The inaugural event celebrating the fiftieth year of publication of The Book Review was a two-day Roundtable on ‘Indian Publishing since Independence & the Role Reviews Play: A Dialogue between Publishers, Authors and Critics’, held on 22-23 August 2025 at India International Centre, New Delhi. We carry below a report on the Conference.
Chandra Chari, Chairperson, The Book Review Literary Trust, opened the inaugural session. She began on the potted history of the 50-year journey of The Book Review with what the Founder Editor of TBR, Chitra Narayanan, had to say in 1995.
‘I am here today to share with you the tale of The Book Review. It is a tale of friendship, family and love.
One cold December evening in 1975 browsing through the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books I sat wondering at why India with all her wealth of intellectuals, did not have a journal for book lovers.
Why not start one here in Delhi?
The next morning, I threw the idea to my two close friends Chandra Chari and Uma Iyengar, and The Book Review was born. To this day I have a sneaking suspicion that they little knew what they were letting themselves in for!
The strongest support and encouragement came from my parents, particularly my father, a man with a great spirit of adventure. My father gave me the five hundred rupees for my share towards setting up the journal. Each of us contributed this amount and, yes, The Book Review was established with just one thousand five hundred rupees.
Right from the start there was no doubt what we were aiming for. We were very clear in our minds where we were going and how we would do it. In the mid-seventies, publishing in India was on the threshold of a major explosion in creativity yet the serious reader was dependent on foreign publications for in-depth reviews of the latest books.
It was into this lacuna that The Book Review leapt. I use the word “leapt” because there is no other term to express the genesis of India’s first journal devoted entirely to the reviewing of books. Before we could appeal to publishers, we had to show them what we had in mind. Family and friends were cajoled into writing about the most recent books they had read and thus the first two issues were born with our reviewers becoming lifelong friends. We could not pay our reviewers and depended on their goodwill.
There were two cardinal principles. First, the need for the review article. It was not easy to explain to our reviewers that almost mystical bond between the author and the reviewer, of the fascination for the same subject and there, selecting the right reviewer was as difficult as selecting the right book; the second principle of setting the highest standard in selecting the reviewers, choosing among the best experts in each field.
Looking through the old issues I think we managed this about 60% of the time. By the time we put together the first issue to coincide with the World Book Fair in January 1976, the relationship with the publishing world began. The reward was the response from the publishers. Miles of trudging down publishers’ corridors and storerooms yielded at first a sceptical response, and then warm encouragement as we displayed a fierce tenacity to keep to the high standards we had set for ourselves, a tradition that continues till today.
So, the long nights at the printing press, the painstaking process of addressing and licking envelopes, the sifting through piles of books and pages of typescript were worth it. As I could not drive, I remember my mother patiently driving me back and forth to the printing press on those dark winter nights. We were fortunate to have parents and families who encouraged and tolerated the nocturnal activities involved in bringing out a journal. Our families pitched in for all sorts of tasks and showed amazing forbearance.
Uma’s brother, Ravi Acharya, was our first production manager, introducing us to the mysteries of the printing press, and we were quick learners. Many of us here today remember with affection the fragrance of the first copy fresh off the press.
It is difficult to sift through all those warm memories but a few spring to mind. Dr S Gopal, then Chairman of the National Book Trust, with Professor Nurul Hasan, Minister for Education, walking with us through the National Book Fair—an auspicious beginning for he has supported us every step of the way since then; the late GK Reddy of The Hindu coming home with a generous one hundred rupees to be our very first subscriber; the late KK Nair or better known as Krishna Chaitanya enthusiastically supporting the young venture on various occasions, and Dr Karan Singh with his constant interest and encouragement from the very initial stages trying to locate our non-existent office to obtain the first issue of the journal after reading Nihal Singh’s review in The Statesman.
