‘I don’t see translation as something done for glory. It’s a very serious business’: Rita Kothari

An interview with translator Rita Kothari on the practice, politics and problems of the art.

Suhasini Patni

· Jul 06, 2019 · 07:30 am

These short stories explore the diversities of different feminisms, with the hijab as a symbol

What do an orange popsicle and the veil have in common? In this collection of Sabyn Javeri’s short stories, it’s feminism.

Suhasini Patni

· Jun 09, 2019 · 08:30 am

With ‘The Atlas of Reds and Blues’, Devi S Laskar turns the Indian immigrant novel on its head

Written in remembered fragments, this is a searing novel of violence, racism and misogyny.

Suhasini Patni

· Jun 01, 2019 · 07:30 am

‘The Fate of Butterflies’: A quietly told novel that is full of menace because it can happen to us

Nayantara Sahgal’s new work of fiction leads readers into a frightening world that makes us wonder about the one we live in.

Suhasini Patni

· Apr 27, 2019 · 12:30 pm

This highly dramatic Thai novel is a meditation on sorrow and loneliness (because it is about love)

Veeraporn Nitiprapha’s ‘The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth’ uses the magical to talk about the real.

Suhasini Patni

· Mar 16, 2019 · 05:30 pm

‘Relapse’: Like history, is love with the same person repeated first as tragedy and then as farce?

Written by one stalwart of Hindi literature and translated by another, Srikant Verma’s ‘Relapse’ offers possibilities but spoils them with stereotype.

Suhasini Patni

· Feb 17, 2019 · 12:30 pm

‘A Handful Of Sesame’: This Kannada novel places the reader at the centre of a broken universe

An English translation of Shrinivas Vaidya’s ‘Halla Bantu Halla’ brings a magnificent novel to a wider readership.

Suhasini Patni

· Feb 02, 2019 · 07:00 am

This novel gives faces and voices to the victims of the 1984 massacre of Sikhs

Radhika Oberoi’s ‘Stillborn Season’ marries multiple perspectives on the attacks against Sikhs to a fiction-writer’s imagination.

Suhasini Patni

· Jan 05, 2019 · 05:30 pm

A reporter’s eye melds personal lives with the rhythms of the forest of Kaziranga in this novel

An Assamese novel, now in an English translation, that looks at life in the Kaziranga forest from within and not as an outsider.

Suhasini Patni

· Dec 08, 2018 · 12:30 pm

From Korea, a fairy tale for adults that makes readers happy with its violence and nightmares

Han Yujoo’s ‘The Impossible Fairy Tale’ is the second example after ‘The Vegetarian’ of modern Korean fiction making a mark on Indian readers.

Suhasini Patni

· Oct 20, 2018 · 05:30 pm

Anita Nair’s ‘Eating Wasps’ is a strangely calming reminder of the complex lives of women

Never willing to write just one kind of novel, Nair returns with a story featuring women in a satisfying and beautiful way.

Suhasini Patni

· Oct 13, 2018 · 08:30 am