blunt, so I'm disliked. Once I felt I was in a position to speak my mind, I started doing that,' he says. 'I called out the nepotism and casteism in publishing.' One of his pet peeves is that many talented authors are forced to publish paperback books while the hardbacks seem to be reserved for the prestige memoirs of bureaucrats. The breadth of Gupta's author list is impressive. 'I'm known for my translation list,' he says. 'It's big.' But then he has also been the agent for at least 50 Pakistani authors. He has a long list of nature writing, sports books, Dalit writers and academics-turned-authors. 'I'm open to everything,' he says. After 7-8 years of wading through the slush pile to discover writers, Gupta now has the luxury to operate from references and his travels. He represented Pakistani author Moni Mohsin after meeting her at the Galle Literature Festival in Sri Lanka and signed up writer and naturalist Yuvan Aves after they connected at the Jaipur Literature Festival. He was the agent for the book, Trial By Fire, about the Uphaar cinema tragedy, and Life after MH370, written by a man who lost his wife on the plane. 'I get drawn to personal stories,' Gupta says. His personal story is not bad either. The writer is a Bengaluru-based journalist and the co-founder of India Love Project on Instagram.
India Today
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
How the power of translation helps many a Heart Lamp shine
Not everything is lost in translation – sometimes, entire worlds are found. This is especially true of Indian literature, which both Indians and the world have discovered, all thanks to translations. This was also acknowledged in the International Booker Prize, which was awarded to two Indian women this year. Writer Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the award for their collection of short stories, Heart beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects," said Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 committee, announcing the prestigious is the second International Booker in three years for an Indian author – a testament to the variety and power of Indian literature. In 2022, it was the translation of Ret Samadhi that won Geetanjali Shree the award. The English translation of Ret Samadhi – Tomb of Sand – by Daisy Rockwell introduced both non-Hindi readers in India and the world to Geetanjali Shree's work. Tomb of Sand was published in Britain in 2021. Since winning the award, it has sold 30,000 copies in Britain and 20,000 reprints in is the importance of translation that the International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, has been instituted for works translated into work of translation is intricate. What seems like a verbatim translation of written words is a larger conversation with the original text and the realisation of how to best convey the context, the people and their sentiments to a reader, for whom those concepts might be absolutely to think of it, there wouldn't be any world literature without of what we consider world literature today — Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk — was made accessible only through translation. It is through this invisible art that languages speak to each other, and the world was Ralph Manheim, a great translator of the works of writers Bertolt Brecht and Hermann Hesse, who once said, "Translators are like actors who speak the lines as the author would if the author could speak English."The latest Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to South Korean writer Han Kang after her works were translated. Deborah Smith learnt Korean to translate Han's works into tradition of translating India to the world is not a century ago, Rabindranath Tagore translated his own poetry collection, Gitanjali, into English. He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in in Bengali, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) introduced the spiritual depth and lyrical beauty of Indian poetry to the win marked a pivotal moment in the global recognition of Indian literature. In more recent years, works like Perumal Murugan's Pyre and Fire Bird, and M Mukundan's Delhi: A Soliloquy have found new audiences through is especially important for a country like India that is culturally and linguistically diverse."Without translation, people in a country like India would be locked into their own linguistic islands," Arunava Sinha, a literary translator, tells India Today LAMP, TOMB OF SAND AND THE MANY 'ENGLISHES'In Kannada, Mushtaq's anthology – Heart Lamp – is called Haseena Mattu Itara receiving the International Booker Award, Mushtaq said of her short stories that her heart had been her field of study. But for the Booker prize judges, it was the "new textures" of the stories and their "radical translation"."A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation," stated