And so, twenty years ago we began this long journey. I ceased to be Editor in 1978, and Chandra continued as Editor for some time with Nikhil Chakravartty, Editor of Mainstream Weekly, to whom we owe the continuity of The Book Review. Finally in 1989, we three came back together to form The Book Review Literary Trust. I want to add a special word of gratitude to the three fathers who believed in their daughters—to my father, Shri KR Narayanan who literally launched The Book Review, to Uma’s father, Shri KR Acharya who helped us through the first issues advising us in editing in his impeccable style, and to Chandra’s father, Shri TCA Ramanuja Chari for formulating The Book Review Literary Trust Deed which gave us a new lease of life and the blueprint for the future.
I am proud to have been the Founder Editor of The Book Review and prouder still to stand by and watch my two friends Chandra and Uma who have made The Book Review what it is today, bringing it to its full maturity while retaining its distinct character.’
Chandra Chari continued: ‘And so, Chitra Narayanan left TBR to join the Indian Foreign Service and Uma-Chandra became the hyphenated partners in the next 30 years’ journey of the journal to reach 50, that magic number. We have proved wrong the doomsday prophecy that a niche journal like ours would not survive beyond one or two years. And the credit for that goes entirely to the TBR family of reviewers and publishers whose numbers grow day-by-day. Publishers from day one have shown solidarity and support by sending books for review and helped financially with advertisements. We could not have sustained TBR for 50 years without our band of reviewers, both in India and in universities all over the world. It is their commitment of keeping to deadlines, taking pleasure in wordcrafting critical reviews in wonderful jargon-free prose that makes it possible for Team TBR to publish issue after issue without missing a beat.
Professor Romila Thapar who joined the Editorial Board after the passing away of Romesh Thapar in 1987 has always been a tremendous support for Team TBR. Dr Thapar has ensured that we continue to maintain the standards set by the founding Advisory Board members. She has also been insistent that we build the corpus of the Trust to secure the future of TBR in the coming years and has been instrumental in persuading friends to donate.
The Book Review Literary Trust has been fortunate to have donors and funders who have supported us in our various projects. Special issues on different themes have been published every year with individuals and organizations sponsoring them. The digital edition of TBR was launched in 2012. The archive upload project, from 1976 to the present, was completed in 2019. We owe a special thanks to Nandan Nilekani and TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan for helping us fund this expensive project. And now to celebrate TBR@50, we appealed to publishers, friends and book lovers for financial support to plan several special issues and events including two national seminars on Translation in Bangalore and Delhi, the 4th Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, a talk by William Dalrymple and a one-day seminar on Publishing for Children and Young Adults. The response to our appeal has been heart-warming. We would like to thank: Rivka Israel, Shyam Divan, Sugat Jain of Primus Books, Niyogi Books, Konark Publishers, Manohar Books, Tulsi Badrinath, the India International Centre, Mini Krishnan and the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation, and Nilekani Philanthropies for their generous financial help. More are in the pipeline, and we look forward to more gatherings such as today’s Roundtable to interact with the large and ever-growing TBR family.
I would now like to introduce the future face of The Book Review: Professor Adnan Farooqui who says he was brought up on the journal since his childhood (his father Mohammad Farooqui is one of our oldest subscribers); Professor Vyjayanti Raghavan, a Trustee now and who will be the next Chairperson, and Sucharita Sengupta, a wonderful editor and scholar, who has promised to step in when Uma and I are on the other side of the great divide.’
Publishing in India since Independence—Session I
Urvashi Butalia, Founder of Zubaan, chairing the session began by saying, ‘What we are going to do is the impossible task of trying to map the changes that have happened in publishing in India in the last let’s say half century. Among the people in this room, I think Chandra, Uma, myself and Laila, and perhaps a few others are the ones who have seen these changes come through from the days of letter press printing when everything was typeset in metal and by hand—a single letter at a time, to the days of monotype and linotype machines, and moving from there to offset printing where one had to paste corrections onto the ‘galleys’ as they were called, and had to make sure you put white fluid around them so that the shadow between the level of the correction and the level of the paper underneath did not get picked up by the camera. And where very interestingly, I remember in my early days we used to have to make blocks to print visuals in books, and the block makers were all in Kashmiri Gate; one of the block makers was the son of a Bengali magician! From that time to today, we’ve come a long way. I think also what is interesting is that there are some points, or some moments in publishing history of the last half century which are actually seen as moments of change, or moments which can be marked as certain kinds of historical moments, and the first of those I think comes in the early and mid-70s when we were still in the phase of throwing out the colonial masters. And yet, companies were allowed to have 49% shareholding from foreign partners, and the managers and heads of many were still Englishmen.
