Much of Dom Moraes’s literary output is being made available by Speaking Tiger Books in collaboration with the writer’s literary estate whose executor is Sarayu Ahuja. As a result in recent years, a number of books by Moraes that were not easily available have been republished as affordable editions. A fabulous initiative to resurrect the writings of a prolific poet, writer, traveller and memorist.
“Gone Away” is part of the trilogy of autobiographies written by Dom Moraes. The publishers prefer to describe it as an “unconventional travelogue”. Whatever the descriptor used, this is a book not easily classified. Suffice it to say it is a fabulous testimony of a young man recently returned to India from Oxbridge. Moraes spends three months wandering the subcontinent for a large part accompanied by writer Ved Mehta. These three months prove to be significant in the history of the region. Moraes interviews the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru; he meets the young Dalai Lama who was still unable to speak fluent English as he does now but his signature laugh was memorable even then for Moraes to remark upon it; he visits Nepal and stays in the Rana’s palace where wild Himalayan bears roam the corridors much to the horror of Ved Mehta and Dom Moraes:
***
We sank into a sofa and the servants disappeared. We heard voices in the distance ‘I expect someone will come for us,’ I said. At this point I became aware of an enormous Himalayan bear crouched next to the sofa. It glowered at me. I gasped. ‘Now what is it?’ ‘There is a bear next to us. It must,’ I added, groping for common sense, ‘be stuffed.’ ‘Honestly, Dommie, I know you have a fantasy life, but what do you think? Have you ever known anybody who kept a live bear in their drawing room?’ ‘I only wondered,’ I was beginning lamely, when the bear rose, snarled at us, and shambled loosely out through the farther door.
( Later while exchanging pleasantries with their host’s wife, the general’s wife, the Rani with a soft, calming, dreaming voice, Moraes thought it prudent to mention the bear. )
…I even forgot the bear for a few minutes. Then I felt I should mention it. ‘There was a bear here a few minutes ago,’ I said, feeling idiotic. ‘Ah yes,’ said the Rani family. ‘Which bear?’ ‘You have several?’ ‘Oh yes. That is one thing you must be careful about: don’t go out at night; they don’t see very well in the dark, and they might not know you were guests.’
****
Another memorable incident, gut wrenching in fact, was the meeting arranged for Ved Mehta and Dom Moraes to meet the famous Nepali poet, Devkota, who was dying from cancer. The locals had a ritual that when a person was dying, he would be taken to the Pashupatinath Temple ghats, on the banks of the river Basumati, where the person would breathe his last. The account of three prominent and young writers of the subcontinent under these strange circumstances is very, very moving. Devkota was only 49. Even on his deathbed, Devkota’s hands were turning cold as was his forehead, covered by a dirty bed sheet that would later serve as his shroud, was pleased to meet the two writers. Moraes and Devkota were able to briefly converse about poetry, the merits of translation and recite some poetry.
*** ‘The face that we saw was a mask, with thick dark hair drooping dryly above. Beneath the hair was a fine forehead, with large eyes that opened a little to look at us. Below the eyes the face had fallen in: the cheeks like craters, the lips sunken and wrinkled like a very old man’s. But from under the dirty sheet two long hands projected from stalklike, sand-coloured arms, crept slowly together, and made the namaskar.
…
One thin hand groped painfully over the mattress towards us. I grasped the hand in both mine and squeezed it. It was very cold and dry. There was a long pause. Then the mouth unpuckered from its creases of pain. Very slowly, groping and whistling, it said: ‘Cosmic conflagration …’
The poets chatted some more before Dom Moraes closed the conversation by reciting Edna St Vincent Millay’s ‘For Any Dying Poet’:
Time cannot pluck the bird’s wing from the bird. Bird and wing together Go down, one feather. No thing that ever flew, Not the lark, not you, Can die as others do
**** There are many more accounts in the book of Dom Moraes meeting prominent diplomats, politicians, writers and artists such as Malcolm MacDonald, Jayaprakash Narayan, Han Suyin, M F Hussain, Nirad Chaudhuri, Kishen Khanna, Buddhadeva Bose, Jamini Roy et al. Moraes also managed to reach Sikkim when the Chinese were closing in on the border. There is so much of rhe subcontinent’s socio-cultural history to soak up. The historical incidents and famous people are easily recalled from textbooks but to read this first hand experience is something special.
For some time now I have been seeing some wonderful new editions of Enid Blyton’s books published by Hachette India. Sometimes collections of short stories that I did not even know existed. Sometimes rejacketed versions of old faithfuls. At other times newly put together anthologies of extracts from Enid Blyton’s books or well-known children’s writers selecting their favourite extracts. And then there are the recipe books appealing to the adults who are nostalgic about the delightful eats Blyton mentions in her books while at the same time catering to the young readers who are fascinated by popular cooking programmes on television. Finally, there are examples of Enid Blyton’s stories being used to create grammar books for school children in the subcontinent.
Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India kindly agreed to a Q&A on publishing Enid Blyton’s books.
Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India
******
How did the tie-up with Enid Blyton’s literary estate and Hachette
happen?
There is no tie-up. Hachette is the estate now, having bought up the rights in March 2016. So Hachette now owns the copyright to all of Blyton’s work, except I think Noddy, because that was pre-sold by the estate earlier. Just like rights to the adventure series are pre-contracted to PanMacmillan… so those will remain in place for contract validity. How it began is from our history. We were Blyton’s first publishers in the 1930s and have published her continuously since then.
2. Is the contract meant only for the revival of the backlist?
No it’s for whatever we
want to do. As mentioned, we own the copyrights from the signing of the
agreement with the estate where we are the new copyright holders in an outright
buy out.
New copyright answered below would depend on what the authors chose—one-time fee or royalties and assignment or transfer. I don’t know that offhand, but the copyright page of any of the new books will state that.
3. Some of the more popular series such as Secret Seven are being expanded with modern storytellers. Why?
That’s common for most very successful brands, not just Blyton. From Bourne to Bond, to Asterix, to Sidney Sheldon, Margaret Mitchell, Jane Eyre…further extensions through sequels, prequels, and line extensions have always been there. And it’s not just Secret Seven, Malory Towers has extensions too. The Naughtiest Girl and Malory Towers had them over 15 years ago. As to why—simply to contemporize it for current readers…reflecting today’s realities and cultural milieu. So Malory Towers now has an Indian writer with an Indian girl student joining the school. And no this was not done for India—this is to mirror British society which is much more multi-cultural today.
4. Who holds the copyright for these new stories? The commissioned author or the literary estate? What have been the immediate impact of this collaboration between Enid Blyton and Hachette?
This will be the choice of the new writers—they could opt for one-off copyright sale, or royalties. (So it may vary and I’m not sure, but a look at the copyright page will tell you)
5. a. Enid Blyton’s stories are representative of the age she wrote in. So her references to “Golliwog” or her sexist representation of gendered activities would not be appreciated in contemporary times. Yet she has made a surprise comeback with many appreciating her books.
Perhaps because too much has been made of that bit is my belief. Almost every single English reading adult has grown up on these tales, and they haven’t turned out racists. This comes up from time to time, but is definitely not true when blanketed together like that. Let’s take them one by one.
There is certainly no sexism in her books… seen in the context of today they may not be stridently feminist (Anne being a homebody, is equally complemented by George being the main heroine of the Famous Five series; and the school series all have strong protagonists). Yes, there are stereotypes which existed in that time (of roles boys and girls play) and are there in most books of the era whether adult or children—from Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie. The racism question arose because of the golliwog toy in Noddy being analyzed in that context, which has since in the wave of political correctness been removed as I understand it, but certainly there is no derogatory text anywhere that can be called racist. Our current Hindi mass market cinema is far more racist, misogynist and xenophobic. Coming to xenophobia — hardly any of the books have foreigners, and if they appear as villains (Adventurous Four, the Adventure, the Secret Series) that is because of the setting and character; and inevitably there are balancing good characters from the same country. And statistically there are obviously more British baddies. Snobbery is shown as a clear negative in most of her didactic books, and those snobs always get their come-uppance.
It’s not as though there
are not issues or problems… but they are issue of the time they were written in
and do not I believe have any sort of impact—given the millions across the
world who have grown up on her books. In fact, her books are very strong on the
whole ‘moral values’ of the time—almost to the point of ‘preachiness’—which may
be one reason they are so popular in India. Honesty, integrity, loyalty,
bravery, courage—a veritable textbook of moral values. No matter that some of
them like ‘British pluck’ may be outmoded. But what makes her still relevant
and in demand is that she is one of the greatest storytellers in the world with
an amazingly prolific output and makes children happy.
