Vanamala Vishwanatha recalls her journey into translation
Written by Arnav Chandrasekhar Bengaluru | Updated: January 22, 2025 09:18 IST
Acclaimed Kannada translator, Vanamala Viswanatha and her book Bride in the Hills. (Image:Penguin.in/hydlitfest.org)
For a millennium and longer, Kannada has been a language of culture and literature – and the past century has been no exception, with Karnataka having no shortage of great writers. But for those from other states or countries wishing to read these works, a language barrier might stand in the way. These readers have found an ally in translator Vanamala Viswanatha. A long career as an English professor, intricate knowledge of Kannada, and even a stint as a newsreader eventually led her to this craft – with her latest translation being of the greatKuvempu’s Malegalalli Madumagalu or Bride in The Hills as the translated edition is titled. But this is by no means her only work – over the years she has worked on books by authors such as P Lankesh and Sara Aboobacker, to name just a few, andtranslations of archaic Kannada writing.
One of the major pieces of literature that Vanamala Vishwanatha translated was the medieval Kannada poetic work ‘The Life of Raja Harishchandra’, which was published by the Harvard University Press for the Murty Classical Library of India.She had also retired from Azim Premji University as a Professor of English studies.
Looking back on her connection to Bengaluru, Vanamala Viswanatha said, “I moved to Bangalore 51 years ago for my postgraduate course in English… the big cities provide you a certain anonymity, while the smaller cities provide their own sense of warmth. Bangalore was a mega city for me after smaller towns like Mandya andMysore. The exposure that Bangalore offered to a larger world enabled several things. It was not the internet age, where you could sit in a village and still accessthe world. Working in premier institutions such IISc… and the Regional Institute of English, both these places provided a lot of exposure. There were always interesting events in Kannada as well where I felt rooted.”
On her journey into translation, Vanamala Viswanatha recalled, “We had a whole tradition of bilingual scholars who were English teachers but working in Kannada through the last century – perhaps it is only now that the two paths have diverged…it used to be very syncretic. The Karnataka Sahitya Academy and so on used tobring out a journal in translation. Dr B C Ramachandra Sharma was one of theeditors. Now and then he would give me a short piece to translate, largely prose.That was in the mid-80s. The turning point was in 1990 when RamachandraSharma, K V Subbanna, and K V Tirumalesh came together to run an intensive 10-day workshop for translators. We became more conscious about the process and itspolitics… that year, I moved to Bangalore University where I could teachTranslation Studies as a paper.” By 2000, she had already published several translations.
Before her most recent translation of Kuvempu’s work, Viswanatha had already translated some of his literature – a couple of short stories, an essay, some poems, and songs such as “Doni Saagali Munde Hogali”. On Malegalalli Madumagalu, shesaid, “This particular work was so huge, and the gravitas it had – it is somewhatforbidding to translators… around 2019, after I finished a novel translation forOxford University Press, I wanted to do something ambitious… a couple ofpublishers thought it was too big for their bandwidth. But Penguin showed interest.The Kuvempu Pratishthana offered support by way of helping me acquire copyrightmaterial and other support.”
On the unique aspects of translating Kuvempu’s work, she said, “Kuvempu had centuries of Kannada at his fingertips and was able to bring it into a layered text with all these characters speaking their dialects which are very typical of their location. The language of the narrative itself is Modern Kannada, along with the this comes with a lot of Sanskrit words.”
To anyone looking to translate Indian literature, Vanamala Viswanatha has this to say, “It is important to like what you do. Otherwise, it is drudgery. Once you enjoythe process – no compromises there… we are at a time when translations arecoming into their own and receiving a lot of attention. The publishing industry isalso more open to it. Earlier people would go around with manuscripts and find apublisher for translations. These days you can find a publisher first and interestthem in what you want to do… when you have a contract in hand there is an edgeto it that helps keep up your enthusiasm and discipline. A translator also has todisseminate – because there is such an explosion of information in all media today,the reading culture is losing its original base. Unless people know you have donethis work, it may quietly go away.”
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