Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Referring to the craft of translation and its difficulties, J.M. Coetzee had commented in his rather well-known essay, ‘Roads to Translation’ that ‘Translation seems to me a craft in a way that cabinet-making is a craft. There is no substantial theory of cabinet-making, and no philosophy of cabinet-making except the ideal of being a good cabinet-maker, plus a handful of precepts relating to tools and to types of wood’ (Coetzee 151).

Mythology has always been a good source of raw material for fiction in literature. Recent activity on the Indian literary scene has reaffirmed this old proposition with a series of publications, including some bestsellers.

Although works of Indian language fiction in English translation are being published since the early nineties by the country’s major publishing houses, it is rare for these publishers to show the same enthusiasm for poetry in Indian languages.

We begin with the translator’s note on the change in title from Asprushyaru in Kannada to Vasudeva’s Family in English —itself an interesting conceptual and methodological exercise.

Why is the short story called the short story when the long story is called not the long story but the novel? Why could it not be called simply the story? Following the illogical English usage,

A book written about the British influence on the Indian garden is bound to elicit curiosity in the minds of botanical aficionados and students of imperial history: