Guess what India is reading in its small towns and villages these days? Almost exactly what Washington or New York was reading a year or two ago. Go to a bookstall in any railway or bus station across the country and the books topping the racks are curiously familiar in an assortment of regional avatars:Mera Cheez Kisne Hataya; Harry Potter Aur Paras Pathar; Rich Dad, Poor Dad; Saat Aadatein of Highly Effective People; Mangalvaarlu With Morrie and, of course, that perennial bestseller: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale ("Doll") Carnegie.
"There's a huge curiosity among non-English readers in India for books that are making waves around the world," explains Vikas Rakheja of Bhopal's Manjul Publishing House. "Readers want to know, for instance, what this Harry Potter is all about even if they can't read it in English." So Rakheja decided to take the leap three years ago by buying translation rights of international bestsellers. The advance that J.K. Rowling's agent demanded—Rs 1 million—would have deterred most Hindi publishers in a market where margins are low and average print runs a mere 1,000 copies, but Rakheja was ready to take the risk.
It was a hunch that more than paid off. The first of the Harry Potter series they translated was beyond Rakheja's—or any other regional publisher's—wildest dreams: a combined sale of 1,00,000 copies in Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati. The young Bhopal publisher now hires an editorial team whose job it is to read all the world's bestsellers to see which ones would do well in the regional, especially Hindi, market. Then Rakheja begins his hunt, through book fairs like Frankfurt and London, e-mails and networking, chasing publishers and agents of "time-tested" authors such as Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer for Indian translation rights.
But the gold rush is really in the self-help and management books. Rakheja bagged the Hindi translation rights of Who Moved My Cheese which has crossed the 50,000 copies mark already.Business School by Robert Kiyosaki sold 70,000 copies while Allan Pease's Questions Are the Answers sold 1,00,000 copies in Hindi alone. "There are so many young men and women working in top companies nowadays who are not comfortable reading in English but can't afford to be ignorant of the latest management books," he explains.
Some of these young men and women are visible at Manjul Publishing House's stall at the World Book Fair in Delhi. Rajesh Kumar, 23, who works in network marketing, is leafing through a Hindi translation of Magic of Big Thinking. "These books are easier to understand in Hindi," he says shyly, even as his sister, Priti Sagar, a graduate of Mata Sundari College, shamefacedly distances herself from the Hindi version of 201 Networking Marketing Simple Ideas by Richard Tan and K.C. See. "These books are meant for those not so much educated, they are better for them because they are easy to understand," Priti says.
But it's graduates like Priti—knowing just enough English to want, without being able, to read the books the world is talking about—that regional publishers are cashing in on. As Marathi publisher Sukumar Beri says, "While the number of English medium schools and colleges across the country has increased enormously, the quality of education has fallen so low that few students are comfortable reading in English. These translations fill that hunger for the best books."
There's something else that has sparked this new hunger for international bestsellers in the regional market, according to Beri. "In Maharashtra, even as recently as the '70s, few had the purchasing power for books. We had to price them at Rs 3 or 5. But not anymore. Farmers are making money, and after the first splurge on consumer goods like TVs and refrigerators and mixies and toys, it's now books, especially ones on self-development. "
But even so, regional publishers claim that their markets are acutely price-sensitive. "If you price a book at Rs 500, it has few takers," explains Piyush Kumar of Prabhat Prakashan. Prices of regional translations are roughly half or one-third of the English originals, a rule that even multinational publishers like Penguin are forced to respect as they step into the regional market.
There are other hiccups as regional publishing gets a cosmopolitan makeover. Publishers say they have to be very careful in choosing the "right" kind of books because foreign publishers and authors are notorious sticklers when it comes to translation: no adaptation or bowdlerisation is permitted for the more strait-laced market in India. When Prabhat Prakashan picked up Hindi rights for Vikas Swarup'sQ & A, for instance, they had a tough time persuading Swarup's publisher to omit a few paragraphs, including all references to homosexuality. "We've sold translation rights in 23 languages, and this is the first time we received such a request," Piyush was told before he was reluctantly granted the rights.
