In my twenty-five years of reading, writing, translating, and otherwise engaging with the literature of India, I have realised its incredible richness and diversity. India’s literary contribution to the world begins more than five thousand years ago, with the composition of the Rigveda, and has continued unbroken to the present day. India’s literature reflects the vastness of India, its many languages, its diverse people and their diverse traditions, religious, social, cultural. It has influenced and been influenced by the literature of other nations, including Persia, China, and Renaissance Italy to name just a few. The more I read and research, the more I realise how much remains to be discovered.

Unfortunately, most of this incredible literature is not accessible to the general reader: there are all kinds of barriers, availability and language being the most obvious. This publication is my attempt to share my discovery of this wondrous heritage with my readers.

I hope that you will join me on this journey of discovery by subscribing to Eaten by a Fish. Your support and participation will be deeply appreciated.


ABOUT ROHINI CHOWDHURY

Rohini Chowdhury is an established literary translator and the author of several children’s books. Her published writing, in Hindi and English, covers a wide spectrum of literary genres including translations, novels, short fiction, comics, and non-fiction. Her primary languages as a literary translator are pre-modern and modern Hindi, and English. Her translations include Banarasidas’s Ardhakathanak, regarded as the first autobiography in an Indian language, and the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas. She is published by Penguin Random House India, Scholastic India, and Rupa Publications.

Rohini is also interested in the preservation of folklore and traditional stories and runs the story website longlongtimeago.com.

She also writes The Story Birds, a fortnightly newsletter exploring stories and the art and craft of storytelling.

More about Rohini on her website: rohinichowdhury.com


Copyright © Rohini Chowdhury 2022. No material from Eaten by a Fish may be reproduced, replicated, modified, or used in any form or format without written permission from Rohini Chowdhury. 

Special thanks to Ashok Rajagopalan, writer, illustrator, friend, for the beautiful graphics that have brightened this website.

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Indian literature from the Vedas to the present

People

Writer and translator