5 b. Have the Enid Blyton books been edited for a newer audience? If so what are the principles governing the editing of Enid Blyton’s backlist?
Yes, or updated rather. Plotlines have not been interfered with; and Blyton is fairly timeless. Her stories stay universal because there isn’t too much datable about them. she doesn’t for instance name brands in her detailing. Cars for instance may be described as a “big black car, with a powerful engine” not a Rolls or Morris which would immediately date it. so what has been tweaked is very archaic usage—pinafore for uniform tunics, pullover for jumper etc. In fact the reverse happened when the Famous Five were experimented with…in almost a classic coke vs New Coke backlash the new text was not welcomed; and the old one was reinstated.
6. Do you have cultural sensitivity readers for Enid Blyton’s stories before releasing them? Do different markets have different teams supervising the release or is there a specific team overseeing the global release of Enid Blyton books and product lines?
A mix of both—it’s primarily central in the Blyton Estate team based at Hachette UK, and we are asked for input when needed. And we create new product for our markets. In India we’ve begun a new non-fiction stream for instance. Essentially the legacy is continued as classic children’s fare with not much being done to change existing stories. New stories are done factoring in multi-cultural societies of today. And the continuations of her series—there are new secret seven, wishing chair, and Malory Towers stories in contemporary settings which are much more multi-cultural… the latest one even written by Narinder Dhami and featuring an Indian character.
7. Some of the new and fascinating array of collateral from this tie-up have been the cookery books and the English comprehension and grammar books. Why and how did Hachette decide to diversify the Enid Blyton portfolio? How have readers’ responded to the new range of books?
The grammar, vocabulary and other educational collateral was our idea and exists only in India. I felt that since we owned the brand and the fact that Blyton was one of the best teachers of English you could have…it would be remiss of us not to publish a breakaway stream of non-fiction using the texts. The series were just released last year. It’s early days, and this series will require school channel distribution not just trade, so we’ll know in a couple of years how they fare.
8. Do Enid Blyton’s imaginative stories translate well into other languages? If so, which are the languages that are most receptive to her books?
Because the storylines and plots are so good, they certainly would translate well just on those terms. Yes, the amazing use of English language which is the other great part, would be lost. Yes, she’s been translated into over 90- languages. So they are all over including Sinhala.
9. Will Hachette ever republish Enid Blyton’s autobiography The Story of My Life?
Not on current schedules which is in the first instance republishing all her fiction output. The non-fiction and memoirs will follow.
10. Indians enjoy reading Enid Blyton’s stories. But ever since the revivial of her backlists, has there been a noticeable surge in sales? Also is it possible to discern whether the newly commissioned stories are preferred to the original Enid Blyton stories or does that not matter?
Enid Blyton has always been
a huge seller. The famous Five sell over half a million copies every year, of
which India’s share is about 35%… so while that is fantastic, it should also
correct the erroneous impression that she sells predominantly in India. The
newly commissioned stories join the others so get similar sales, but the
original canon still sells just that bit more.
The UK is a very front list
market (meaning new books), so while she sells very well (her sales there are
still higher than sales in India) she may not rank in the current top five
children’s authors for instance. But even recently in a UK poll, she was voted
as the most popular children’s author of all time beating Roald Dahl and JK
Rowling.
India is still a throwback
market, relying on traditional favourites and backlist (older books) is very
strong. And Enid Blyton here is still in the top three after recent bestsellers
Geronimo Stilton and Jeff Kinney. And this is over 70 years after these books
were published.
For context it must be
understood that the core and basic readership in the UK or USA is very wide,
unlike India where it is minuscule. We also react to the top trends in the
world, so Harry Potter, twilight, Hunger games, wimpy kid will make it big here
too. But the next level or a wider range of books gets very little
exposure—whether they be international books or home grown books.
11. Are any film /
TV adaptations of Enid Blyton’s stories to be expected soon? If so which ones
are the most likely to be created first?
Yes, there are a couple in
the pipeline though I don’t have details. From the 1940s, every decade has seen
a movie or TV series made of the main series. Next year will see Malory Towers
from the BBC.