These constraints are certainly not stopping them from entering the race to grab translation rights from the international market. Regional publishers like Rakheja have built up an impressive network of international agents and publishers. "You can miss dinner, but never Frankfurt Book Fair," quips Piyush, who has bagged three titles by V.S. Naipaul in Hindi—India: A Wounded Civilisation; Beyond Belief andMagic Seeds. It was not that easy, Piyush recalls. Naipaul was offended when he discovered that Prabhat Prakashan was planning a print run of a mere 1,000 copies. "We print 3,000 copies only for free distribution," Naipaul's agent Gillon Aitken informed him loftily. But like Swarup, the Nobel laureate eventually relented, attracted by the prospect of selling even 1,000 copies in Hindi. "Even the minimum signing amount of $750 is sometimes beyond our budget," Piyush complains.
But publishers are fast discovering other, cheaper alternatives to high-priced English and American authors. Books from West Asia, for instance, are suddenly much in demand in the Hindi market, especially books from Israel and the UAE. "Their culture is compatible with Hindi readership," Piyush explains. And presumably, their prices as well. Equally affordable are a new brand of bestsellers written by Indian authors in English. President A.P.J. Kalam's titles rank on the top in almost all regional languages. In Hindi alone, Piyush's Prabhat Prakashan has sold over 75,000 copies of Kalam's Wings of Fire. His Ignited Minds comes a close second, followed by half-a-dozen other titles. Similarly, Sudha Murthy's collections of essays and short stories are moving more briskly in regional languages than the original English.
Will this wholesale invasion of English books strangle regional writing just as it is getting its second lease of life? It certainly is the death knell for the kind of regional writers who have been cashing in on the hunger for self-help books, according to Telugu publisher D. Ashok Kumar. These clones—publishers hesitate to use the stronger word plagiarists—are on their last leg now as the Deepak Chopras, Stephen Coveys, Dale Carnegies and Napoleon Hills hit small-town bookstalls in translation. As for the rest, it's very much like the Hollywood versus Bollywood debate. "How can authors from the West ever replace the novel, drama, short story with the local flavour?" as Beri says, adding that even in non-fiction, there are some genres, such as autobiographies and memoirs of local icons, that foreign authors can never replace. "These books will enrich regional literature but can never replace it. There's room for everyone, the market is so huge. "
Agrees a Hindi schoolteacher, Bharati Bindal. "I read these books to learn about people outside, what they think. But for me, Hindi literature will always be a staple. There was a time when people were ashamed not to be able to speak or read in English, but that's no longer the case. Only look at how many media channels that have opened up in regional languages. I think we now have the pride and confidence to read authors from outside without any chip on our shoulder," she says. Publishers would happily agree.
"There's a huge curiosity among non-English readers in India for books that are making waves around the world," explains Vikas Rakheja of Bhopal's Manjul Publishing House. "Readers want to know, for instance, what this Harry Potter is all about even if they can't read it in English." So Rakheja decided to take the leap three years ago by buying translation rights of international bestsellers. The advance that J.K. Rowling's agent demanded—Rs 1 million—would have deterred most Hindi publishers in a market where margins are low and average print runs a mere 1,000 copies, but Rakheja was ready to take the risk.
It was a hunch that more than paid off. The first of the Harry Potter series they translated was beyond Rakheja's—or any other regional publisher's—wildest dreams: a combined sale of 1,00,000 copies in Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati. The young Bhopal publisher now hires an editorial team whose job it is to read all the world's bestsellers to see which ones would do well in the regional, especially Hindi, market. Then Rakheja begins his hunt, through book fairs like Frankfurt and London, e-mails and networking, chasing publishers and agents of "time-tested" authors such as Sidney Sheldon and Jeffrey Archer for Indian translation rights.
But the gold rush is really in the self-help and management books. Rakheja bagged the Hindi translation rights of Who Moved My Cheese which has crossed the 50,000 copies mark already.Business School by Robert Kiyosaki sold 70,000 copies while Allan Pease's Questions Are the Answers sold 1,00,000 copies in Hindi alone. "There are so many young men and women working in top companies nowadays who are not comfortable reading in English but can't afford to be ignorant of the latest management books," he explains.
Some of these young men and women are visible at Manjul Publishing House's stall at the World Book Fair in Delhi. Rajesh Kumar, 23, who works in network marketing, is leafing through a Hindi translation of Magic of Big Thinking. "These books are easier to understand in Hindi," he says shyly, even as his sister, Priti Sagar, a graduate of Mata Sundari College, shamefacedly distances herself from the Hindi version of 201 Networking Marketing Simple Ideas by Richard Tan and K.C. See. "These books are meant for those not so much educated, they are better for them because they are easy to understand," Priti says.