The process of moving from British management to Indian management, editorial, and ownership was something which marked that moment, and was also reflected in the changes in the content of books. So, textbooks which were largely British-made for British schools adapted to Indian schools were now being Indianized, even as Indian authorship was being cultivated to change the face of textbooks. I am talking largely about English language publishing because that’s the field I am familiar with; to which I think that many of us belong. Into this scenario you get Indian publishers coming in and trying to change the face of textbook publishing, and one of the most important interventions in this context was made by Ratna Sagar led by Sugat’s father Danesh Jain. There were also other publishers like Orient Longman and various others—so that is one moment. The next interesting moment according to me, comes in the early and mid-80s when you start to see the rise of independent publishers.
Ravi Dayal comes in at that time, as do Kali and Tulika among various others, which start to change the face of Indian publishing by bringing in new subjects, new areas, new thinking, etc. Another change I think that came about is with the falling of the rupee against the dollar. India which is a big market for imports actually starts to see fewer units in imports because it was becoming much more expensive to buy imported books. That opens up a little space for Indian publishers, and at this point one could spot a lot of publishers starting to move into areas which otherwise were predominantly monopolies of British publishers. Then you come to the early 90s when Indian markets open up, and the multinationals come in.
Interestingly, they come in not with the agenda of publishing books from their countries of origin, but they start to publish Indian books and Indian authors. You could see the market for trade books in India expanding, as both the independents and the multinationals moved into publishing fiction, non-fiction and so on. I think there are other moments… I won’t go into all of them but one of the most significant ones in our recent past has been the pandemic and how it made things very difficult in India. Especially in terms of printing as State borders were closed (printing is often done across States and transported to bookshops), resulting in courier services being closed. Then of course, there was the intervention of the digital, which started I don’t know quite when, and is now predominant in publishing. So, I’m hoping that we’ll map all of these things and more in today’s discussions.’
*Indira Chandrasekhar, the Founder of Tulika Books, outlined how academic publishing, once sustained by institutional buyers, was pushed into trade markets and hybrid formats. Nitasha Devasar, Managing Director, Taylor & Francis India & South Asia, situated Indian scholarship in a global framework, and pushed for robust peer review processes. Sugat Jain, Managing Director, Ratna Sagar, noted that despite digital experiments never having displaced print, textbook publishing today faces challenges of policy changes in education and rising costs, even as the culture of children’s reading has grown. Aman Arora, General Manager, Communications and Marketing, HarperCollins, mapped the trade market, noting the resilience of print but warning that the digital turn is a double-edged sword: while social media boosts discoverability, digitization also fuels rampant piracy.
VK Karthika, Publisher at Westland Books, stressed the radical new reading cultures enabled by Pratilipi (India’s largest digital platform connecting readers and writers in 12 Indian languages), where thousands find readers and incomes. Kiriti Sengupta, who looks after the English Language Division of Hawakal Publishers, spoke candidly about the marginal place of poetry, and how it still remains essential to bibliodiversity. He highlighted the challenges of transferring rhythm, cadence, and metaphor. Aakriti Mandhwani, Associate Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, urged publishers to see continuities: serialized fiction, pulp and women’s magazines of the twentieth century prefigured in today’s digital forms, including self-publishing. Amar Farooqui, former Professor, Department of History, University of Delhi, cautioned against dichotomies of popular and academic history, with the latter forming the foundation for the former. TCA Raghavan, former Indian diplomat and author, reflected on archives and digitization, which have enabled a surge of well-researched, accessible history.
