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How To Translate Your Book in Indian Languages: Vikrant Pande, ep01

Vikrant Pande is an author who specializes in translations of Marathi classics into English. He has most recently translated Rau, on which the Hindi movie Bajirao Mastani was based, into English. In addition, so far he has translated several Marathi classics into English. Vikrant is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. At present he is the Provost of Team Lease University in Vadodara, India. He has over two decades of corporate experience. Vikrant specializes in translating Marathi language classics into English. Vikrant and I discuss about his experiences as a translator, what should authors look for when they are considering translation of their book, and purely as a coincidence, all the books that he has translated and published so far have been released as movies in Marathi and Hindi.

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Discussion Points with Vikrant Pande

  • Vikrant believes that having a focus and discipline are extremely important for the success of an author in the long run.
  • He believes that translations serve a market need, and can do justice to an author’s creative pursuits.
  • Translations that do not “speak” the language of today’s readers will not be commercially successful.
  • Vikrant’s other translations include Raja Ravi Verma, Shaala and Augangzeb.
  • Vikrant began his journey into translations by the English adaptation of Marathi novel Morpankhi Savlya.
  • As a coincidence, all the books that Vikrant has translated have been made into movies.
  • Vikrant believes that translating poetry is very difficult, he gives the example of Rabindranath Tagore who himself felt that his poetry could not be translated from Bengali effectively.
  • Vikrant spends about 2 hours a day and about 4 to 5 hours over weekends in writing.
  • For publishing his first novel, he did not wait for a mandate from the publisher, he had the translated work ready, and the editor at Harper Collins loved the work.
  • It is very helpful when the author and the translator can talk to each other during the translation process.
  • Vikrant believes that PhDs or professors who translate a book may not be able to do an effective job of translation, translation is not transliteration.

Links and References:

Ways to Contact Vikrant