Max do not naturally map onto each other and await intricate translation is particularly difficult when it comes to new words or expressions, was revealed by Frank Wynne, one of the member judges of the International Booker in 2022, when Geetanjali Shree's book won the award."In Tomb of Sand, I loved all three. World play, punning, neologisms and humour," said Wynne. "These are inherently difficult to translate since languages do not map onto one another; this is all the more true when the cultural context is very different."In India, Tomb of Sand sold 50,000 copies, making it a resounding success for a work of literary fiction, and Ret Samadhi sold more than 35,000 copies. The novel became ubiquitous in train stations and airports across India, the New York Times LITERATURE REACHES INDIANS, AND THE WORLDTranslated literature is about listening to the varied voices from across the world, sometimes even from the corners of one's country."How will we talk to one another and listen to one another without translation? Translation is the language of democracy," author-translator Sinha tells India Today Heart Lamp and Tomb of Sand were winners of the International Booker Prize, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan's Pyre made it to the award's longlist in reached the global audience because of the translation by Aniruddhan Vasudeva. The judges acknowledged how it was both "specific and universal" and "how flammable are fear and the distrust of others."This was also seen in Murugan's Fire Kannan's translation of Fire Bird made the novel accessible to a global audience. Fire Bird won the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature, with Murugan receiving Rs 25 lakh and Kannan Rs 10 lakh in prize jury praised Kannan's translation for carrying "the rhythms not only of Tamil but of an entire way of being in the world", amplifying the novel's universal the English translation of M Mukundan's Delhi: A Soliloquy (originally Delhi Gadhakal in Malayalam), translated by Fathima EV and Nandakumar K, played a crucial role in elevating the novel's visibility and translation introduced Mukundan's vivid portrayal of Delhi's underbelly and the lives of Malayali migrants to international IN TRANSLATION: WHAT REMAINS UNTRANSLATEDTranslation, while a bridge between cultures, is not without its gaps. The act of carrying a story from one language to another often leaves behind subtle nuances, cultural idioms, and emotional undercurrents that defy instance, the rhythmic cadence of Tamil in Perumal Murugan's Pyre. Words rooted in specific cultural practices – like the term Agmark (a certification mark), used colloquially to denote authenticity in Fire Bird – lose their immediacy when untranslatable also includes the intangible: the smell of rain-soaked earth in a Malayalam poem, the cadence of a Bengali lullaby, or the weight of Partition's trauma in Ret translator Aniruddhan Vasudeva noted in a 2023 interview, "You can translate the words, but the silences between them? That's where the story lives."When asked about translation and its limitations, Geetanjali Shree had a point to make: "Translation is not about producing a replica or a clone. It is making another living being that carries the culture of the earlier one in a new avatar".MANY MARQUEZ IN INDIA'S REGIONAL CRYPTS?Though translation has certain limits, it is this magical art that completes world literature as we know Rabassa's translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude captured the lyrical richness of Marquez's magical realism, letting non-Spanish readers experience a Colombia infused with myth and Michael Heim's rendering of The Unbearable Lightness of Being made Kundera's Czech philosophical reflections accessible, resonating with Cold War-era readers exploring questions of identity, freedom, and political translations did more than convey meaning – they recreated rhythm, tone, and cultural nuance, allowing the soul of each work to survive linguistic Garnett's translation of Anna Karenina made the classic of Russian literature reach the My Name is Red, through Erdag Goknar's deft translation, brought Ottoman aesthetics and philosophical depth into global consciousness, with dense cultural layers made legible but not is no need to make a case for translation, but it is important to reiterate how vital it is for the world of Grossman, Marquez's translator, once stated, "The impact of the kind of artistic discovery that translation enables is profoundly important to the health and vitality of any language and any literature".That is truer for entire genres of Indian literature. Oral traditions, regional folklore, and lesser-known dialects languish without translators or if they are pulled out of their regional crypts, and placed under the sun? We would discover the soul of Indian literature –and a whole new universe.