The conversation then shifted to technology and artificial intelligence. Prabir Purkayastha, journalist, writer and activist, spoke of the acceleration of digital monopolies of scale, and offered a sobering reflection on the nature of knowledge production under AI. His central concern was the unfolding of ‘a huge enclosure of existing knowledge’, now captured by platforms, with publishers facing an existential battle. Bappaditya Sinha, veteran technologist, warned that AI could democratize translation and accessibility, but also ‘flatten’ quality and redirect value away from publishers. Generational shift, he added, means that readers may prefer snippets: ‘Why would you want to read a whole book when Google’s snippet is good enough?’ Next, TCA Sharad Raghavan, Economics and Business Editor of The Hindu, sharpened the provocation: ‘Is a book good because of who wrote it, or what’s in it?’—raising questions about shifting ideas of authorship. He noted that while automation has existed, in terms of grammar correction, translation and image suggestions, there now exists ‘a flood of substandard articles’ and deepfakes that are changing the nature of consumption.
Romila Thapar, Emerita Professor, Ancient Indian History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, closed with comments on books and the question that is central to their reception: are they commodities? She observed that there is an inevitable commercial side to them which allows for AI encroachment, but underlined that ethical considerations were inherent to writing, when it comes to technological reproduction. She noted the worrying trend of students submitting identical AI-generated essays and argued that machine translations cannot accurately capture idioms and nuances. Professor Thapar emphasized that intellect lay at the heart of publishing. The real danger, she asserted, is how technology is unilaterally reshaping the ethical contours of these debates. The session revealed the many fault lines in publishing today: prevailing market logic, piracy, technological incentives, and ultimately, to the question of intellectual responsibility.
The Role Reviews Play—Session II
Sucharita Sengupta, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, in her opening remarks reflected upon the place and significance of writing book reviews:
‘At the very outset, if a book is a conversation, a book review can be thought of as an extended conversation. It then serves as both an intellectual and literary device. It animates the world of ideas. Whereas other types of texts, particularly academic texts such as research papers are far more tightly structured, a review of books becomes a comparatively more fluid and creative space to engage with ideas and arguments. Reviewers bring their worldview and professional training to a review, and it is highly unlikely that if five different individuals read the same book, they will understand it the same way. In addition, therefore to creativity and fluidity, a review brings in yet another scarce resource—that of diversity. I am certain it has not escaped the notice of the audience here today, that one can think about a book review in the exact same terms as one thinks about a democratic polity and society.
A book review makes a very personal act, that of reading—essentially a deep engagement between the author of a book and a reader—far more public and visible. There is much to be said in favour of the comforting intimacy of reading a book in private. However, those of us in the business of communication also understand that besides being a pleasurable activity, there is the responsibility of a deliberative intellectual and public sphere. A book review is a crucial contribution to creating just such a space, because sometimes, words floating in a tearoom or a coffee house are just not enough.
Recording in-depth engagement with books is akin to leaving intellectual markers for history to make a note of, to attend to, and analyse. It is in no small measure a shaping of minds, despite all the pessimism that is often attributed to the utility of a review. If book reviews were truly lower order intellectual tools, as many sceptics wish to believe, then the real-life evidence points to the contrary. It is a testament to the heft of a review that the journal we are celebrating today has not merely survived, but thrived, grown and is continuing to grow as we speak.
This is of course the traditional format—the beloved hard copy. However, the book review as a tool to communicate and inform has transcended the scaffolding of traditional media. It has been wholeheartedly embraced by newer media formats, particularly digital platforms. Several news and media platforms online have dedicated space to the review. While I cannot back up this claim with data, however, it has made access to the world of books far easier for a wider swathe of readers. Book reviews in snappier, shorter formats—accompanied with aesthetic photographs have found their way on to popular social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and notably, Instagram. Here, they are gathering steam among young future readers, enabling the creation of a new band of book readers and lovers. Admittedly, the style and format are distinct from older ones—but here at The Book Review, we all believe in evolving with the times and embrace the future. Therefore, it is the natural order of things that we will continue to cheer for book reviews in newer forms. Our aim is not the gatekeeping of knowledge.
