Translating Kerala is an interdisciplinary study that is situated at the interstices of translation studies and cultural studies. It looks at translation as a social and cultural act that transcribes, articulates and interprets structures of power unfolding within asymmetrical fields of cultural politics. The book tries to go beyond traditional approaches that consider translation as a literary and linguistic endeavour, attempting to look at it as a process that transcribes and articulates the region of Kerala, while teasing out the paradoxes, ambiguities and politics that mediate such translational acts. The chapters in this book delve into seminal issues, ranging from the politics that constitutes various linguistic variables of Malayalam to the interpretative paradigms that bring out experiences of the gendered and subaltern subject in Kerala. In the process, it focuses on texts as varied as the Malayalam translation of Les Misérables, the autobiographies of C. K. Janu and Nalini Jameela, and Ramu Kariat's cinematic adaptation of Chemmeen. From detailed discussions on canonical literary texts to non-canonical/popular cultural texts, the volume pitches translation as an academic and political vantage point that interrogates the writing and the rewriting of the region in diverse ways. It destabilises the hierarchies between texts and their 'afterlives', texts and their contexts, and texts and their subjects. Translating Kerala will be of interest to academics and readers interested in translation studies, cultural studies, gender studies and Kerala studies.

Meena T. Pillai is Professor and Director, Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Kerala.