Events Calendar

April 28 seminar will feature Indian publisher’s dramatic monologue

Naveen Kishore, an Indian whose parents fled from Lahore at the time of Partition, will present a South Asian Studies Program seminar in the form of a dramatic monologue titled “My life in the arts, publishing and design—a brief rumination about nothing” on Monday, April 28 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in 1117 University Capitol Centre. The event is free and open to the public. Chai and snacks will be served.

Kishore is publisher of the Kolkata-based press Seagull Book, which has won awards in Europe and India for its stunningly designed works of art, literature, and philosophy in translation from and to European and Indian languages. The firm is largely the labor of Kishore and a small team of expert collaborators in book illustration and book design. Almost 100 volumes have traveled across languages and been distributed worldwide through an arrangement with the University of Chicago Press.

This event is sponsored by the South Asian Studies Program (SASP), International Programs, and the UI Center for the Book. For more information about SASP events, visit https://international.uiowa.edu/global-network/academic/south-asian-stud....

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Sarolta Petersen in advance at 319-335-3862.

Additional details follow below:

Naveen Kishore, an Indian whose parents fled from Lahore at the time of Partition, is a man of the theatre and the publisher of Seagull Books which has won awards in Europe and India for its stunningly designed works of art, literature and philosophy in translation from and to European and Indian languages. He will present a SASP seminar on Monday, April 28 from 4-5:30 p.m. in 1117 UCC. The title of his talk in the form of a dramatic monologue is “My life in the arts, publishing and design—a brief rumination about nothing.”

The firm Seagull Book (http://www.seagullbook.com), which publishes exquisite volumes that themselves give off the sheen of art, is largely the labor of Kishore and a small team of expert collaborators in book illustration and book design. The Kolkata-based press, which was awarded the Goethe Medal for excellence by the Federal Republic of Germany in 2013, owns worldwide English-language publishing rights for commissioned translations from well-known authors like Paul Celan, Ingeborg Bachmann, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Bernhard, Imre Kertész, Yves Bonnefoy, Mo Yan, Mahasweta Devi, Peter Handke, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Alexander Kluge, Chista Woolf and Ingebog Bachmann as well as newer voices such as Thomas Lehr, Dietmar Dath, Inka Parei and Tillman Ramstedt, among a list of almost 100 volumes distributed worldwide by arrangement with the University of Chicago Press. As Kishore notes, “We try and locate the best translators; people steeped in the literature that we are hoping to share with the world. I work with translators who have, over the years, become the English voices of particular authors. This nurtures long-term relationships between translators, authors and the publisher. We prefer to publish authors, not just books, and do more than one work by an author. Whether we have achieved a substantial body of translations is up to readers to judge. The paradox of translation will always remain, but that will not prevent great works of literature travelling from one language to another and spreading across the world.”

Kishore has further observed that “My presence in the U.S. and the U.K. is in itself an interesting reversal of traditional market strategies! It also offers a model that no longer suggests that Indian publishers must buy rights only for India. Seagull buys world rights, because our distribution through the University of Chicago Press allows us to sell across the world. It is a globalised world; your geographical location is of no consequence. The market has a responsibility too, you know! The market must learn to find you. And it does. It takes time, but it does.”

This event is sponsored by SASP and International Programs. To see the full list of SASP events for spring 2014, visit https://international.uiowa.edu/global-network/academic/south-asian-stud...