Despite these encouraging trends, questions must continue to be asked. Some that occurred to me, and I hope our speakers and panelists will be able to address—why do reviews continue to be seen as a lower order intellectual exercise? Where does this disdain come from? The task of reading and engaging mindfully with any text is a huge amount of hard work—yet it sometimes does not feel rewarding enough. How do we deal with the thorny question of positive and negative book reviews? How can writers and reviewers maintain civility while evaluating a book? How far can a reviewer go when a book is either badly written or forwards ideas that may range from absurd to pernicious? What should be the terms of this debate, and who decides?
Are reviews in danger of becoming tools for marketing and publicity, especially in the newer formats which often appear with star ratings? Is a book therefore, just a product to be consumed, and that consumption flaunted by a readership wanting to appear erudite? What about the divide between fiction and non-fiction, academic and popular books? Which of these appear higher in the hierarchy of review writing? The power dynamics of a book review must be examined.’
Ranjana Sengupta, Consulting Editor, A Suitable Agency, chairing the second session had this to say: ‘This afternoon, a panel of stellar speakers will illuminate different aspects of book reviewing—its history in India and what reviews mean for the wider ecosystem of reading, writing, publishing and the dissemination of ideas.
Yet, undeniably, the last few decades have been swirling with rumours of the death of reading, and of books themselves being fatally challenged by the formidable array of social media platforms, streaming services and short attention spans. The rumours are exaggerated: readers still read; and though book review spaces have contracted, bookshops are crowded. Bestseller lists, awards and literary festivals thrive; authors are celebrated, and book clubs proliferate.
However, things have changed too: once book reviews had word lengths of 2000 words or more; today 600 words is regarded by many newspapers and magazines as adequate. Similarly, two decades ago, print runs of 700 were not uncommon and 1500 was considered a solid number. Today, mainstream publishers would like 5000 as a starting point and with this, there comes an emphasis on the tried and tested, on safe bets or a desperate pursuit of whatever the latest trend of the moment is—whether self-help, translation, celebrity memoirs or mythology.
Through all this, book reviews have survived. The Book Review has not only allowed its reviews adequate space, it also is open to a diversity of books, a diversity of authors, not just the standard ten from among the big publishers which are on every so-called ‘Bestseller’ list—as newspapers and magazines are prone to do. Book reviews are still regarded as serious entities; however, one cannot ignore the dark side of book reviewing: the tendency to be anodyne, not wanting to offend an influential writer; or, conversely, unfairly unleashing a hatchet job for reasons unconnected with the quality of the book.’
*The first speaker, Laila Tyabji, Founder and Chairperson, Dastkar, likened reviews as precursors of AI—summaries that save one the labour of reading, but insisted they remain ‘just a taster’, never a substitute for the book itself. Malavika Karlekar, Editor, Indian Journal of Gender Studies noted that reviews should provide a thematic and analytical discussion, rather than tedious chapter-by-chapter summary. Rukmini Bhaya-Nair, representing Biblio, invoked Foucault’s idea that a book’s unity is ‘variable and reflexive’, urging reviewers to be courageous in critiquing. In an era driven by populism and celebrity intellectuals, journals must diversify through new media, and experiment in order to survive. Ritu Menon, Publisher, Women Unlimited, questioned reviews’ relevance to a book’s longevity, noting some of her titles that remained in print for decades received no reviews. She added that while reviews may boost early visibility, long-term success depends on word of mouth.