12. How significant is the
audiobook market for Enid Blyton’s books?
Not very significant. The audiobook revolution was in the adult market. I’m not aware of the children’s segment audio. There the experimentation is in book and sound formats. very few standalone audiobooks that I know of.
Kannan Sundaram, Publisher, Kalachuvadu, was invited by Neeta Gupta, Founder, Jaipur BookMark, to participate in the JBM Copyright Roundtable.T
It was held at Diggi Palace and the keynote was delivered by Michael Healy. The other participants were Aditi Maheshwari Goyal, Alind Maheshwari, Arpita Das, Claudia Kaiser, Kannan Sundaram, Maggie Doyle, Michael Healy, Phillipa McGuinness, Prashasti Rastogi, Safir Anand and Urvashi Butalia, moderated by Naveen Kishore.
The cue given to the panelists by JBM was: Copyright underpins everything we do as an industry and without it all opportunities quickly recede. The principle of copyright is threatened at a global level and to a degree we have never seen before. This is true in India as it is in many countries. This session is a call to publishers, literary agents, rights managers, lawyers, authors and international book fair organisers for the protection of copyright.
Kannan Sundaram gave a short speech putting forth the concept of nationalising prominent Indian writer’s works rather than restricting them to a copyright life arguing that this had been done for Tamil poet Subramania Bharathy. Whereas in the case of Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore the copyright period had been extended by a decade so that Visva-Bharathi University, the main benefactors of Tagore’s literary estate could continue to earn royalities for a few more years.
Kannan Sundaram, Publisher, Kalachuvadu
Here is the complete text of Kannan’s speech delivered at Jaipur BookMark. It has been published with permission.
****
Thank
you JBM, Neeta Gupta for this opportunity to share my views.
I
will be making a few remarks on copyright issues in Indian languages in general
and Tamil in particular.
The
premise of this panel that copyright is facing a threat in contemporary times
is not entirely true of many Indian languages. I would not generalize the
publishing context of all Indian languages. Every Indian language publishing
has its own eco system. However, in most languages the adherence to copyright
has never been strong.
I know that Malayalam market is an exception. There could be other languages where copyright is adhered to but that is not the overall picture of Indian language publishing. In Tamil copyright has been an option not a rule. It may have been extended to popular authors, authors who would fight it out, but not to most authors who had no clear understanding of copyright acts. In Tamil publishing adherence to copyright regulations is improving only now. Writers are fighting back using social media and prime time debates in television on copyright are happening. And there are publishers who appear on TV and argue why they cannot pay royalty!
While
copy left is an idea and an aspiration for many in the world, in the state of
Tamil Nadu it has been practiced legally in some instances for some decades now.
This is a practice that is unique to the state of TN. So we have had an opportunity
to access copy left in practice.
For
over 60 years now the government of Tamil Nadu purchases copyright of an author
by paying a lump sum money to the copyright holder and then puts it out in the
public domain. This process is referred to as ‘nationalization’.
This practice was initiated after a
controversy surrounding the rights of our national poet Mahakavi Subramania
Bharathy. Responding to public demand that no one can own the rights of a poet
who was perceived as belonging to the people, first the Tamil Nadu government
bought the rights of Bharathy’s works in 1949. Then in the mid-fifties it was
nationalized, that is gifted to the people. (If you want read this story I
recommend the book ‘Who owns the Song?’
by A.R. Venkatachalapathy).
I
would like to quickly compare this to the story of a nationally treasured
writer Rabindranath Tagore. Visva-Bharathi University had an iron clad hold
over Tagore’s copyright through the term and then succeeded on extending
copyright for 10 years!
Following
up on the new tradition established for Bharathy, various Tamil Nadu governments
over the years have nationalized the works of over 130 writers. It started as a
trickle and then became a sludge. When any of the governments in India decide
to patronize culture, it usually starts well but the rot quickly sets in and
then it typically goes to the dogs. What started as a process of national
honour to outstanding personalities of Tamil literature has now gotten
entangled in nepotism, patronage and corruption. I would not be able to
recognize the names of a quarter of the nationalized writers!
What
are the pros and cons of this nationalization process?
