Dear Friends,
Please take some time to go through the Twitter link in the comments .
In a nutshell. A newly constituted international translation award announces to the translator in writing that her shortlisted work unanimously has been declared as the winner by the entire appointed Jury.
This award in its website promises to be pathbreaking, first of its kind and boasts of a strong jury focussed on taking south Asian translation to the world.
The translator and the author are very happy about the announcement sent in writing to the translator. To her utter surprise the awards committee sends another email after many days of announcing her victory. They are unable to announce her as the winner.
The initial correspondence says she has been unanimously selected by the jury and the subsequent mail states the jury feel they might face legal consequence
They don’t have the strength to face legal battles. They don’t have the time to go through the editorial process to make amends to the text.
Isn’t something like this shameful and spineless. If they don’t have a strong conviction they should have never announced. If announced they shouldn’t go back on their words.
Very honestly I suspect tremendous negative influence on the awards committee by a set of so called literary greats from India who have taken control of literally every literary event that’s popular in this country and have been continuously promoting only a set of Authors/ translators of their choice or simply people in their control. This is very shameful and my heart goes out to the author and the translator. I pray to God that within a year both of them get their due which is bigger and better.
I request my friends and those who stand by truth to share and retweet this as much as possible.
Ramjee Narasiman in FB