Intertwining Affect(s) of Sociality

Translation studies still remain a subsumed discipline as far as ­Indian academia is concerned. Addi­­tionally, marginal perspectives in theorising translation are yet to be formulated. Translation is a process of transition from one language to the other or many, but what is being processed through translation becomes a pertinent matter to understand.

The book under review titled Uneasy Translations: Self, Experience and Indian Literature by Rita Kothari is an important addition to the field of translation studies at its core and the discipline of humanities at large. Kothari, with her scholarly articulations, is able to break the patriarchal–hegemonic Indian academic set-up and subsequently dismantle the structural implications of the academic “glass ceiling” which only a handful of female scholars have managed to do. Her academic journey and the body of scholarship show the light of picturesque storytelling and theoretical depth around complex socialities that characterise India’s literary world and the politics revolving around the question of translatability and untranslatability. Her book adds a new dimension in practising translation and the way it has evolved through her personal and professional experience(s). This text brings a combination of analytical tools such as auto-ethnographic elaborations and textual interpretations. Simultaneously, the book is an analytical exercise in explaining such affects that have a bearing on doing, reading, and experiencing translation.