It started with the Roundtable on Publishing in India since Independence organized by The Book Review Literary Trust in August 2025 at the India International Centre. Celebrating 50 years of The Book Review, some of us were gathered at the invitation of the indomitable Chandra Chari to talk about not just translations but also the commissioning and writing of book reviews, especially of books in translation. It was here, amongst this assembly of fellow travellers on the sometimes smooth, sometimes rocky path of translations, that I voiced a long-held view: that commissioning editors need to get out of the silos of languages. Maybe they would do well to give a translated text to a reviewer who does not know the mother language or is himself/herself not a translator from that language because for all our professions of objectivity, we translators invariably bring so much ‘baggage’ and bias to the language we know. Would it not be, I wondered aloud, a good idea to review a book that is rooted in a literary culture that is vastly different from the one we work in? Should book reviewers of translated texts not approach them as standalone texts that can be read in isolation of any ‘domain knowledge’ of the subject?
Chari took me up on my suggestion and promptly sent me a list of Tamil books being planned for inclusion in a special edition of The Book Review to be brought out for the Tamil Nadu Textbook & Education Services Corporation of reviews of Tamil books translated into English. I chose this book for no other reason than that I was intrigued by its title. I must admit I had heard neither of the author nor the translator. I figured the ‘intimate biography’ of someone whose life could be defined by the inclusion of ‘Maupassant and a Cigar’ in its title must be interesting. And as it turned out, I wasn’t wrong.
Born on 25 April 1906 in Cuddalore, Pudumaipithan is regarded as one of the most influential and revolutionary writers of Tamil fiction. His works are marked by social satire, progressive thinking and outspoken criticism of social norms.
Contemporary writers and critics found it difficult to accept his views and his works were often met with hostility, though in the 70-odd years since his death, his works have been reviewed with fresh eyes. His biographer Tho Mu Si Ragunathan gives several instances of disputes with fellow writers and contemporaries. Unfortunately, Ragunathan seems content with giving just one version, namely Pudumaipithan’s, rather than that of both aggrieved parties. For instance, there is the rather sweeping assertion that Pudumaipithan’s senior colleague at the magazine Oozhiyan, E Sivam, ‘felt embarrassed that his junior was writing better short stories than him. It soured the relationship between them. Sivam wanted to dominate Pudumaipithan’ (p. 41).
The original Tamil version was written from memory in a few short days and a certain haste is evident in the book. However, the translator could have rectified certain shortcoming by providing detailed footnotes for modern-day readers unaware of the literary groupings of those days or, for that matter, literary rivalries, disputes and controversies that might have been current then but are passé now.
A word about the translation is called for, considering this is a translated text and I was asked to review this book primarily because I am a translator, and one who had thrown the gauntlet about wanting to review texts that are far removed from the two languages, Urdu and Hindi, that I usually translate from. The mostly smooth, seemingly straightforward translation is occasionally marred by the jarring use of Americanisms such as ‘paid gig’ or ‘stepmom’ and ‘dad’. They don’t seem to sit well in the largely rural context. I wonder if the simpler, and more common, ‘stepmother’ and ‘father’ might be better. Also, the translator Peer Mohamed Azees, might have done well to have given the meaning of those words that require an explanation the very first time they occur, especially the names of the various literary magazines that Pudumaipithan worked for. Also, it isn’t till page 30 that we are informed that Pudumaipithan means ‘the one crazy about the modern’. Equally inexplicably, a glossary is missing; a book such as this, if it aspires to seek a wider readership, requires a list of all the Tamil words that might be unfamiliar for English readers. In this, the Tamil Nadu Textbook & Educational Services Corporation needs to be mindful that merely printing a book is not enough; a translated text requires certain accoutrements; a glossary, detailed footnotes and an extensive Introductory essay are vital for providing a much-needed context for a work of translation.
Despite these shortcomings, I will still maintain I came away richer from reading this book. I learnt about the rich literary culture in Tamil that flourished through magazines such as Manikodi, Kalaimagal, Jothi, Sudantira Chanku, Oozhiyan, Thamizh Mani, Dinamani, Dinasari and Nandan. What is more, Maupassant and a Cigar raises important questions about writers and those who live by their pen and perforce take up a day job to eke out a living. Must a writer make a choice between livelihood and literature? Can’t it be both? Ragunathan writes:
‘Livelihood or literature?’ was the question that troubled him the most. He desired both. He wanted life to prosper. He also wanted literature to prosper. He needed hope for the prosperity of life and literature. This thought dominated his mind. For literature to prosper, life has to prosper first. What profession should I choose for that? That is the question.
You need money for a decent living. Even the paltry salary he was getting in the newspaper had stopped. He had to think of making money for each day. He worried about it. The absence of a source of income disturbed him. He could not find answers. He finally determined to try his hand at films.
Why don’t I write scripts for films? It is an opportunity to make use of literature. It is also remunerative. I can’t keep starving in the name of a noble cause…
As a freelance writer myself, one who left any form of gainful employment long years ago, this over-arching concern of the book resonated with me at a deeply personal level. Pudumaipithan takes up jobs at a string of literary magazines, only to leave them for something else but his financial position remains precarious at best. In the final months of his life when he does take up the offer to work for a film studio in Pune, his tuberculosis flares up and eventually forces him to return to Thiruvanthapuram where he lives out his twilight days.
Rakhshanda Jalil is a Delhi-based writer, translator and literary historian.