New Delhi: Best-selling authors and Bollywood stars will come together at a literature festival to be held this weekend at the ongoing World Book Fair here.
The inaugural edition of Lit Hive 2014, an initiative of Lit India Movement and supported by National Book Trust(NBT), will see visitors at the fair getting a chance to meet and listen to some of the well-known names from the literary world like Devdutt Pattanaik, Rashmi Bansal, Advaita Kala, Hussain Zaidi, Madhuri Banerjee, Ravinder Singh, Anna Vetticad and Christopher Doyle.
“The city needs a platform where readers and authors can come together. Lit Hive (India Lit Fest) will bridge that gap. The first edition of the literary festival will see many celebrated authors and renowned Bollywood celebrities interacting with the audience during the two-day festival at the World Book Fair,” says Sachin Garg, author and organiser of LitHive.
Bollywood fans can look forward to multiple panel discussions with actors Karisma Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tisca Chopra. While Karisma will be discussing her journey in a session ‘Yummy Mummy Guide’, Tisca will participate in a session ‘Acting Smart’.
TV anchor and host of the reality show MTV Roadies Raghu Ram will share his thoughts on ‘Looking into the Rearview’. Writers Bansal, Apurva Purohit and Shweta Handa Gupta will be conversing on why Delhi is considered to be the heart of India in the session ‘Capturing Delhi’.
Zaidi will discuss about his book “Byculla to Bangkok” with ex-police commissioner of Delhi Neeraj Kumar. Mythology lovers can look forward to an exciting panel discussion ‘Mythopoeia in the 21st century’, where authors Doyle, Anand Neelkantan and columnist Col. Kapoor will talk about mixing mythology, storytelling and fantasy with editor of Om Books International Dipa Chaudhuri.
On Sunday, there will be a session ‘Bubble-gum Feminism – Fad or Reality’ with yoga teacher-author Ira Trivedi, Banerjee, best-selling teenage author Nikita Singh and Rohit Gore.
During ‘Paperback Revolution’, Nikita Singh, author Ravinder Singh, Gore and Garg will be discussing on how the publishing industry and the business of fiction has evolved over the last few years.
Bollywood fans will have another reason to cheer as the session titled ‘Truth is Stranger than fiction’, will see Siddiqui sharing his journey. Alongside will be Vetticad, film critic and author of the book “The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic”.
Says Siddiqui, “I feel great to be a part of the inaugural Lit Hive. I am very excited to be speaking at the literature festival.”
On the last day, there will be some interesting sessions like ‘The Dharnafication of Delhi’ with author-journalists Jerry Pinto and Arunava Sinha and ‘Why Do We Vote’ featuring journalists Nilanjan Mukhopadhyaya, Amit Kapoor and Vinod Dua. (PTI)
Scope of translating Indian languages huge: German publisher
New Delhi: Although Indian writers in English like Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie are read widely in Germany, there is a great scope for translation of works from regional languages into German, says a visiting publisher.
“Though Indian authors like Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie are widely known to Germans, they still form a small fraction of authors from India whose works are translated from English language. There is a great scope of translating works of Indian literature in regional languages to German,” says Friederike Barakat of Hanser Verlag, a Munich-based publishing house.
Barakat was in the city to participate in the ongoing New Delhi World Book Fair here.
Terming cultural and political similarities as well as those in thought process a common ground between India and Germany, she expressed hope that the two countries move forward for more fruitful exchanges in literature.
“Common focal points such as focus on works of ecology, politics, philosophy and gender in Indian and German literature will further pave the way for Indo-German exchange in literature via publishing,” she says.
Friederike Barakat was in conversation with publisher Arpita Das of Yoda Press at a session at the Fair last evening.
Das pointed out both India and Germany had faced tragedies which brings the two countries even closer in terms of literature, making way for greater Indo-German exchange in terms of literature.
“Germany was subject to the Holocaust while Partition was the Indian Holocaust. While tragedies are not a legacy of one single nation, literature is a way to cleanse oneself of negative memories,” says Das.
Germany, which is doing particularly well in terms of its publishing and translation industry, may prove to be conducive for ensuring a greater reach of Indian literature across continents. “Of the 35 per cent fiction market in Germany, 20 per cent are translated works. And of that 20 per cent, over half of the works are translated to German from English, signifying a big rush of translation from the English language to German,” says Barakat.
Furthermore, translation subsidies in Germany, the license cost and availability of funds to subsidise non-fiction academic work have widened the scope of translation.
“Interestingly, reading being one of the topmost leisure activities in the country will act as a plug,” she says.
Over 80,000 titles are published every year by German authors with literature in German travelling to Austria and Switzerland. German literary critic Walter Benjamin, novelist and short story writer Franz Kafka, poet and novelist Hermann Hesse are some of the famous German literary figures among Indian readers. (PTI)