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PRIZE TALK

Why Indian writers are never in the running

for the Nobel
Keshava Guha
Oct 10, 2014 02:30 am
There are many problems the absence of a national literary culture, to begin with.

Image credit: www.lantanaeditore.com

Patrick Modiano, a 69-year old novelist little-known outside his native France, has just become the
110th recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is now over a century since Rabindranath Tagore
won the prize. As with science Nobels and individual Olympic golds, India has produced exactly one
literature laureate*. Since the constraints of genetics or research budgets do not apply to literature,
this ought to be a matter of some surprise, but it is unlikely to change anytime soon.
This failure is often attributed to the Swedish Academys Eurocentrism: Modiano is the fifteenth
European winner in the past 20 years. But in recent decades, the prize has also gone to writers from
countries such as Peru, Guatemala, St. Lucia, and twice each to China and South Africa. Those who
suspect the Academy of valuing political and geographic as well as aesthetic considerations might
conclude that another Indian winner is thus inevitable.
But while the nominees and shortlist (the Academy whittles 220 nominees down to a shortlist of
five) are only released after 50 years, the betting odds calculated by bookmakers such as Ladbrokes
are generally a good guide to the shortlist in recent years, the winner has come from among the
odds-on favourites. Writers such as Modiano or the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer might have
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been obscure to an international audience, but they were favoured heavily by punters. The
complete absence of Indian names from the odds indicates that no Indian writer has been seriously
considered for some time. Moreover, there is little or no evidence that the Swedish Academy
weights factors other than literary value in its decisions: choices that were interpreted as political
statements Orhan Pamuk and Harold Pinter were easily defensible on literary grounds.
National literature
Perhaps the most important factor impeding Indian writers is the absence of a national literary
culture and thus of a national literature. Tagore is not only the last Indian Nobel Laureate: he was
our last national writer, read widely across regions and languages, beloved not only of Bengalis
but of Indians. Non-Western Nobel winners tend to come from monolingual countries with unified
literary cultures, and thus to be major cultural figures in their societies. In the international sphere,
they become national embodiments Naguib Mahfouz for Egypt, Octavio Paz for Mexico. There are
no Indian equivalents. Chetan Bhagat is a culturally influential writer, but of a very different kind.
Many Indian writers are, of course, iconic cultural presences in their states or linguistic regions, as
exemplified by the public mourning in Karnataka for U.R. Ananthamurthy in whom India has lost
one of its more plausible Nobel candidates. But their influence remains, as a rule, parochial. This is
largely down to the lack of translation between regional languages, and the poor quality of
translation into English. It is difficult to expect writers to develop international reputations when
they are unknown outside their own states. English translations from regional languages are much
more common, but very few translators are accomplished stylists in English. Thus, most translations
convey the meaning of the original in a dull and often stodgy prose.
Lost in translation
The Swedish Academy read Indian-language writers in English and thus receive a rather poor
representation of these literatures. The few high-quality translations of recent years of Ashk,
Manto, Senapati are of novels by long-dead authors who are ineligible for the Nobel. In contrast,
the high quality of translation from Spanish to English was essential to the globalisation of Latin
American literature. The rare Indian-language writer to receive an international audience,
Ananthamurthy, had a brilliant translator, A.K. Ramanujan. His successors have not been so
fortunate.
What of Indian writers in English? Many have acquired international reputations, and three have
won the Man Booker Prize. When Rohinton Mistry won the Neustadt Prize in 2012, Indian headlines
said hed won the American Nobel. Most of these internationally famous writers live outside India,
and their work has become increasingly historical and removed from contemporary Indian themes
(Aravind Adiga is an exception to both rules). This points to another explanation for the Nobel
failure. The Academy has a clear preference for writers who chronicle the national experience,
using literature to interrogate power structures and social change. It may also not consider any of
the leading Indian writers in English to be quite Nobel-worthy while Adiga and Kiran Desai are too
young.

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Writers in English with international publishers have access to the institutional support that is
essential to winning the prize. Regional-language writers need much better translations and a
certain degree of promotion to stand any chance. Unlike the national literary academies of many
other countries, the Sahitya Akademi is ineffective in this regard. There is an unfortunate parallel
here with Indias attitude to the Foreign Language Film Oscar. It is not enough to nominate the
best work the Oscar and Nobel juries have hundreds of films/writers to consider and lobbying is
essential. When the director of Liars Dice, Indias Oscar entry for next year, announced that she
would do no lobbying or marketing and let her film speak for itself, she ensured that she would
not stand a chance at winning the award.
Why, you might ask, should Indians care why we win international awards such as the Nobel or
Oscar? It is not that Indian writers, or any writer, needs a certificate from an insular and secretive
jury of Swedish academics. But an Indian Nobel winner, especially a regional-language writer, could
have a transformative effect on the reach of Indian literature, both nationally and globally, as well
as on the value accorded to literature in Indian society. It could prompt a long-needed increase in
translations between Indian languages. In the long run, it would also discredit the unearned
snobbery of the English-language literary elite and allow regional-language writers the reach and
acclaim they deserve.
*Not counting the three scientists of Indian-origin to win Nobels, none of them being Indian citizens.
The same applies to Rushdie and the Booker Prize.

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