Gained in translation: How mastery in languages can be made a career

Demand for translating Indian language literature and nonfiction is expanding

Writer Geetanjali Shree in May 2022 became the first Indian to win the International Booker Prize for her novel, 'Tomb of Sand', originally written in Hindi. The 50,000-pound prize money was split between Shree and her American translator Daisy Rockwell.

“A world without translation would be impoverished,” said Shree in an interview in New Delhi.

“We think of translation as a set of binaries – a journey between two texts, two languages, two writers, two places – but in actuality it is a continuum between these points,” Rockwell told the New York Times in June 2023. “Loss is the immediate outcome, and discovery occurs over the long term. Where does Geetanjali stop, and where do I begin? Are we one author, or two?”

India has two official languages (Hindi and English) and 22 scheduled languages, according to the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. Consider the world outside and translating literature and nonfiction becomes an immense career field.

 

“There have been sparse original Indian English translations of foreign languages and it is now very recently that we have woken up to the fact and have begun the process of getting a foreign language work translated into an Indian language,” said Swagat Sengupta, chief executive officer of Oxford Bookstores.

Oxford Bookstore and The Long Night of LiteratureS recently hosted a literary forum at the Czech Republic's embassy in New Delhi. The event called ‘Bridging Continents: The Interplay of Narratives and Translations between India and Europe’ brought together authors and publishers of the two places. “Every untranslated book is a gap that needs to be filled,” said Arunava Sinha, translator from Bengali to English, at the event. (The Long…is a collaborative project of European cultural institutes and so called because it cuts across multiple countries.)

“Translators are people who have a near-perfect understanding of both the source language and culture and the target language and culture,” said Neeraj Mittal, director of Bhavna Prakashan, one of the largest publishers of Hindi books. “Their hold on grammar must be excellent plus they must know the nuances of the language. A good translator must retain the flavour and essence – tareeka (manner) and saleeka (method) should not change.”

What is a good translation? According to Moutushi Mukherjee, commissioning editor at Penguin Random House India, “Whether a translation should be as close to the original in form and syntax as possible, or whether it ought to replicate the essence of the original but read well as an English book? I think the simplest way to define a good translation is one where the translation itself isn’t visible.”

Like in literature, there is immense scope for making a career by translating nonfiction. “I have personally translated books by philosophers like Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, and E.F. Schumacher. Despite this, a great deal of work remains to be brought into Hindi," said Santosh Choubey, chairperson of International Hindi Centre and director of Vishwarang, a global platform for promoting Indian literature and culture.

"There was once a significant amount of Russian literature translated into Hindi but there is currently no information about what is being written there today. Discussions typically revolve around Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, and Turgenev, and then there is silence. The works of outstanding contemporary writers like Viktor Pelevin, Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Svetlana Alexievich remain unfamiliar to pure Hindi readers.

"Similarly, when we talk about Latin American literature, we struggle to go beyond Borges and Márquez, even though the third generation of writers is actively writing there today. Likewise, there is no awareness of any writers from a vast continent like Australia, except for the mention of Katherine Mansfield, who was from New Zealand. The situation is similar with African literature, where the Hindi world recognizes works from Chinua Achebe to Ben Okri.”

Translation is a business "that could do with promotion and support from literature festivals and bookshops," said Mukherjee, the Penguin editor. "...it would be great to find more books in English with stories that were originally from, say, Manipur or Assam or Punjab or Karnataka. Some languages are explored more, some less. Bengali and Malayalam have a history of great written literary works, while there are languages which have a strong oral history. But the idea is to find the stories that can be translated and get them published.”

Overall, translating literature is a labor of love. Translators frequently work for love of the literature and for the purpose of cultural preservation or recognition. Ultimately, if you enjoy working with languages, have an affinity for writing, and feel a strong connection with different cultures, translation could be a rewarding career path that allows you to bridge linguistic and cultural divides.

Some acclaimed translators include V Geetha and Lakshmi Holmström (Tamil); Velcheru Narayana Rao and B. Indira (Telugu); Mini Krishnan and Gita Krishnankutty (Malayalam) and Radha Chakravarty and Ketaki Kushari Dyson (Bengali). These translators have made significant contributions by bridging linguistic gaps within India and internationally, ensuring regional voices reach broader audiences and promoting cross-cultural appreciation of India’s diverse literary heritage.

What translators are paid

Payment in India varies, depending on the type of translation, the language pair, the translator's experience and the industry they are serving. Rare languages tend to be priced higher than common language pairs such as English-Hindi or English-Bengali. Here is an approximate price range: