Scholars hope NEA-supported translation will help bring Hindi literature to American audience

An American publishing house hasn't released a book by a living Hindi novelist in a generation-but Jason Grunebaum and Ulrike Stark plan to change that.

Grunebaum, a Senior Lecturer in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, received a 2011 literature translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to support a translation of Manzoor Ahtesham's 1995 novel, The Tale of the Missing Man. Stark, a Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, will collaborate with Grunebaum.

"Translation brings works of literature to new audiences, and translation is, itself, an art," NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said in a statement announcing the fellowships. "We are proud of the NEA's 30-year history of investing in literary translation."

Grunebaum and Stark hope their translation will help bring Hindi literature to an American audience, and they believe Ahtesham's work is an ideal choice for their project. Ahtesham, a native of Bhopal and the author of four novels, has won numerous Indian literary prizes for his depiction of Muslim identity in India.

"He is absolutely one of the most well-regarded and hardworking figures in the modern Hindi literary world," Grunebaum said. "He's known for his very ambitious novels. His work [portrays] everything from Muslim family life to a sweeping cross-generational tableau of political movements that have swept the subcontinent from before and since [Indian] independence."

Stark was drawn to The Tale of the Missing Man in particular because it differs from much of the Hindi fiction published previously to the 1990s. "It's a significant departure from the dominant tradition of social realism prevalent in Hindi literature until quite recently," she said.

While the novel explores a familiar theme for Ahtesham-the role of the Muslim man in India-Stark says the novel is a breakthrough for postmodernist fiction in Hindi. "It's highly self-reflective. It plays around with genres. It subversively engages with the Hindi-Urdu literary tradition," she explained.

"It has a lot of playfulness to it," Grunebaum agreed.

Stark introduced Grunebaum to The Tale of the Missing Man, and, said Grunebaum, "I quickly fell in love with it." Soon after, they began their translation, which is now partially complete.

The collaboration between Grunebaum, a native English speaker, and Stark, a native German speaker, is unusual-typically, teams of translators consist of a native speaker of the source language and a native speaker of the target language. Still, the absence of a native Hindi speaker hasn't hindered them. "We complement each other very well," Stark said. What's more, a translator has "a certain alertness and attentiveness" when working outside of their mother tongue, she pointed out.

While their routine varies, the two scholars generally go through the novel, sentence by sentence, until they agree on the translation. Their process is "creative and playful-going back and forth until we both feel we've found the right phrase," Stark said.

Working as a team takes longer, said Grunebaum, "but the result is phenomenal," he said.

Grunebaum hopes to see The Tale of the Missing Man alongside other contemporary literary fiction from around the world. He is optimistic their translation will interest a commercial publishing house, thanks to growing interest in South Asian culture. "We want it to find a good home," he said.