Malavika Maheshwari, Professor, Political Science, Ashoka University, argued that ‘the best of the reviews stand beyond their time and context. They become an account of the processes by which a period, and our own period, is changing.’ She also noted a paradox: although the demand for reviewing space endures, many young authors resist reviews, fearing misinterpretation and backlash.
Chitra Narayanan who is with The Hindu Business Line recalled the golden era of ‘authenticity and candidness’ in contrast to the current ‘manipulative world of algorithms and social proof’, criticizing paid reviews, brand-driven self-promotion and video endorsements. She argued that platforms like The Book Review preserve ‘the old-world charm and authenticity’, resisting ‘manipulative hustling’. Maya Joshi, Professor, English literature, Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, argued that reviewing is both intellectual freedom and a corrective to academic silos. Sucharita Sengupta, Associate Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia, spoke about how books and reviewing open up a new world to her students, in spite of their engagements with social media. TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan, journalist and columnist, The Hindu Business Line, emphasized that the central problem for reviewers was identifying their audience. Too often, reviewers slip into the temptation of showing off, ‘telling the reader what is not there in the book’, which is rather immaterial. He urged for clarity and advised against absurdly long sentences.
Publishing & Reviewing Translations—Session III
Adnan Farooqui, Professor, Political Science, Jamia Millia Islamia, began the session saying that what makes translation both delightful and demanding is the art of carrying meaning across borders without letting too much fall through the cracks.
‘Over the decades, The Book Review has been more than a monthly journal—it has been a literary bridge, connecting languages, voices and traditions. Few platforms in India have given translation the attention and seriousness it deserves, not only publishing reviews of translated works but also dedicating entire special issues to the subject.
In India, such a commitment is not optional. With twenty-two Scheduled languages and hundreds more spoken in everyday life, translation is not a luxury—it is the bloodstream of our literary culture. Without it, our classics would remain confined to narrow linguistic silos, our contemporary voices unheard beyond their regions, and our readers deprived of the vast diversity that is Indian literature.
This morning, we turn our attention not just to translation itself but to two critical dimensions that shape its life beyond the original text: publishing and reviewing. Publishing is what ensures that a translated work reaches readers, while reviewing is what ensures that it is read with sensitivity and seriousness. A translation’s journey does not end with the translator—it is carried forward by editors, publishers, critics, and of course, by readers who engage with it across languages.
Yet both publishing and reviewing translations bring their own challenges. For publishers, there are questions of readership, marketability, and visibility in an often Anglophone-dominated space. For reviewers, the challenge is subtler: how does one evaluate a work that carries the voices of two authors—the original writer and the translator? Do we judge fidelity, fluidity, cultural resonance—or all of these together? Reviewing a translation, in other words, is less about delivering a verdict and more about entering into a three-way conversation, sometimes a graceful dance, sometimes a tug-of-war.
Today’s session is an opportunity to reflect on precisely these questions. How do publishers create space for translations and nurture them into the mainstream? How do critics and reviewers do justice to the translator’s invisible labour? And how can both work together to ensure that translations are not treated as secondary, but as central to the literary landscape?
As The Book Review has shown time and again, translation is not just about words—it is about worlds. And in a country like ours, it may well be the most elegant mischief of literature: keeping our many languages in conversation, and keeping us, as readers, open to voices beyond our own.’
Nishat Zaidi, Professor, English Literature, Jamia Millia Islamia, chairing, said: ‘Translations constitute a major segment of publishing in today’s globalized world and are instrumental in the production of world literature. What, then, are the challenges and difficulties involved in transplanting a text from a foreign culture into English, and how can we increase the visibility and status of the translator in our contemporary world? How do authors, editors, publishers and reviewers navigate the power dynamics associated with languages? Given the predominance of English in the world-system of translations, can translations be held responsible for deepening language asymmetries and empowering certain languages while disempowering others, creating language hegemonies? While translations facilitate cross-cultural communication, do they also blinker our perspective of those cultures? What kind of appropriations are embedded in publishers’ choices to publish translations of certain texts? How has the race for international awards or literary festivals impacted the packaging of translations?
