Vibrant Landscape of Languages

Being multilingual is our strength; languages are defining the Indian language publishing. With the focus of NEP on mother tongue, it will provide rich, varied and diverse content to the young reader and help in inculcating love and aspiration to read more. Along with this comes opportunities for publishers to provide content in various languages, genres and formats, curating to the requirement of our diverse readers and for different age groups.

The Indian language curve is rising with the publisher and the reader not only felicitating our iconic authors but also experimenting with new genres, contemporary writing styles and formats. This together in hand with technology is helping the publishers to reach a wider audience globally.

Translations are now becoming an important part of publishing. An initiative which gives new opportunities to Indian languages is “Publishers’ Exchange,” started by Neeta Gupta of Yatra Books which boosts translations within Indian languages.

Pratilipi, India’s largest digital literature platform, has partnered with Bhopal-based Manjul Publishing who are renowned for high quality translations of English language bestsellers in a range of Indian languages. Together they have launched the first four of 50 books which will see leading novels and short story collections from Pratilipi published in print for the first time. The partnership will carry books in regional languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and English as both print and e-books.

Translators are very important, as Claudia Kaiser, Vice President of the Frankfurt Book Fair, puts it, “Translators are the ones who bring our worlds together and they need to be supported with translation funding programmes.”

“The need of the hour is that government supports for policies and funding to promote a culture of book reading and selling to flourish in India. Books are the barometer to the progress of a country and strict actions should be taken on pirated book suppliers,” shares Allwyn Pais, Manager, India Book Distributors (Bombay) Ltd. While, V. C Thomas, Publisher, V C Thomas Editions shares, “As in every Indian language markets, pricing the book to be as accessible as possible to all readers is a challenge.”

“Languages are crucial and critical for survival of our culture,” shared Dr Yogendra Pratap Singh Director, Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan – a man of great intellect, passion and knowledge, who lost his battle with Covid earlier this month. We have lost many stellar personalities to this pandemic. As we move ahead, do keep safe and healthy!

Shweta
shweta@allaboutbookpublishing.com