another subcontinent presents: translations of tamil pulp fiction, from the winter 2008 features issue Options

[arnab]

read the translations and the translator's introduction here, and discuss the stories in this thread.

[xena]

i had a blast reading the book earlier this year. fairly racy reading, too, some of them.i t was fascinating reading the author's bios and finding out that many of them had written hundreds/thousands of stories - what an amazingly prolific lot. I guess there should be enough material to come up with many more blaft editions of pulp fiction.

[shyama]

Breezed through the stories and each one of them attended to the concerns of the common man.

F.L.R.'s plot reminded me of the Kannada writer Masti Venkatesa Iyengar's's shortstory Ranga's Marriage, which dealt with the employment of an astrologer to foretell a false destiny, but with good intentions. The psychological power that superstition and fatalism exerts seems to be a running motif in several regional narratives.

I am curious as to when "Me" was scripted in the original. Pre-marital sex is surely not an area the Tamil society (or any traditional one for that matter) is too fond of, and though I was slightly disappointed that it was etched out rather straight and stark, that the message contained within the narrative would reach across to several considering the medium is worthy of thought. I am also intrigued regarding the nature of the audience at this point. Issues handled and mode of language as conceived in the translation in "Me" would be considered unbecoming even among today's traditional communities. Does this writing make its way into traditional households today? Has it generated a debate on any platform?

In Kerala, we have what is derogatively referred to as 'Ma'-Varikas ('Ma'- weeklies)- Mangalam, Manorajyam etc- the pulp magazines, which were forbidden inside "good" households. The genre has lost a lot of its readership among today's generation who are more dependant on television (with their women-friendly kathas) or the internet (porn) for their staple pleasures, but the weeklies do survive even now. Does anybody have any idea on how pulp fiction thrives in other regional languages?

To the translator: Was language a concern at any point during translation? Something like "I had only six saris to wear in rotation" would have a little difficult to structure.

This post has been edited by shyama: Dec 9 2008, 09:57 PM

[blaftlings]

Hi, Rakesh with Pritham here... we will get her her own ID soon!

F.L.R.'s plot reminded me of the Kannada writer Masti Venkatesa Iyengar's's shortstory Ranga's Marriage, which dealt with the employment of an astrologer to foretell a false destiny, but with good intentions.

Heard of that story, haven't read, will check it out... know where to find an English translation?

I am curious as to when "Me" was scripted in the original.

It first appeared in 1987 in a popular magazine... forgetting which one at the moment.

Pre-marital sex is surely not an area the Tamil society (or any traditional one for that matter) is too fond of, and though I was slightly disappointed that it was etched out rather straight and stark, that the message contained within the narrative would reach across to several considering the medium is worthy of thought. I am also intrigued regarding the nature of the audience at this point. Issues handled and mode of language as conceived in the translation in "Me" would be considered unbecoming even among today's traditional communities. Does this writing make its way into traditional households today? Has it generated a debate on any platform?

In the 1980s the breakdown of the joint family system and discussions about 'old age homes' were being taken up by the younger earning generation with less guilt in popular media. Do check out on films by Visu and Balu Mahendra from this time. The primary focus of this short story is not 'premarital sex', but 'denial of a sexual partner through marriage'. Having said that -- premarital sex is not taken as so much of a big issue in modern Tamil society, and this story is fairly typical of the sort of stuff read by middle-class Tamil women. Also included in the book is an excerpt of a 70s novel about Tamil women in a Delhi brothel... super spicy!

There's a fair amount of hardcore Tamil smut fiction, too, which we scouted and considered including in the anthology... but since it's written and published anonymously and a lot of it reads kind of like a jane fonda aerobics workout, we left it out.

In Kerala, we have what is derogatively referred to as 'Ma'-Varikas ('Ma'- weeklies)- Mangalam, Manorajyam etc- the pulp magazines, which were forbidden inside "good" households. The genre has lost a lot of its readership among today's generation who are more dependant on television (with their women-friendly kathas) or the internet (porn) for their staple pleasures, but the weeklies do survive even now. Does anybody have any idea on how pulp fiction thrives in other regional languages?

