India offers a rich landscape of writing and Jaipur BookMark (JBM) is well placed to showcase the best of such writing and to help facilitate the sale and exchange of rights both between Indian languages and internationally. In January 2016 JBM had delegations from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, France and Norway. Key Indian language publishers specializing in translations also participated in the event. Moreover, there were two delegations from Australia in 2015 and 2016 supported by the Arts Council, Australia.Â
Even as India opens out as the world’s third largest English language publishing market, the complex and segmented Indian language market provides even greater publishing opportunities in Hindi, Malayalam, Bangla and Gujarati, amongst others.
JBM 2016 brought to the publishing and translation market a Global Rights Translation Catalogue with a select list of eight works on offer for translation from across six Indian languages. Currently, no other publishing platform in India offers the possibility of both getting to know India’s varied literature, and making contact with publishers and authors from India’s many languages. With this initiative, JBM hopes to begin answering the question that publishers and agents from across the world often ask – How do we get to know Indian literatures? How can we translate between Indian languages, and from Indian languages into other languages of the world?
Translation will remain the prime focus at JBM 2017 to be held from 21 to 23 January at Jaipur in India. This time the event will highlight the literatures of the eastern states of India. You can look forward to meeting authors, publishers and booksellers from West Bengal, Assam, Manipur, Orissa and the rest of East Zone.
JBM 2017 will showcase narratives of social change that have altered world perceptions of what is being written in India. For example, the autobiography of a rag picker whose life changed with Salaam Balak Trust or Haldhar Nag, the Kosli language poet and writer from Odisha, who just won a National Award. These are incredible stories that can travel beyond languages and borders.
