India in translation: tendencies of representation in translating Indian fiction

Joel Kuortti,

Professor, Department of English

FI-20014 University of Turku, Finland

Indian literature, Indian English literature, Indian diasporic literature,

gender studies, cultural studies

E-mail: joel.kuortti@utu.fi

The article analyses certain cultural elements of Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A (2005) in the English original and its Finnish translation, Tyhjentävä vastaus, eli kuka voittaa miljardin. It discusses comparatively the strategies of intercultural dialogue adopted in the original (ST) and the translated (TT) versions. Swarup’s novel textually explicitly represents India for the reader in a transcultural context. While it is written by an Indian about India, it is published for the international English-speaking audience. As a diplomat, Swarup can be defined as a diasporic writer. Yet the themes and issues of the novel are current socio-political matters in India - from communalism to corruption and the Indian cinema to poverty ? but the context is transcultural global media setting. Furthermore, the identificational context and underlying conflict is intra-cultural, not cross-cultural - especially between the poor and the rich. The article looks at how the representation of India is further handled and transmitted in translation. The aim is to consider the translation strategies in translating transcultural texts, the prerequisites for transcultural readership, and the challenges these pose for analysis.

Keywords: translation strategies, transculturation, representation, Indian English literature, Vikas Swarup.

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