Penguin Deal Has Univ Of Georgia’s Aruni Kashyap Translating Arunachal Writer Thongchi’s Work

India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY -Aruni Kashyap, a writer and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia, will translate ‘The Smell of Bamboo Blossoms’, a short story collection by Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi, after Penguin Random House’s Modern Library imprint acquired world English rights to the book.

The deal was brokered by Lucy Cleland of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency, as reported by The Publishers’ Marketplace.

Kashyap said, “Astonishing and surprising, Thongchi is a hidden gem whose work will be a staple of Global Literature; he has no peer,” adding that “His body of work is different from what global readers have read so far from India and it expands our understanding of the South Asian experience in fascinating ways, dispelling stereotypes.”

The manuscript, ‘The Smell of Bamboo Blossoms’, was previously shortlisted for the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation in 2022.

Cleland said the collection “will open the window to a culture never seen before in English fiction.”

Acquiring editor Leila Tejani described Thongchi as “International Booker material.”

Thongchi, who writes primarily in Assamese, has received the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Kalaguru Bishnu Rabha Award from Asom Sahitya Sabha, and the Padma Shri. His work focuses on the lives of indigenous communities in Arunachal Pradesh and their interaction with social and cultural change.

The literary magazine Satsori has referred to Thongchi as “Assam’s Chinua Achebe.”