But it's graduates like Priti—knowing just enough English to want, without being able, to read the books the world is talking about—that regional publishers are cashing in on. As Marathi publisher Sukumar Beri says, "While the number of English medium schools and colleges across the country has increased enormously, the quality of education has fallen so low that few students are comfortable reading in English. These translations fill that hunger for the best books."
There's something else that has sparked this new hunger for international bestsellers in the regional market, according to Beri. "In Maharashtra, even as recently as the '70s, few had the purchasing power for books. We had to price them at Rs 3 or 5. But not anymore. Farmers are making money, and after the first splurge on consumer goods like TVs and refrigerators and mixies and toys, it's now books, especially ones on self-development. "
But even so, regional publishers claim that their markets are acutely price-sensitive. "If you price a book at Rs 500, it has few takers," explains Piyush Kumar of Prabhat Prakashan. Prices of regional translations are roughly half or one-third of the English originals, a rule that even multinational publishers like Penguin are forced to respect as they step into the regional market.
There are other hiccups as regional publishing gets a cosmopolitan makeover. Publishers say they have to be very careful in choosing the "right" kind of books because foreign publishers and authors are notorious sticklers when it comes to translation: no adaptation or bowdlerisation is permitted for the more strait-laced market in India. When Prabhat Prakashan picked up Hindi rights for Vikas Swarup'sQ & A, for instance, they had a tough time persuading Swarup's publisher to omit a few paragraphs, including all references to homosexuality. "We've sold translation rights in 23 languages, and this is the first time we received such a request," Piyush was told before he was reluctantly granted the rights.
These constraints are certainly not stopping them from entering the race to grab translation rights from the international market. Regional publishers like Rakheja have built up an impressive network of international agents and publishers. "You can miss dinner, but never Frankfurt Book Fair," quips Piyush, who has bagged three titles by V.S. Naipaul in Hindi—India: A Wounded Civilisation; Beyond Belief andMagic Seeds. It was not that easy, Piyush recalls. Naipaul was offended when he discovered that Prabhat Prakashan was planning a print run of a mere 1,000 copies. "We print 3,000 copies only for free distribution," Naipaul's agent Gillon Aitken informed him loftily. But like Swarup, the Nobel laureate eventually relented, attracted by the prospect of selling even 1,000 copies in Hindi. "Even the minimum signing amount of $750 is sometimes beyond our budget," Piyush complains.
But publishers are fast discovering other, cheaper alternatives to high-priced English and American authors. Books from West Asia, for instance, are suddenly much in demand in the Hindi market, especially books from Israel and the UAE. "Their culture is compatible with Hindi readership," Piyush explains. And presumably, their prices as well. Equally affordable are a new brand of bestsellers written by Indian authors in English. President A.P.J. Kalam's titles rank on the top in almost all regional languages. In Hindi alone, Piyush's Prabhat Prakashan has sold over 75,000 copies of Kalam's Wings of Fire. His Ignited Minds comes a close second, followed by half-a-dozen other titles. Similarly, Sudha Murthy's collections of essays and short stories are moving more briskly in regional languages than the original English.
Will this wholesale invasion of English books strangle regional writing just as it is getting its second lease of life? It certainly is the death knell for the kind of regional writers who have been cashing in on the hunger for self-help books, according to Telugu publisher D. Ashok Kumar. These clones—publishers hesitate to use the stronger word plagiarists—are on their last leg now as the Deepak Chopras, Stephen Coveys, Dale Carnegies and Napoleon Hills hit small-town bookstalls in translation. As for the rest, it's very much like the Hollywood versus Bollywood debate. "How can authors from the West ever replace the novel, drama, short story with the local flavour?" as Beri says, adding that even in non-fiction, there are some genres, such as autobiographies and memoirs of local icons, that foreign authors can never replace. "These books will enrich regional literature but can never replace it. There's room for everyone, the market is so huge. "
Agrees a Hindi schoolteacher, Bharati Bindal. "I read these books to learn about people outside, what they think. But for me, Hindi literature will always be a staple. There was a time when people were ashamed not to be able to speak or read in English, but that's no longer the case. Only look at how many media channels that have opened up in regional languages. I think we now have the pride and confidence to read authors from outside without any chip on our shoulder," she says. Publishers would happily agree.
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