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Mother tongue, other tongues

Penguin India is diversifying into Hindi and other Indian languages

Here is a breeze of change, a little freshness for all those who thought English language publishing in India was an elitist occupation in this country of varied regional languages, who felt a trifle sorry for the non-English publications, since they often present a sorry comparison to their English rivals in bookstores. Penguin India, one of the largest publishers in Asia, has begun publishing in Hindi from this April.

Among the first titles to come out was "Shakuntala: Smriti Jaal", Namita Gokhale's new novel. This is the Hindi translation of her "Shakuntala: The Play of Memory". The English and Hindi versions were released together in New Delhi. Penguin's other Hindi publications, launched simultaneously this month, are "Hamara Hissa", an anthology of contemporary Hindi stories edited by Arun Prakash; "Jannat Aur Anya Kahaniyan", a translation of Khushwant Singh's "Paradise and Other Stories"; and Anita Nair's "Ladies' Coupé", whose title in Hindi remains the same.With a well-entrenched Hindi publishing industry in both fiction and non-fiction categories functioning across the country, it remains to be seen how popular Penguin's translations and originals become with the book buying public.

Ravi Singh, Publisher of Penguin India, is confident. "There are several good players in Indian language publishing," he said at the launch event. "But we are confident of the success of our endeavour, given our high editorial and production standards and extensive marketing and distribution networks."

Other languages too

This is the first time that the multi-national publisher has departed from English language books. But now that it has, plans for 2005 include publishing in Marathi and Malayalam as well, while 2006 will see more languages join the list. This certainly ensures one more avenue for regional writers of the subcontinent, who often suffer from a lack of visibility on the national and international scenes.

An interesting aspect to the announcements is that in each language, new roll-outs will include not only originals but also translations successful English titles brought out by Penguin India and the Penguin Group worldwide. Tie-ups seem to be the in thing with Penguin India these days. Not only has the company come to an agreement with Yatra Books, New Delhi, for the Hindi and Marathi titles, it recently also entered into a collaboration with Zubaan. The latter venture yielded two inaugural titles by two first time novelists, Mitra Phukan of Assam and Kunzang Choden of Bhutan.

ANJANA RAJAN

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