Gained in translation

Han Kang, the author of The Vegetarian has decided to split the prize money of her Man Booker award (2016) equally with her translator Deborah Smith

Have translators finally made their way from invisibility to recognition We glean some insights On May 16 the prize committee announced that the Man Booker would be presented to the novel The Vegetarian that has been authored by South Korea’s Han Kang and translated by Deborah Smith. This is the first year in which the prize money for the award — £50,000 — will be split evenly between the author and the translator. This unprecedented move is likely to overhaul the case of translators, who are known to occupy a peripheral spot in the realm of literature.

Poet, novelist and translator Sampurna Chatarji, who has translated Bengali writer Sukumar Ray’s satirical nonsense poetry and prose, Abol Tabol to English, says, “I do like the idea of 50-50 acknowledgement because it might propel raising the standard of translation.” She feels there has been a significant change in the attitude towards translators. “The shift from invisibility to acknowledgement has been an important one for Indian translators. The idea that translation is a creative act and a translator is a co-author has kind of seeped in now,” she adds.

Publisher and co-founder of Speaking Tiger Books, Ravi Singh recalls the earlier days when the name of the translator was given an inconspicuous space. “There was a time when the translator’s name would be difficult to find in the book — usually it would be on the back cover, but that doesn’t happen anymore. Their names also feature on the front cover along with the author’s,” he says.

A recent survey by Nielsen Book demonstrates a steady rise in the popularity of translated fiction in the UK. According to their figures, the sale of translated fiction books has grown by 96 per cent from 1.3 million copies in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2015 against a market which is falling overall (from 51.6 million to 49.7 million).

While such reports aren’t available for India, a few translated works in regional languages have seen a favourable response. Cases in point — Vivek Shanbag’s Gachar Gochar translated by Srinath Perur and Jerry Pinto’s recently translated Marathi classic, Daya Pawar’s Baluta, both of which have been well received by readers and critics.

Speaking of Kang’s gesture, Jerry points at the Man Booker organisers. “One swallow does not make a spring. For translated works, it should not be left to the author to make the decision; the authorities need to take the call and establish the modalities of sharing. When the Booker went international, they should have thought this through,” he states.

The Man Booker International Prize was established in 2005, biennially rewarding an author for a body of work originally written in any language as long as it was widely available in English. Last year the prize was given to Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai for his body of work, which includes novels like The Melancholy of Resistance and Seiobo There Below.

Author, translator and theatre critic, Shanta Gokhale appreciates Kang’s decision. She says, “It’s a very fine gesture because the author realises that without a good translation her book would not have been in the race at all. It’s a question of feeling and also ethics. It’s a way of seeing what it is that has won the prize — it is her book as translated by Deborah Smith. So in that sense it is a joint authorship.”

Should there be a separate category of prizes honouring translations Shanta feels that may be problematic. She says, “I have always wondered how a translation is judged by itself. What it means, very often, is that the original book is so significant and so well written, that automatically its translation stands out. So again, people who are awarding translations, what they are awarding is the merit of the original as well. Therefore, I don’t understand how a translator can be the sole prize-winner.”

While this is the first instance where the author shared her prize money with her translator, Karthika V.K. from HarperCollins India says that it has been a standard practice in the publishing industry “for quite some time”. “When it comes to royalties, we tend to leave the decision to the author. However, we do suggest the authors to split it half and half, which most of them are quite happy to share. Otherwise, its one-thirds-two-thirds share, where two-thirds go to the author and one-third to the translator.”

However, according to her, it is the readers who often overlook the worth of translators. “I do think readers tend to value the original and therefore it is always the author’s name that gains prominence, which is not unfair because the original act of creativity was of the author’s. But increasingly there’s a movement towards equality also. For instance, Shrinath Perur’s name is very much up there along with Vivek Shanbag’s Ghachar Ghochar. So I think that’s the way we are generally headed as far as India goes,” she says.