Scroll.in
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Why Heart Lamp's booker win breaks many barriers
When Heart Lamp, Deepa Bhasthi's English translation of a collection of Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq's short stories, was declared the winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize on Tuesday, literary history was made in more ways than one. The second winner of the prize from India – after Tomb of Sand (2022) – Daisy Rockwell's translation of Geetanjali Shree's Hindi novel Ret Samadhi – the book actually did not exist as a single volume in the original Kannada. Bhasthi, the first Indian translator to win the International Booker, chose the stories from over 30 years of Mushtaq's work to curate Heart Lamp, which was the first short story collection to win the prize. With two winners in 10 years of the International Booker, India now tops the country list. Of course, we have an unfair advantage in having vibrant literatures in more than two dozen distinct non-English languages, compared to one for most other countries. But what this conceals is how few books from India are published in global Anglophone markets. The numbers in any given year amount to less than 10% of the 100-plus titles published in English translation in India. So the real achievement of a Heart Lamp and a Tomb of Sand is breaking through the resistance of the Western publishing ecosystem to being published in the United Kingdom and/or the United States in the first place. As in 2022, the question is being asked again in 2025 by wide-eyed journalists: will this open the floodgates to translated books from India in the West? The short answer is no. Books from India do not have the two tailwinds that have seen a flood of translated works from Japan or South Korea – to name two other Asian countries – being published in the West by both large and independent publishers. These tailwinds come in the form of funding support from the respective countries for publishing their books, and certain country-specific literary trends that have become popular in the West – for instance, 'healing literature' from Japan and South Korea. What such awards open up, actually, are huge sales for the winning titles back home in India, easily 10 to 20 times the normal sales of translated books that have not won the International Booker Prize (all but two). Significantly, both the winning titles were accepted and then edited by UK-based publishers first, with the Indian publisher using the same edited version (and saving themselves the work involved). But we would be shortsighted to examine this win for Heart Lamp from the perspective of publishing alone. What is especially significant is that it has come to a writer who has not really been part of the canon in her own language, although she has a large number of readers. An activist and a lawyer, Mushtaq writes from an intersectional space of marginalisation on the basis of caste, religion and gender. She is a rebel writer, whose works, operating within the Bandaya Sahitya literary movement in Kannada – narrating dissent and rebellion against injustice through fiction and poetry – have been met with protests and threats from her own community. It needed not only a translation into English but also a respected international prize to draw attention to this literature outside its immediate circles. Also of vital importance is translator Bhasthi's decision to use ' an accent ' – what the jury chair Max Porter termed a 'radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes'. This is a powerful riposte to colonisation, where the coloniser's language is owned and then transformed by those from a former colony to then win the world's top award for translated books in the heart of that very colonising power. If only for these reasons, the significance of Mushtaq's and Bhasthi's win cannot be overstated. Here is a summary of the week's top stories. The Maoist conflict. Nambala Keshav Rao, the leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), was among the 27 suspected Maoists killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur. Union Home Minister Amit Shah described CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Rao, who is also known as Basavaraju, as the 'backbone of the Naxal movement'. This was the first time that a general secretary-ranked Maoist leader had been killed by the security forces, Shah added. A District Reserve Guard team member was also killed in the gunfight, according to the police. The Union government has repeatedly vowed to eradicate 'Left Wing Extremism' in the country by March 31, 2026. , writes Malini Subramaniam. Bail for Ashoka professor. The Supreme Court granted interim bail to Ashoka University Associate Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad for his comments about the press briefings on Operation Sindoor. The court also instructed the Haryana Police to form a special investigation team to look into the meaning of the words used by Mahmudabad. He was arrested on May 18 after being booked in two cases for his social media posts highlighting the apparent irony of Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, who represented the Army during the media briefings about the Indian military operation. Mahmudabad suggested that they should also call for justice for victims of mob lynching and 'others who are victims of the Bharatiya Janata Party's hate mongering'. The top court has barred him from posting or publishing any content related to the social media posts under scrutiny. Defamation case. After being reprimanded by the Delhi High Court, commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra said that he would delete social media posts in which he made purportedly sexually abusive remarks about women employees of digital news outlet Newslaundry. The court warned that it would order a first information report against Iyer-Mitra if he failed to remove the posts. The women employees of Newslaundry have filed a defamation suit against Iyer-Mitra. They have sought a public apology and Rs 2 crore in damages, alleging that Iyer-Mitra had 'falsely and maliciously' targeted the news outlet's women employees using derogatory language and slurs through a series of social media posts between February and April. Follow the Scroll channel on WhatsApp for a curated selection of the news that matters throughout the day, and a round-up of major developments in India and around the world every evening. What you won't get: spam.
