Ambitious prizes

The headlines said it all. The Man Booker International Prize had been awarded to Lydia Davis, the American author. But most Indian newspapers in English announced it as “U.R. Ananthamurthy loses out on Man Booker”. You could almost hear the collective sigh of millions of disappointed Indians.

This was a prestigious international prize for lifetime achievement, and Ananthamurthy was a fine contender. A literary giant in Kannada, a writer with magnificent style, a rare understanding of Indian tradition and an exemplary conscience, Ananthamurthy would have been a worthy winner. Oh well. You sigh. You shrug. That’s what awards are like, you tell yourself, you never know who wins, and why.
Then there were some papers with a slightly longer headline. “U.R. Ananthamurthy loses out to American in Booker race,” they said. Aha. Your sigh is replaced by pursed lips, perhaps an arched brow? So it’s the same old story. Keep the prize tossing between the Brits and the Americans. Just call it “International”. And dress it up with some nice candidates from the colonies and other places. Do we feel cheated? Nah. We are used to it. That’s the nature of the animal — international literary awards based in Britain and the US are not really for the non-English, unless you happen to be based in the UK or the US. Or in Europe. The West cannot escape being Eurocentric.
But there was one headline that went beyond sighs and pursed lips. “U.R. Ananthamurthy fails to win Man Booker International Prize,” declared a daily newspaper. It was lifted from the opening line of the news report. Excuse me? “Fails to win”? Is he a horse that we were betting on? What exactly was this 80-year-old writer expected to do to win the race? Ananthamurthy had no role in being shortlisted for the prize — the candidates are nominated by the jury members, they do not accept names even from publishers.
Clearly, Ananthamurthy had done his job. He had produced a body of work so powerful that it could reach beyond the protective embrace of his mother tongue, Kannada, a body of work so beautiful that it crossed oceans and continents and made people in far away lands sit up and take notice. Holding his hand in this marvellous journey beyond his mothertongue was his friend and translator, A.K. Ramanujan, the brilliant scholar, distinguished writer and extraordinary translator.
That gentle clasp must have been felt even this week, as the jury considered Ananthamurthy for the Man Booker International Prize, 20 years after Ramanujan’s death.
For in the unfamiliar territory beyond the author’s writing-tongue, translations can make or murder the author. Worse, a lack of translation does not even allow the author that first step out of her cloistered existence in her own language. So quite often, outstanding writers in various Indian languages have no presence beyond their own language.
Which is why, there was so much joy about Ananthamurthy being shortlisted for this Booker award. For once an Indian author living in India, published in India, writing in an Indian language other than English, had got so close to a big international prize. But there is so much that the author and translator can do. The final say in most literary awards rests on a mesh of external factors — the jury, markets, politics and of course, luck.
The Man Booker International Prize is just a few years old, and is awarded for lifetime achievement, not a single book. This, of course, is a great idea, but difficult to pull off credibly. How much of Ananthamurthy’s work did the five-member jury — a vibrant mix of British and American judges — have access to? Is it not a little unfair to expect them to know all about Ananthamurthy’s fiction and the impact it has had — on culture, values, film, on the new generation of cosmopolitan Indians?
Cross-cultural understanding takes a lot of effort. It is easier to judge single books from different cultures than to judge the lifetime achievement of an author from a very different cultural sphere. It may not be unfair to assume that these judges (not one of them known as a reader or scholar of South Asian language literatures) perhaps had less understanding of Kannada literature and Ananthamurthy’s place in Indian culture than about the English writings of American writer Lydia Davis.
It is curious that we could look at this as a “failure” of the author, and not a failure of such ambitious awards. In fact, the Man Booker International Prize has been in the news as much for its gaffs as its glory. A couple of years ago, the chair of the jury had suggested rather loftily that this prize was actually superior to the Nobel Prize for literature. And in 2011, the jury had a very public spat over the winner, with one judge openly objecting to Philip Roth being given the prize. Even more embarrassingly, Philip Roth did not even turn up to receive his prize.
So Ananthamurthy’s “losing out” does not matter too much. Especially since, contrary to their own belief, this is not exactly the Nobel Prize. It is a lifetime achievement award for writers whose lifetime achievement is accessible to the jury — which consists of British and American critics and writers dealing with the English language.
So should we care that some newspapers did not even report news of this award? Or that one English daily had just a one-line news brief headed “Kannada author loses out to American in Booker race” tucked cosily between “Pattinson broke up with Stewart over ex’s texts” and a delightful picture of Sharon Stone? Perhaps we should care, because a literary event is important, especially if it puts the international spotlight on Indian language writers, even if momentarily.
On his part, Ananthamurthy was remarkably dignified. He said he was happy that Kannada was represented on the global stage. “As a writer, I am just one among many writing in their mother tongues in India,” he said. “I am here on their behalf.” He also talked of how happy he was to be shortlisted with Intezar Husain, the distinguished Pakistani writer, and of the need to break down cultural barriers. And finally: “I hope this arouses the curiosity of readers around the world and creates an awareness about spaces unfamiliar to many.’’
Recognition helps. And ambitious prizes — however politicised, monetised, market-driven — may help in surprising ways. They may actually help make the world more familiar.