Professor Romila Thapar raised a question which I believe is the moot question—are books commodities? And if they are, how does this change the dynamics between the author, translator, reader, reviewer and publisher? Is reviewing translated literature a form of literary criticism? Are translators best equipped to review translated literature? Should the reviewer of a translated text necessarily know both languages in order to review the translated text? Can a translated text be treated as an autonomous entity? How do publishers decide what to publish, and how do these choices, which are often market-driven, impact the relationship among Indian languages?
At the outset, it is crucial to acknowledge the complex entanglement of knowledge, experience, language, and material realities of the translator, which exist in translation—an entanglement to which the reviewer of a translated text must be attentive. In the Indian context, if translations expose the lived experience of caste, gender, class, and religion in India as contained in its languages, the process of reviewing translations should be sensitively attuned to it.
Rita Kothari has argued in her book Uneasy Translations that translation begins in the extraction of knowledge from the experience of language, or in finding another language for the experience of a language. Harish Trivedi has argued in favour of the primacy of the cultural angle in translation or what is termed as cultural translation. Mini Krishnan, a lifelong crusader for the publication of translations in India and one of the finest editors, has often articulated the need to focus attention on marginalized voices, making translations a crucial instrument of social justice.
A cursory glance at the cultural system of translation in India will affirm the centrality of English as a medium of translation, adjudication and promotion of literary texts. While this may generate an illusion of binary relations between English and other Indian languages, historically speaking, the reality is that English as a cultural system has already inflected and contaminated literary cultures and tastes in these languages through the agency of colonial rule. In turn, it has also assimilated non-western literary cultures to the extent that a Hindi speaker from north India desiring to read literary productions from the south, in all likelihood, will have to depend on English translation rather than a readily available Hindi translation.
This being said, we need to think of translation differently from the dominant western paradigms, which are steeped in the grammar of “target language”, “source language”, and “fidelity”. In the multilingual, multicultural, and multiethnic milieu of India, where every individual speaks more than one language, we need to think of translation and the publishing and reviewing of translation beyond the readily available vocabulary of ethno-nationalism. In addition, there is a need to recognize translation as rooted in its moment of production, encapsulating characteristics symptomatic of history wherein, in Walter Benjamin’s words, “past comes in constellation with the present”.’
*The final session began with three questions that would guide the discussions: how can publishers create space for translations and nurture them into the mainstream? How can critiques and reviewers do justice to the translator’s often invisible labour? And how can both publishing and reviewing work together to ensure translations are treated as central rather than secondary to the literary landscape?
Aditi Maheshwari, CEO, Vani Prakashan group, began by addressing the role of publishers and the risks they take in bringing translated works to print. She stressed that translation is not a secondary exercise but a central act of literary creation. She highlighted the importance of the translation editor as a mediator between the author and translator, giving examples from Vani Prakashan and Yatra Books, including the translation of a revisionist study of Meerabai that reached reading lists at Oxford, Cambridge, and Texas, and Kuli Lines, a history of indentured laborers that achieved multiple editions in Hindi and English.
Mini Krishnan, Managing Editor at Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation, followed with reflections on editorial responsibility, emphasizing that reviewing translations is not only about technical fidelity but also about sensitivity to cultural nuance. She spoke about the importance of reviewing translations and how such reviews had helped when she started publishing translations in 1996. She emphasized that a translator may be considered to be writing her own book in the act of translating. She stressed that a point to be debated is, who is qualified to review a translator—one who knows the original language, or someone who is monolingual.
Harish Trivedi, former Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi, provided a historical perspective, noting how translation in India has always been entangled with questions of power, including colonial and linguistic hierarchies. He asked the panelists to consider some questions: should translations read like a translation or should they not? How do we deal with translators who claim to be creators equally with the original writers? Is there an alternative to this established method of reviewing translations? Can we be more helpful, more productive, by adopting some method of not reviewing translations but improving translations before they are published?
