Vivek Shanbhag Questions India's Translation Boom: 'Good Translation? For Whom?'
India's literary translation scene is booming. Translated books now appear everywhere. They feature on national and international prize lists. They populate global publishing platforms. English has become the common language for discussing diverse Indian languages. Yet, acclaimed Kannada writer Vivek Shanbhag sees a deep problem. He calls it incoherence.
The Tyranny of Visibility
This unease took center stage at the Jaipur Literature Festival. A headline session titled 'Hyphenated Worlds' brought together Shanbhag, critic Rita Kothari, and prolific translator Arunava Sinha. All three agreed Indian literature in English translation is thriving and visible worldwide. However, they expressed concern. The boom, they argued, has outpaced its own thinking.
"We all know there is a lot of translation happening," Rita Kothari said. "This is exciting and dizzying, but there is something chaotic about the whole landscape." She identified the chaos as a 'tyranny of visibility'. Everything must become prize-ready and tangible. In the rush, reflection and conceptual depth become casualties.
Abundance Without a Narrative
Vivek Shanbhag pinpointed the core issue. "There is an enormous amount of effort being put into bringing Indian-language literature into English," he stated. "But what is lacking is a narrative around which one can hang these translations." Without this unifying story, translations arrive as isolated achievements. They fail to form a shared literary field.
Shanbhag drew a contrast with Europe. There, multiple languages coexist within shared theoretical and critical frameworks. Translation functions as a conversation between traditions. "In India," he lamented, "there is no conversation happening – or has ever happened – between languages through their translations into English." Writers may connect personally, but institutionally, the dots remain unconnected. This absence of cross-linguistic dialogue is a structural flaw.
The Reader's Dilemma and Market Forces
The consequences hit readers directly. Ask what 'Indian literature' means, Shanbhag said, and the question collapses. This confusion stems not from India's diversity, but from how translations are presented. They often lack the editorial or curatorial work needed to guide readers across regions, histories, and sensibilities.
Publishers frequently privilege recognition over deep engagement. "Publishers go by the name rather than an in-depth engagement with the literature," Shanbhag argued. This leaves translators as de facto curators. "Most of the time, it is the choice of the translator. If a translator likes a work, they pick it up. There is no publisher strategy for this."
Arunava Sinha explained why such strategies are rare. "Big publishers are driven by their P&Ls (profit and loss)," he said. The key question is not about representing a language or writer. It is about sales figures. "Your last book sold seven hundred copies. We are not publishing this writer again," is a common refrain. The result is redundancy. The same author appears from multiple publishers, while vast literary landscapes remain untouched.
The Cost of Haste and Lost Intimacy
Shanbhag theorized that haste compounds the damage. "A translated book is very different from a book originally written in English," he noted. "There is a writer, a translator, and an editor. All three have to be in continuous conversation." Yet, in large publishing houses, editors may spend only weeks on a translated manuscript. "It is not enough," he insisted, describing translation as a negotiated act.
Rita Kothari posed a critical question. What do translations actually do for our understanding of a region, an archive, or a literary tradition? Has the boom created intimacy between linguistic communities? She recalled a time when Gujarati and Marathi were called bhagini bhashas—sister languages. That organic intimacy, she said, has been replaced by competitive visibility and award-driven aspiration. "There's a neoliberalness to the whole enterprise," Kothari observed. "Something is a little off."
Hyphen as a Counter-Proposal
Against this backdrop, Vivek Shanbhag co-founded Hyphen. This initiative includes a biannual print literary magazine devoted exclusively to translations from Indian languages. It also features a publishing house focused solely on translation and a digital platform for workshops and shared resources.
The advisory council brings together major literary figures. These include Namita Gokhale, Geetanjali Shree, Perumal Murugan, KR Meera, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, and others. "These writers have already been discovered and read in their own languages," Shanbhag clarified. "To say I have discovered them would be arrogant. What we are trying to do is discover them afresh in English."
This act of rediscovery demands time—sometimes eighteen months for a single book. It requires institutional patience, a rare commodity in today's fast-paced ecosystem. Underlying the entire discussion was an unresolved question about English itself. Once, the worry was whether English could carry the emotional weight of Indian languages. Now, Shanbhag suggested a different risk. English may become both a bridge and a border, shaping literature toward external expectations.
"When you say 'good translation,'" Vivek Shanbhag asked pointedly, "good for whom?" The question hangs in the air, challenging India's literary community to look beyond the boom and build meaningful, lasting connections.
