What are the joys and challenges of translating Malayalam literature to English? To know more, Ala spoke to Prabha Zacharias, whose translation of V M Devadas’ 2010 novel, Pannivetta, titled The Boar Hunt, was published this July by Hachette India. The novel, set in post-Emergency Kochi, follows the unravelling of feuds between local gangs as international investors shift the terrain of Kochi’s gritty underworld. Also featured is an excerpt from the translation.
Prabha Zacharias
Congratulations on releasing your translation of VM Devadas’s novel! Is this the first book that you have worked with?
Thank you! I have been translating from Malayalam to English since 2009. I have attempted a few short story translations earlier but this would be my first full-length translation of a Malayalam novel into English.
And how has this experience been? How is it different from translating short stories?
A novel is a wholesome experience. You get to stay with the characters for a longer time period while you translate the story. You also, in various ways, get invested in a few of their narrative arcs. When you are translating, you are perhaps becoming a heightened reader too.
That must also be challenging, right?
Absolutely. It is a difficult task to try and retain the voice of different characters. And when you work with a language like English and try to deliver minute nuances of various characters, it is difficult to retain the distinct flavour of each character. Here, in this novel, it moves very fast from one character to another. Each of them are so different from each other. Retaining their uniqueness was a challenge.
Speaking of pace, when I read the excerpt, I was wondering how you translated the pace and flavour of the novel from Malayalam to English. Since the novel is set in a historical time and presents a crime saga, it must have been hard to draw a balance between the two?
Oh yes. This work took me some time to finish, and I have realised that taking your time to do the translation would work well with fast-paced works such as this. When I worked on The Boar Hunt, I took breaks between chapters and when a new narrator featured in the story. When I took breaks, I would go read something else and then return to the new character and their narrative in a few days. That helped me manage the pace.
Speaking of The Boar Hunt, what drew you to the works of VM Devadas?
Devadas is an exceptional writer, when it comes to writing style. His language is so simple, almost deceptively simple, yet he creates such nuanced, complex and layered narratives with such beautiful and simple prose. This is such a difficult task to pull off but he manages to do it with his exceptional mastery over language and craft.
How do you see this reflected in The Boar Hunt?
When Pannivetta came out in 2010, it became a sensation. That was a time when we had other forms of mainstream Malayalam writing and when such narratives that introduced the stories of gangsters were missing. While we are familiar with local gangster narratives now after Gangs of Wasseypur and many other such stories reaching public imagination, The Boar Hunt (Pannivetta in Malayalam) was perhaps the first to popularise such a narrative in Malayalam.
And you have been following him since Pannivetta or even before?
I have been reading him since the publication of his first book and following him since. From the beginning, I have been drawn to his style and narrative, which I think is very different from the Malayalam writing we saw during the late 2000s.
Since you have just burst into the translation scene, what is your experience with the publishing world? Are they ready for emerging translators?
I think the publishing world is interested in regional narratives and our stories from Malayalam are certainly enticing for them. The only challenge, as far as Malayalam is concerned, is retaining the regional, dialect-based features in English. We run the risk of losing a lot in the act of translation. Even after all that unavoidable loss in the process, I still believe that our stories hold a lot of promise and engagement. In short, we should have more and more translators who can efficiently translate regional languages into English. As a literature teacher, I have observed how there are so few people with a command over two languages who can do this satisfactorily. Most often, those who can write well in English lack the grip over their native tongue. This bilingual ability should be nurtured and encouraged.
I was also thinking how command over a language works when we don’t practice it so often. You are in academia, and I believe you have been using English more often than Malayalam. How have you stayed in touch, in that case?
I read in both languages. With academia, your reading predominantly shifts to English. But making a conscious effort to read in Malayalam is very important for me. And our emerging regional writers are so good. They tell such compelling tales, so it is not difficult to stay interested in Malayalam stories. Since I no longer live in Kerala, I don’t get to read weekly magazines like I used to. But I do have that ritual where I pick up new novels and story collections when I visit home. I also listen to a lot of audiobooks in Malayalam.
What do you foresee in terms of your journey with translation? You mentioned once that you were inclined towards writing more—has that changed, now that you have worked on this novel?
I wish to write my own stories, yes. I am tinkering with ideas too. However, once you finish translating, you really crave for the next project. It is such an excitement to finish a work of translation. I do bilingual translations and I truly believe that being a medium to bring the world to Malayalam and to take the best of Malayalam to the world is such an important task. I take great joy in doing that for my language. I think I will keep translating since it gives me a sense of purpose. But someday, my own stories will also find their place in the world.
An Excerpt from The Boar Hunt
The gangs of Kochi were not made in a day. As Kochi’s role as a major centre of commerce declined, the gangs thrived. In the beginning were the first-generation smugglers, unemployed young men and the fishermen who abandoned their trade and joined these groups, huddling on the beaches and lakefronts, rowing their small boats to the big ships anchored in the sea, in search of things to sell. They escaped the watchful eyes of the authorities, and smuggled gold, foreign liquor, cigarettes, clothes and electronic gadgets at night. The work they did was illegal. Yet they held onto their ethics. Betrayers met with death. During raids, they guarded their secrets, suffered beatings and took turns to stay in prison to protect their sources. As these gangs prospered, other groups emerged without any ethics at all. Their modus operandi was different. They arrived with their boats, stole parts of anchored ships, propellers of smaller ships and copper wires from the harbour’s electric lines, robbed ship workers and made away with stuff from goods carriers.
Over time, as security measures strengthened by the shore and in the sea, these petty thieves grew lazy and started betting in their spare time. This evolved into another business—of running bets. Their favourite activity was something they called ‘the cotton game’. They ran bets over the numbers printed on the cargo boxes carrying cotton. The small kiosks next to these docks became betting stations. There were disputes, and then there were mediators to deal with disputes. Once Kochi became a tourist destination, the second generation of gangs surfaced. All those who smuggled gold and cigarettes started to sell marijuana and heroin. Ethics had no place in the way they conducted their business. Violence and retribution became commonplace. Kochi was changing.
The cotton game gave way to single-digit lotteries. All those who smuggled drugs started trading in arms. Poor prostitutes became escort service girls. Smugglers, betrayers, thugs, pimps. By the time industries began flourishing in Kochi, the third generation of gangsters arrived on the scene. Goons and prostitutes feared the police. The police obeyed the industrialists. Politicians threaded them all in an invisible string of fear and commerce, integrating the industrialists, goons, police, prostitutes and the real estate guys. Eventually, different groups formed, fought, split and reconciled into various combinations.
About the Translator: Prabha Zacharias is a writer and translator based out of Delhi. She works at Christ Deemed to be University, New Delhi, NCR Campus.