Prasun Chatterjee, Editorial Director and Deputy Head of Primus books, highlighted the material struggles faced by translators, from recognition to fair remuneration, underlining the need for structured support systems and platforms for reviewing and promoting translations. Sukrita Paul Kumar, writer, poet, translator, and Editor, Indian Literature, asserted that it was not right to make a distinction between mainstream and marginalized languages as each language has a history, including the oral tradition. How history gets inscribed into translation is something to ponder over, she said. She mentioned how Qurratulain Hyder translated her works herself, and she did it the way she wanted to. Thus, her translation became a feminist translation. So, is that the original or is it a translation? —Sukrita asked, and said that she was happy that the boundaries or borders are melting away.
Rita Kothari, Professor, Ashoka University, suggested it might be interesting to ask questions like what is the relationship, for instance, between translation and ethnography, and that we might do justice to translators by taking them more seriously, because many intellectual questions also open up in the course of translation. ‘I think translation is not only a matter of bilingualism. Translation is sometimes also a matter of the many languages that lie in one language. Translation is also a matter of the many languages that surround that language,’ Rita Kothari said. She offered a memorable reflection, asserting, ‘Raste kahin nahin jaate, log jaate hain’, emphasizing how translation is a journey where meanings are negotiated.
Ira Pande, writer, translator, Editor, Roli Books, stressed that translation is a personal act, shaped by a deep engagement with both the source and target languages. She made a telling point when she said, ‘translations work when you enter a world that is not your world. It is somebody else’s world. It’s like bringing up a child who is not your own. You have adopted that child and you know that the genetic structure is different. Biologically, he or she doesn’t belong to you.’ Nikhil Kumar, who works in Communications and Public Affairs at Google India, said translations are never neutral. They are interpretive acts carrying across not just words but also world views. He brought attention to the inherent difficulty of translating poetry, particularly the ghazal, which he described as the most resistant form. He emphasized that translating poetry requires negotiating metre, rhyme, and idiomatic subtleties, noting that every translation is an interpretation that risks losing the musicality and emotional nuance of the original. He went on to say that translations are both mirrors and windows. Mirrors because they show us our own faces in another language. Windows because they open onto worlds we might otherwise never see. And it is in navigating this fragile threshold that both translator and reviewer find their most serious and most exhilarating work.
Ranjana Kaul, former Associate Professor, Department of English, College of Vocational Studies, University of Delhi, situated translation within legal and institutional frameworks, drawing attention to how language policies and educational priorities influence publishing possibilities. She said reviews and translating have a part to play because they are part of the ecology of publishing. Both the translator and the reviewer are basically interpreting a text or making a text available to a reader who normally would not have access to it. Rakhshanda Jalil, writer and translator, interrogated the politics of reviewing, asking whether reviews genuinely engage with the translator’s craft or risk patronizing it. She argued that reviews should be commissioned and undertaken without pre-conceived notions about the reviewer’s supposed area of specialization. Drawing on her own experience of being persistently boxed under the label of the ‘Urduwali’, she cautioned that such tagging generates artificial limits for writers.
Nishat Zaidi ended the session expertly, linking all discussions back to her opening questions and probing whether translations in India have successfully challenged linguistic hierarchies or inadvertently reinforced them.
The two-day event underscored the importance of publishing, reviewing, and translating as deeply interconnected practices. The speakers expanded on current trends, systemic obstacles—from market pressures to the invisibility of translation labour—and brought new challenges of technological mediation into the conversation.
*The synopsis of the proceedings was done by Shagun Tomar, Eshita Tiwari, Mubashshara Mehfooz and Yusra Khan.
Video recordings of proceedings of the Roundtable can be accessed on YouTube—’The Book Review Roundtable’ on the journal’s official channel, The Book Review.
Day 1: https://youtube.com/live/cyUHKFWef-U?feature=share
Day 2: https://youtube.com/live/bgf2hNKJvww?feature=share