@leisure - LANGUAGE NO BAR

Geetanjali Shree's International Booker win brings to the limelight the small independent publishers who have fuelled translation in India for years

- MANDIRA NAYAR

It is a rainswept Monday afternoon in the capital. Pools of water reflect the green. Ritu Menon—feminist, writer, editor and publisher—stands in her home filled with books, and two cats that stay outside. It has been a giddy week for publishing in India with Geetanjali Shree winning the International Booker for her book, Tomb of Sand. One half of Kali for Women—a publishing house that embarked on translation before it became a buzzword—Menon is very much a pioneer in the industry. Across the road, in a tiny red book-lined office in Shahpur Jat, is the other half of the original team: Urvashi Butalia.

Their link with the International Booker is tenuous. It is at best a story that is likely to get lost in the six degrees of separation. In Indian publishing, however, it is often closer to three. But after the win, this link should perhaps be centre-stage. Mai, Shree’s first book to be translated into English, was published by Kali. (It is this translation which made Deborah Smith, Shree’s publisher in the UK, determined to publish her.)

Smith is not the only one. Much before the big publishers signed up authors who have now become very much part of the English landscape, it was independent publishers who first took the risk. They brought into English names that have now become common, like Ismat Chughtai, Salma, Bama and Qurratulain Hyder.