Novel touch to traditions

Ruwanthi ABEYAKOON

"The new media all provide a great opportunity for new and upcoming writers to find their voice and address their audiences. It is very exciting to watch the new dawn of digital publishing emerge," says Namita Gokhale, a celebrated Indian author.

She has written six novels, a collection of short stories, and several works of nonfiction, all in English. She debuted with Paro: Dreams of Passion in 1984, a satire upon the Mumbai and Delhi elite which caused an uproar due to its candid sexual humour.

Namita Gokhale. Picture by Saman Sri Wedage

Gokhale conceptualized the famous International Festival of Indian Literature, Neemrana 2002, and also The Africa Asia Literary Conference, 2006. She is a founder-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival along with the author, William Dalrymple, which started in 2006.

She is also festival adviser to Mountain Echoes: A Literary Festival in Bhutan and the Kathmandu Literary Jatra, a first of its kind literature festival in Nepal. She is currently the member-secretary of Indian Literature Abroad (ILA). While in Sri Lanka to participate at several workshops, Gokhale poured out her thoughts on literature and the literary world.

Q: From its humble beginnings Jaipur Literary Festival has grown to a major event. What is the rationale behind it?

A: The Jaipur Literature Festival has its own inexplicable energy. I suspect that a catalyst of its success is the hunger for books and ideas, the need for debate and dialogue. We began with the clear idea of respecting, honoring and showcasing Indian literature while inviting the best writers in the world to visit us in Jaipur.

It has grown into a democratic space where writers and thinkers from different streams and ideologies, as also language groups, gather to share their thoughts. It has inspired many other festivals in the region and helped South Asian writing reflect on its own changing, evolving realities. It has grown in size and scale beyond what any of us ever imagined.

Q: The event harness writers and viewpoints from all over the world, including India's radical 'Dalit' writers. What benefits can be reaped through this mixing?

A: The successive waves of passionate and articulate Dalit writing have great literary and transformative social value and are an important part of our festival. The many contrary, often conflicting realities of 'modern' India find voice in sessions and panels. It helps audiences form their own judgments away from the distortions and trivializations of mass media discourse.

Q: In a society dominated by a metropolitan, middle upper class elite how do you think upcoming writers can present their work to the public?

A: The new media all provide a great opportunity for new and upcoming writers to find their voice and address their audiences. Blogs, internet publishing opportunities and old fashioned word of mouth, as well as literature festivals and cafe readings, provide platforms for new writing be heard and amplified. It is very exciting to watch the new dawn of digital publishing emerge.

Q: What is the importance of translation of books into other languages?

A: At this moment in time when so many previously inaccessible world literatures are becoming visible, sensitive translation is the magic key to widening the base of reading habits and literary understanding. Having a purely Anglophone filter and attitude to world literature is clearly a parochial response.

There is an increasing number of good translations surfacing, especially across the Indian languages. With its 22 national languages and rooted traditions of multilingual discourse, India, as indeed South Asia, exists in a constant and ongoing state of translation.

Q: Why are all your protagonists women?

A: I have had male protagonists, as in 'A Himalayan Love Story', and also 'The Book of Shadows', but the first person feminine is the voice I naturally turn to in my fiction. I tried to imagine and position myself as an androgynous, non-gendered writer,but as I grow older I have come to accept that I write primarily as, and perhaps for, women. Those are the stories I understand and identify with.

Q: What was the reaction to the sexual frank satire that you bring out in your writing?

A: I think life is absurd at many levels and its wisest sometimes to laugh at it. Human sexuality is a driving force for situations both real and fictional, and so its important to my writing. Besides this, in a patriarchal society writing about one's body, about sexuality, is still a political act of assertion. Women have to lay claim to the arena of their bodies and overcome social censorship to liberate their writing.

Q: Does being a woman writer impose any limitations on you?

A: All of us have limitations and it's a challenge to turn them into assets. I write as a human being, but being a woman is an ineradicable part of my being and identity.

Q: What do you think of Sri Lankan writing?

A: Sri Lankan writing is both deep and rooted and young and adventurous. It has made a distinct impact on the international literary scene, and there is more to come from a new generation of exceptionally gifted authors. I was overwhelmed by the great number of very talented writers I had the privilege of meeting, and the depth and nuance of their work.

Q: What are the new projects you are working on? Any new books?

A: I am deep in a new novel that I had put away many years ago. I had then gone on to write two other books. It's very satisfying to return to the manuscript after the detachment and distance of six years and work on it again, but also rather frustrating to be always overworked and unable to have the sort of clear creative time I yearn for, away from immediate administrative tasks and goals.

Q: You are currently the member-secretary of Indian Literature Abroad (ILA). What is the aim of this initiative?

A: It is an initiative by Ministry of Culture of the Government of India, to translate and promote contemporary literature from the Indian languages into the major international languages, particularly the six UNESCO languages (English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian and Chinese).