Marginalised?

Cuttack, March 30: Indian authors writing in English have been the toast of the town for a while now, but authors expressing themselves in regional languages hardly get noticed.

Discussions on the challenge before regional authors to get the same kind of attention from a global or national audience was the topic for discussion in the three-day national convention of Indian publishers that ended here last night.

The Indian publishing industry has an annual turnover of Rs 100,000 million and rolls out 80,000 titles every year in languages, including English. However, India’s regional literature tends to be accessible to a select few. Many authors writing in regional languages feel they are marginalised because their work is not available in translation.

“There is need to get books translated from one regional language to the other and to English,” said P.K. Arora, executive director of Federation of Indian Publishers. “A publisher should come up with at least two publications of translated works in a year,” Arora suggested.

The three-day convention that took off on Thursday brought together publishers from different parts of the country along with authors.

The event was organised by the Federation of Indian Publishers and Orissa Publishers and Booksellers Association on the occasion of the Cuttack Book Fair.

Jnanpith winner and poet Sitakant Mohapatra was the chief guest at one of the sessions. Mohapatra said publication of translations would help check marginalisation of regional authors.

“More so, as translations are vehicles for promotion and national integration in a country known for its language diversity,” he added.

He also indicated that governments should have a role to play in this endeavour.

During discussions, quality of translations and fund crunch were cited as chief problems before the authors as well as distributors. The president of the Federation of Indian Publishers, R.C. Grovil, however, stressed that such problems could be overcome by adopting a definite policy on the two matters.