How Sahitya Akademi promotes India lit abroad -Governance Now

How Sahitya Akademi promotes India lit abroad

Translations, publications, delegations spread the Indian word around the world

GN Bureau | November 20, 2019

#Sahitya Akademi #Ministry of Culture #literature #Prahlad Singh Patel

Books housed at the Sahitya Akademi library in Delhi (File photo: Governance Now)

Sahitya Akademi, the autonomous organization under the ministry of culture, has been silently promoting Indian literature abroad through a host of activities, including promotion of translations.

The Akademi has helped translate much-talked about Bangla novel ‘Herbert’ by Nabarun Bhattacharya in German (published by Draupadi Verlag). Similarly, Khushwant Singh’s partition masterpiece ‘Train to Pakistan’ has been translated into Swedish (published by Aranan Publishing House), and Tamil novelist Ambai’s ‘Kaattil Oru Maan’ into French (publisher: Zulma).

The Akademi has also published under its Cultural Exchange Programme ‘Bhartala Da Natya Shastra’ by Kapila Vatsyayan and ‘Indian Short Stories’ by EV Ramakrishnan in Russian, ‘Kabita’ in Slovenian, and ‘The Dual of the Heart’ in English. The Akademi has been publishing these translations out of fund allotted to it by the Government of India.

The Sahitya Akademi has been translating Indian literary masterpieces into foreign languages under ministry of culture’s project, Indian Literature Abroad (ILA), the minister of state of culture and tourism, Prahlad Singh Patel, told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply Tuesday.

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The Akademi had sent several delegations to different countries under its Cultural Exchange Programme. They include delegations to the Hay Festival, Segovia, Spain (22-25 September 2016), London to participate in London Book Fair (14-16 March 2017), the Festival of India in Brazil (04-10 September 2017), a seminar on ‘Influence of Sanskrit & Pali on South East Asian Languages’ under the Festival of India in Thailand (23-27 September 2017), a Sanskrit round table as part of India’s 70th independence anniversary celebrations in Spain (17-21 October 2017) and the same in Israel (05-10 November 2017). Also: the Akademi participated in the Vishwa Hindi Sammelan, Mauritius (18-20 August 2018), Sharjah International Book Fair (31 October-09 November 2018), and sent a delegation to participate in Festival of India in Nepal (19-21 March 2019).

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