There’s a Carnival Today by Indra Bahadur Rai

Translated from Nepali to English by Manjushree Thapa

Publication date: October 10, 2017
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books, India
ASIN: B076B9F3NC
ISBN-10: 9789386702319
ISBN-13: 978-9386702319

1) Tell us about this book and its original author.

MT: Indra Bahadur Rai was a living legend of our times: a high artist and public intellectual who led literary discourse in the Nepali language, both in his native Darjeeling and in my native Nepal. In There’s a Carnival Today, he offers a panoramic view of post-Independence Darjeeling through the story of Janak, a local leader caught in a quandary as political unrest brews in the tea estates, and a collective Nepali identity comes into formation. Indra Bahadur Rai’s original, Aaja Ramita Chha, is a modern classic and a perennial favourite among Nepali-language readers. 

2) Why were you drawn to choose the book for translation?

MT: I’ve loved the novel ever since I read it in 2000. And, even though it was beyond my skills to translate it at that time, I asked Indra Bahadur Rai for permission to do so one day. Fifteen years passed before I felt up to the task. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has described translation as an act of love, and this was what it was for me. I loved the original so much that I felt the urge to share it with English readers. I want to press it into everyone’s hands and say, “Read this, it’s brilliant,” the way you do with books you absolutely love.

3) What were the key challenges and surprises for you during the translation process/journey?

MT: Darjeeling’s usage of the Nepali language is unique and this is reflected not just in the dialogue in the original novel but also in Indra Bahadur Rai’s narrative voice. I had to seek the help of the author as well as of my editor, Anurag Basnet of Speaking Tiger, who is also a Darjeeling native, to correctly translate some of the more obscure colloquial expressions and idioms in the novel.

In addition, the original text has snippets of Hindi and Bengali, reflecting the everyday voices of the people of Darjeeling. I loved the challenge of translating a multilingual text to a monolingual one without losing the complexity of the original. But this is what makes translation so fun: the problem-solving that goes into it. I had such a good time bringing this novel into English.

4) What’s one thing you wish readers knew or appreciated more about this book?

MT: I particularly wish that readers in India would read the novel to gain a glimpse of the rich, intellectually bracing literature that has come out of Darjeeling, which tends to be understood as a simple, picturesque “hill station.” Indra Bahadur Rai’s oeuvre is as sophisticated as Mahasweta Devi’s or Bhisham Sahni’s. His later work became more abstract and postmodern, but There’s a Carnival Today is entirely approachable. 

5) What’s your next translation project that we can look forward to?

MT: I’m a writer-who-translates, rather than a full-time literary translator. I’m working on a novel right now but, as soon as I’m done, there are several writers whose works I want to translate, including Parijat and Aahuti. Nepal’s literature is political, rousing, and linguistically diverse: there are 123 languages in Nepal. There’s much to translate. I feel fortunate to be able to translate some of it.