Most
Tamil writers do not bother to assign copyright when they create a will for
their belongings and property. It not valued by them or their families since it
typically brings in little money. Therefore, posthumously it often becomes
complicated for any publisher that wants to publish them. Nationalising a
writer’s works clearly this all up nicely. The family gets some money and the
publishers are free to publish the works. This as far as I can see is the only
pro of this process. The honour is not there anymore since writers are
nationalized with little discrimination.
The
cons are many.
If it
is a bestselling author, there is a price war between publishers undercutting
quality of the books published drastically.
Most of
the books of authors that have been nationalized remain out of print. This
obviously is because their works are not valued turning the process of
nationalizing their works irrelevant. Also if the author is a slow and steady
selling, thena publisher with exclusive rights might do limited editions but
when there exists the possibility that somebody else too might publish it and
eat into the limited market, then there is little initiative to publish it.
When
copyright goes, no one exerts moral rights of work. This may not be the legal
position but that is how it works in practice. This means publishers take
liberties with the text. They feel free to edit, delete, change, condense and
adapt the text in any way they like.
One publisher who publishes only nationalized books dedicates all the books to his mother. After sometime this publisher realized that the readers do not understand that he is dedicating all the books to his mother but wrongly assume that all writers are dedicating their books to their own mothers. So now the dedications are accompanied by photographs of his mother! A very commendable sentiment but ethics of it is debatable. Since no one can represent a nationalized book or can sign a contract, essentially any possibility of translation becomes very slim.
“Beowulf” is the longest Anglo-Saxon epic poem in Old English, and is dated to the early 11th century. It is about Geatish prince Beowulf who comes to the aid of Danish king Hroðgar, slaying the monster Grendel and his mother and fifty years later a dragon guarding treasure. Tolkien’s date for the poem is the 8th century. In 1920 Tolkien began teaching Old English at the University of Leeds. He finished translating the poem in 1926 but never published it. He was thirty-four. He was in a dilemma which he expressed in a letter to Rayner Unwin of November 1965 concerning his inability to compose the ‘editorial’ matter to accompany his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
I am finding the selection of notes, and compressing them, and the introduction, difficult. Too much to say, and not sure of my target. The main target is, of course, the general reader of literary bent but with no knowledge of Middle English; but it cannot be doubted that the book will be read by students, and by academic folk of ‘English Departments’. Some of the latter have their pistols loose in their holsters.
Forty years after his death Tolkien’s third son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkien, decided to publish the translation along with his father’s series of lectures given at Oxford about the poem in the 1930s and the unpublished ballad Sellic Spell — an imagined story of Beowulf in an early form. Also included in the book are two versions of Lay of Beowulf. As Christopher recalls in the Preface: “His singing of the Lay remains for me a clear memory after more than eighty years, my first acquaintance with Beowulf and the golden hall of Heorot.”
For years now there has been speculation about the translation. In fact in 1999 Seamus Heaney published a brilliant translation of the poem which won the Whitbread prize too. In 2014 Tolkien’s estate announced the publication of Beowulf. Tolkien has in his translation retained the spirit of the poem, its descriptions and rawness but changed the alliteration in the original to run-on lines — a prose translation. There is considerable debate about this dramatic restructuring of the form in the “modern-day” translation by Tolkien. The majority view is that the clunkiness of Old English forced an alliterative structure to the poem for it to be narrated but this was no longer a necessity with modern English. It was possible to create a story in a nuanced fashion and hence Tolkien’s preference ( or presumably ease) with a prose version. Yet the shift in structure does little to spoil the beauty of the poem. There is a wonderful review-article of the book in the New Yorker by Joan Acocella. It was published within weeks of the book’s release in 2014. She gives a brilliant background to the possible compulsions ( read monetary) that drove Tolkien to consider a translation of this long poem before embarking upon an exquisite textual analysis of the poem. She compares the new translation with the original while comparing it to the Seamus Heaney translation. At the same time Joan Acocella brings in Tolkien’s fascination with languages — already told to fabricating new ones as he did famously for the Hobbit series with Elvish or the private language, Nevbosh, that he shared only with his cousin Mary. All these talents of Tolkien go into making the wonderful new translation of Beowulf.
It is a delicious translation enriched further by the endnotes and lectures. This volume is a keeper.
Beowulf ( Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien) Edited by Christopher Tolkien. HarperCollinsPublishers , London, 2014. Hb. pp. 430 Rs. 799