The Hindu
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Heart Lamp glows, story collection wins the Booker Prize for Banu and Deepa
Kannada writer, lawyer and activist Banu Mushtaq set multiple records on Tuesday (May 20, 2025) as Heart Lamp, a collection of 12 short stories selected from her work written between 1990 and 2023 and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the International Booker Prize for 2025. This is the first time a Kannada work has won the prestigious award, and also the first time in the history of the prize that a collection of short stories has been honoured. Indian author Geetanjali Shree won the award for Tomb of Sand, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, three years ago. In the book, Ms. Mushtaq writes about girls like 'sweet Asifa' who has had to bid goodbye to her studies to look after her siblings and help her mother (Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal); or overworked mothers like Arifa (Fire Rain) and Mehrun (Heart Lamp) who struggle to save their children and themselves; and maulvis who would rather preach than practise (Black Cobras). In another story, the narrator, weary after giving birth, pleads to God: 'Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord!' In her translator's note, Ms. Bhasthi says that Ms. Mushtaq's career can be summed up in one Kannada word – 'bandaya', which means 'dissent, rebellion, protest, resistance to authority, revolution and its adjacent ideas.' The Bandaya Sahitya literary movement of the 1970s and '80s, which urged marginalised communities including women and Dalits to tell their stories and fight for their rights, helped Ms. Mushtaq find her voice. In an interview in April, Ms. Mushtaq said, 'Being multilingual, I naturally use various languages in my stories. In our daily lives, these languages blend together, and I bring that same sensibility to my writing. It enhances relatability.' Narrating unheard stories and speaking truth to power have had consequences, too. Just around 20 years ago, Ms. Mushtaq faced a severe backlash for saying that women also have a right to offer prayers in mosques. In a world that often tries to divide people, Ms. Mushtaq contended that literature remains one of the 'last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds if only for a few pages.' The Hindu's Editorials The Hindu's Daily Quiz From which country did India stop readymade garment exports? China Bangladesh Pakistan U.S. To know the answer and to play the full quiz, click here.
The Print
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Print
Banu Mushtaq was told to wear burqa, do chores. Her ‘Heart Lamp' has now won a Booker Prize
'I had always wanted to write but had nothing to write (about) because suddenly, after a love marriage, I was told to wear a burqa and dedicate myself to domestic work. I became a mother suffering from postpartum depression at 29,' she said in an interview with Vogue. Heart Lamp is an anthology of 12 stories, each narrating a tale of patriarchy and resilience in Karnataka, where 'firebrand' Mushtaq has worked as journalist, activist, and lawyer. Elements of her work appear to mirror her own life, the contours of which have also been shaped by repression. New Delhi: Author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepta Bhasthi have made history by winning the International Booker Prize for Heart Lamp. It's the first collection of short stories to have ever received the prestigious award, which is now in its 21st year. Heart Lamp's win further cements the space non-English Indian literature is carving for itself on the global stage, coming soon after Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand, which was translated into English by Daisy Rockwell. 'A lot of English readers will find it unlike anything they've ever read before,' said Max Porter, author and chair of this year's prize. During the award ceremony held at the Tate Modern in London, Porter also praised the depth of the translation. Most translators aim for invisibility, but Bhasthi did the 'opposite,' he said. She infused the book with 'ways of talking' that gave it an 'extraordinary vibrancy.' 'It celebrates the movement from one language to another. It contains a multiplicity of Englishes. It is a translation with a texture,' he added. Mushtaq's oeuvre is a testament to her length and breadth as a writer. She has published a novel, six short story collections, a compendium of essays, and a book of poetry. She is also the recipient of the Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards. All her work has had a singular motivation. 'The daily incidents reported in the media and the personal experiences I have endured have been my inspiration. The pain, suffering, and helpless lives of these women create a deep emotional response within me, compelling me to write,' she said in an interview on the booker prize website. The 76-year-old author also said that she doesn't undertake 'extensive research,' but views her 'heart as her field of study.' Mushtaq and Bhasthi were up against stiff competition. The other nominees included Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda; Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes; and A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson. The winners received £50,000, shared between both the writer and translator. Given the subject matter, it's a win that transcends the personal. It's public, and political. 'My family often told my father that I would get our nose cut. Now I hope, even though he is no more, I brought glory instead,' she told Vogue. (Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
