The scholar-translator says Kuvempu’s Bride in the Hills celebrates the sublimity in every person, especially women and Dalits.

Kuvempu (the popular name of poet, playwright, novelist, and critic Kuppalli Venkatappa Puttappa, 1904-1994) was a towering personality who profoundly influenced and shaped Kannada literature in the twentieth century. Through the corpus of his work, he scripted the development of modern Kannada society and became a cultural icon of Karnataka.

In a fitting tribute, scholar-translator Vanamala Viswanatha has translated his magnum opus, Malegalalli Madumagalu, into English as Bride in the Hills. Viswanatha is an accomplished translator from Kannada to English and has a vast repertoire that spans translations of several modern Kannada writers and translations of ancient and medieval Kannada classics. In an interview with Frontline, Viswanatha discusses the translation of this epic novel set in the Western Ghats in the late 19th century. Excerpts:

–For our non-Kannada readers, could you explain Kuvempu’s importance in Kannada literature and his impact on Karnataka’s society and culture?

V.V.: – Kuvempu, whose 120th birthday passed recently, is a household name in Karnataka. As a poet, playwright, novelist, and thinker, his writing represents the peak that Kannada literature had reached in the last century. Questioning the inhuman varna system, he offered a roadmap for the development of modern Kannada culture and society. With his formidable body of writing across all genres that reflects his progressive politics, Kuvempu has come to be seen as a phenomenon inalienably identified with the Kannada language and statehood. A poem he penned in 1928 (titled Jaya Bharatha Jananiya Tanujate) was chosen to be the State anthem of Karnataka in 2004. Inspired by Sri Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and Tagore, he sculpted a humanism rooted in spirituality. He transcended the crippling binds of identity, social, religious, and political, to offer an inclusive vision of a vishvamanava, a “universal human being”.

– Several noted Kannada literary critics consider Malegalalli Madumagalu one of the greatest Kannada novels ever written. What motivated you to translate this work?

V.V: – In recent years, the translation of Indian literary texts has grown into a powerful cultural practice that brilliantly reveals the different histories and cultures of the many Indias. Hence there is a lot of interest in and demand for translations. When I started looking for a good work to translate some four years ago, Kuvempu’s novel Malegalalli Madumagalu was on everyone’s list as an all-time Kannada classic. And yet it had not been translated until 2020, when the Kuvempu Pratishthana brought out the first translation. Kuvempu is not widely known outside Karnataka. So, when I approached Penguin, they were happy to publish the book in their Modern Classics series. Classics the world over are translated and re-translated, read and re-read. Kuvempu’s text has come to enjoy that status.

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Source: Frontline.thehindi.com