Translated copies of Indian novels continue to do very well in European countries, providing a lucrative channel of income for Indian authors, finds Gargi Gupta.
It is one of those apocryphal stories that the publishing world thrives on — a manuscript by an unknown author gets picked up by a discerning agent/publisher and becomes a bestseller, not just in the language it was written in but also in its translated version.
Marc Parent, the French publisher and Indophile who now runs India Maya Literary agency, was at the London Book Fair in 2006, when an agent gave him a manuscript to read. "I devoured it through the night," he remembers, "and went back the next morning and acquired the rights to it." Parent was then editorial director of foreign literature for French publishing house Buchet-Chastel and the manuscript was Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.
By the time the French translation hit the shops in August 2008, Adiga's book had already been published by Atlantic to much acclaim. A month later in September, The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize and Le Tigre Blanc became a bestseller, selling as many as 150,000 copies to date. Not bad, if you compare it with the upwards of 300,000 copies of The White Tiger sold in India.
But this was not Parent's biggest success. That goes to Tarun Tejpal's debut novel The Alchemy of Desire (2006), which has sold 300,000 copies in its many editions, won the Le Prix Mille Pages for Best Foreign Literary Fiction and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina.
More recently, the German translation of Pankaj Mishra's From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia won the 2014 Leipzig Book Award for European understanding, the first non-Western book to get the prestigious Euro 15,000 award.
And it's not just in France and Germany that Indian authors are finding readers in tongues other than their own. They've also got a following in smaller countries such as Portugal, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Holland, and Greece.
Translation rights for The White Tiger were sold for 26 languages. Even Chandrahas Choudhury's Arzee the Dwarf was translated into German and Spanish. Polish publisher Wielka Litera is bringing out a translation of Arundhati Roy's Broken Republic early next month. Wielka Litera has also published Kishwar Desai's Witness the Night.
Friederike Barakat, part of the foreign rights team at German publishing house Hanser, says Indian authors like Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and Jeet Thayil are well known in her country.
"The trend began with Roy's The God of Small Things, which was the first real bestseller by an Indian author," says Barakat, who was in New Delhi for the World Book Fair. Hanser has published the Mumbai-based poet Ranjit Hoskote and is coming out with a book on Gulaabi Gang founder Sampat Pal Devi.
But what is it about Indian novels that so appeal to European readers? Most of their narratives are specific to India, and refer to experiences that are unique to it. "The Germans don't necessarily want to read only about themselves. Cultural difference can be interesting too, or how would the Scandinavian detective novel become such a global rage," says Barakat.
"What played a part in The White Tiger's success was the French desire for the sweeping story of India," says Parent. "While India is a developing country and an emerging economic power, for most French people it is still associated with poverty."
Sometimes, a minor tweak can work wonders. Manil Suri's The Age of Shiva sold a creditable 18,000 copies in its French version, but its publishers, Albin Michel, changed its title to Mother India.
Of course, the West's fascination with India is not new. After all, the French were one of the major purveyors of Orientalism, and Indian and Eastern cultures had a major influence on Western philosophy, culture, arts, music, even fashion. Among Indian writers, Rabindranath Tagore is best known in Europe. Pioneers of Indian writing in English such as RK Narayanan have been widely translated, as have the first-wave of Indian writers in English who made it big on the international scene — Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh. What has changed now, says Parent, is the pace of the translations and how well they do commercially.
As a result, translation rights have emerged as a lucrative source of income for Indian authors. Parent negotiated the sale of the German translation rights for Saltwater, the debut novel by Mumbai-based Shrey, for a "five-figure Euro." Parent says it was a generous deal, but overseas rights can bring in as much as Rs10 lakh at current exchange rates. A tidy sum by any reckoning!
It is one of those apocryphal stories that the publishing world thrives on — a manuscript by an unknown author gets picked up by a discerning agent/publisher and becomes a bestseller, not just in the language it was written in but also in its translated version.
Marc Parent, the French publisher and Indophile who now runs India Maya Literary agency, was at the London Book Fair in 2006, when an agent gave him a manuscript to read. "I devoured it through the night," he remembers, "and went back the next morning and acquired the rights to it." Parent was then editorial director of foreign literature for French publishing house Buchet-Chastel and the manuscript was Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.
By the time the French translation hit the shops in August 2008, Adiga's book had already been published by Atlantic to much acclaim. A month later in September, The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize and Le Tigre Blanc became a bestseller, selling as many as 150,000 copies to date. Not bad, if you compare it with the upwards of 300,000 copies of The White Tiger sold in India.
But this was not Parent's biggest success. That goes to Tarun Tejpal's debut novel The Alchemy of Desire (2006), which has sold 300,000 copies in its many editions, won the Le Prix Mille Pages for Best Foreign Literary Fiction and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina.
More recently, the German translation of Pankaj Mishra's From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia won the 2014 Leipzig Book Award for European understanding, the first non-Western book to get the prestigious Euro 15,000 award.
And it's not just in France and Germany that Indian authors are finding readers in tongues other than their own. They've also got a following in smaller countries such as Portugal, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Holland, and Greece.
Translation rights for The White Tiger were sold for 26 languages. Even Chandrahas Choudhury's Arzee the Dwarf was translated into German and Spanish. Polish publisher Wielka Litera is bringing out a translation of Arundhati Roy's Broken Republic early next month. Wielka Litera has also published Kishwar Desai's Witness the Night.
Friederike Barakat, part of the foreign rights team at German publishing house Hanser, says Indian authors like Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and Jeet Thayil are well known in her country.
"The trend began with Roy's The God of Small Things, which was the first real bestseller by an Indian author," says Barakat, who was in New Delhi for the World Book Fair. Hanser has published the Mumbai-based poet Ranjit Hoskote and is coming out with a book on Gulaabi Gang founder Sampat Pal Devi.
But what is it about Indian novels that so appeal to European readers? Most of their narratives are specific to India, and refer to experiences that are unique to it. "The Germans don't necessarily want to read only about themselves. Cultural difference can be interesting too, or how would the Scandinavian detective novel become such a global rage," says Barakat.
"What played a part in The White Tiger's success was the French desire for the sweeping story of India," says Parent. "While India is a developing country and an emerging economic power, for most French people it is still associated with poverty."
Sometimes, a minor tweak can work wonders. Manil Suri's The Age of Shiva sold a creditable 18,000 copies in its French version, but its publishers, Albin Michel, changed its title to Mother India.
Of course, the West's fascination with India is not new. After all, the French were one of the major purveyors of Orientalism, and Indian and Eastern cultures had a major influence on Western philosophy, culture, arts, music, even fashion. Among Indian writers, Rabindranath Tagore is best known in Europe. Pioneers of Indian writing in English such as RK Narayanan have been widely translated, as have the first-wave of Indian writers in English who made it big on the international scene — Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh. What has changed now, says Parent, is the pace of the translations and how well they do commercially.
As a result, translation rights have emerged as a lucrative source of income for Indian authors. Parent negotiated the sale of the German translation rights for Saltwater, the debut novel by Mumbai-based Shrey, for a "five-figure Euro." Parent says it was a generous deal, but overseas rights can bring in as much as Rs10 lakh at current exchange rates. A tidy sum by any reckoning!