Pritham says: I don't think television is solely responsible. Media changes, but old forms change and survive too.

Rakesh: Blaft has been looking into publishing pulp from other regional languages in South Asia. Most of them complain about a drop off in sales since the 80s and 90s which were boom years. But there are lots of authors still going strong in Hindi (Surender Mohan Pathak, Ved Prakash Sharma, Anil Mohan, Reema Bharathi), Telugu (Shadow series), Bengali (Qazi Anwar Hussain in Bangladesh, and lots more in WB), Marathi (Marathi pulp seems to mostly come out in fat Diwali special editions of weekly mags). Hindi popular cinema regular borrows from all these guys. And a lot of Tamil writers write for the movies/TV too.

To the translator: Was language a concern at any point during translation? Something like "I had only six saris to wear in rotation" would have a little difficult to structure.

Of the 10 authors in the book, the one whose language gave the most trouble was Indra Soundar Rajan, because of the large number of rural symbols and mythological/religious references he goes on using.

[shyama]

Hello Rakesh & Pritham,


I'm afraid I haven't read the anthology yet, to my disadvantage, and so, my perspectives may be myopic. I hope to look into more of Indra Soundar Rajan's translated work in particular.

F.L.R.'s plot reminded me of the Kannada writer Masti Venkatesa Iyengar's shortstory Ranga's Marriage, which dealt with the employment of an astrologer to foretell a false destiny, but with good intentions.

Heard of that story, haven't read, will check it out... know where to find an English translation?

Sure, it's among the prescribed material in the NCERT English Suppl. text at Plus 1 level which I was fortunate to teach for a year. The humour and the element of romance was motivation enough for my students to examine the narrative more closely. To retrieve the online text, here's the NCERT site, go for Class XI--> English--> Snapshots Suppl. text. Click on the text, and move on to the story.

In the 1980s the breakdown of the joint family system and discussions about 'old age homes' were being taken up by the younger earning generation with less guilt in popular media. Do check out on films by Visu and Balu Mahendra from this time.

Yes, their movies were quite popular at home despite our being non-Tamil. Those extended ethical dialogues in Visu's movies were a starting point for those daily doses of parental moral instruction classes for me, as a child.

Having said that -- premarital sex is not taken as so much of a big issue in modern Tamil society, and this story is fairly typical of the sort of stuff read by middle-class Tamil women.

This may be more of a general query on pulp fiction than one specifically related to the translation, but there must be significant internalization of these issues handled in the genre among the women considering the dynamics of what they read. Pulp fiction, especially with feminist/humanist leanings would have definitely contributed in breaking unfounded borders within the society.

Pritham says: I don't think television is solely responsible. Media changes, but old forms change and survive too.

I agree, Pritham with the latter statement. But I do think television's gnawed away a lot from middle-class female readership. But I speak from scattered observations alone and it may be wrong.

Rakesh: Hindi popular cinema regular borrows from all these guys. And a lot of Tamil writers write for the movies/TV too.

I agree, again. In Malayalam, pulp fiction writers like Sudhakar Mangalodayam, have made in majorly into the mainstream while still making parallel forays into the pulp genre. If DC books could come out with an imprint Janapriya Sahithyam, there must be adequate (and more) readership.

I'd missed the bus on the earlier thread on pulp fiction. It does answer some of my queries.


Thanks to both of you for stopping by to respond. Hope Pritham gets her ID soon.

This post has been edited by shyama: Dec 15 2008, 06:57 PM

[arnab]

rakesh, pritham,

thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to re-print some of these stories. any plans for a full series on the adventures of sasivaran and sabapathy?

i have some questions about the translations themselves, but i'll restrict myself to one for now: are the challenges of translating pulp fiction from tamil into english more or less than from high literature?

i'll also restrict myself to one question about the publishing end: rakesh, could you say more about what seems to be a commitment on blaft's part towards publishing/translating non-canonical work? i am referring to this statement on your website:

However, in the future, Blaft has much wider goals. We are planning to eventually branch out into translations of fiction from other regional languages of South Asia, English fiction, comic books, graphic novels, children's books, non-fiction, textbooks, how-to-manuals, encyclopedias, and kitchen appliances.

thanks again,

arnab

(please pm/email me to expedite setting up a username for pritham--i'm not seeing a registration request from her in the registration queue)

[blaftlings]

i'll also restrict myself to one question about the publishing end: rakesh, could you say more about what seems to be a commitment on blaft's part towards publishing/translating non-canonical work?

We felt like most Indian publishing in English was restricting itself to a certain limited kind of thing, and we think there are lots of people out there who are interested in reading other kinds of books. What has really struck me since getting into this is the sheer volume and variety of cool stuff in the various regional languages that very few English readers are aware of.

I'm not sure about "non-canonical"... an upcoming Blaft book is a translation (by Pritham, again) of Tamil folktales from a Sahitya Akademi award winner, but it's really different from what's appeared in English so far... it includes a fun chapter on "dirty-word" folktales. So does that count as non-canonical? I'm not sure. Are you giving me a set-up to plug Blaft's coming-soon releases? Should I do it in this forum?

[arnab]

no, it wasn't a set-up, but by all means go ahead. are there other publishing houses that are developing such a quirky catalogue?

i'm also curious to know what response, if any, you and pritham have received to your project from the original writers of the translated stories. i'm struck by the very different status as objects of the original pulp material and this anthology of translations. this is a neutral observation, by the way--i'm just wondering if the writers are bemused by all of this.

[blaftlings]

no, it wasn't a set-up, but by all means go ahead.

I will in a later post though.

i'm also curious to know what response, if any, you and pritham have received to your project from the original writers of the translated stories. i'm struck by the very different status as objects of the original pulp material and this anthology of translations. this is a neutral observation, by the way--i'm just wondering if the writers are bemused by all of this.

Generally, they've all been quite kicked. We've been happily surprised by the amount of press the book has generated in the Indian English media about pulp fiction -- not just Tamil -- and of course all the authors are happy about that too. Mint magazine went to Coimbatore and did a more in-depth piece on Rajesh Kumar... see here. There's also been a bunch of blogging about it which led us to meet some cool people... one of whom is working on a Hindi pulp translation for us.

If any author is bemused, it's Prajanand (author of Revenge). I'll try to get him on here, he's a pretty cool kid.

[twwc]

read this a couple of weeks ago. i like the idea of the book as i've seen these magazines/books lying around peoples' houses and could never read them as i don't read tamil.

what struck me most about the stories was the extent to which some of them depicted humor through things like groping and uber-chauvinistic dialog. i'm familiar with lewd humor in tamil films, but the audience for that stuff is probably skewed towards men. my assumption is that most people reading this fiction are female? in which case, what does this large middle-class female audience think of this stuff? do they find it titillating? also what kind of broad based dialog exists in TN about women's rights, etc.

more than the stories themselves, it is the art (sketches) that i find particularly unique (for example in "my name is kamala") and have also seen in mags like kumudam (sp?). probably a genre unto itself.

[Wildflower]

Twwc! Welcome back!

[blaftlings]

Been a while... no luck getting Pritham or Prajanand on here. :-(

Anyway just wanted to mention, as promised long ago, a few recent Blaft releases (so far only available in India). Two of these are pulp-fiction related: One is a classic Hindi pulp/crime novel translation, The 65 Lakh Heist by Surender Mohan Pathak. (Read nice review here.) The other is a postcard book of pulp book cover paintings by Shelle, called Heroes, Gundas, Vamps and Good Girls (read short piece here.)

We also brought out a book of Tamil folktales by Ki. Rajanarayanan, called Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?. Read review here.

Might take a couple of months for these to be available in the US.