“Invisible Man”. Photo credit- Orissa E-Store

The idea of World Literature has been conceptualized differently in different parts of the world. Today, the global has come to be understood locally, and this forms in many parts of the globe the original idea of World Literature. For example, in 1960s, an interesting development took place in Cuttack: the publication of Nobel Prize-winning books in Odia translation. This publishing project was undertaken by Prafulla Chandra Das who established Prafulla Press and Pustakalaya in 1964. The project involved the translation of around forty Nobel prize-winning books by famous writers of world stature like, Bertrand Russel, Romain Rolland, Grazia Deledda, Knut Hamsun, T.S. Eliot, Pearl S. Buck, Francois Mauriac, Wladyslaw Reymont and many others. What is noteworthy about this publication is that in the first place, these translated texts contained forewords contributed by the concerned Nobel laureates for the publication of their books in Odia translation. This is a salient feature of this initiative (Nayak9-22). Secondly, this project involved a highly selected category, i.e. Nobel Prize-winning books only. This reveals an important cultural change in the reception of the West: a newly decolonized nation, now looks at the West from a more confident perspective. Once nationalism achieves its goal by bringing into being an independent nation, it does not appropriate the literature of another nation, rather, promptly casts its net wider and a new category emerges in the form of Nobel Prize-winning books in Odia translation. This is the first attempt to create space for World Literature in Odia through some selected texts, already considered the best in the world. To create world literature was inherent in this attempt, though not announced under the title of World Literature. This information reveals an interesting connection between a specific locale and the larger world. The project assumes significance in the cultural context of Odisha, only because it is materialized there. Its existence becomes more important than its literary excellence and survival as this nurtured the idea of World Literature and prepared a well-built cultural context for a more confident reception of the world in just the next five years. Thus, in 1969, in the contemporary cultural scene of Odisha, appears the complete series of Biswa Sahitya Granthamala [BSG] published by Granthamandir, a publication house founded by Sridhar Mahapatra. The use of this nomenclature is important in the history of Odia Literature, as this marks a significant cultural shift from the reception of foreign literature to the reception of World Literature in a language other than English.

The project was conceived and published as Biswa Sahitya meaning World Literature. This deserves attention. It has been conceptualized as Biswa, and not as Paschatya Sahitya, Bidesi Sahitya or Desa Bidesa ra Galpa. The decision to conceptualize it as Biswa, is not an accident, or left to the operation of chance, instead this is conscious. The earliest reference to this terminology of World Literature can be traced back to its initial conceptualization by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1827 (Damrosch 1). But surprisingly, archives reveal that the term World Literature was coined much before Goethe, well-nigh half a century ago, by August Ludwig Von Schlozer in 1773, in Islandischen Literatur und Geschiste, a book on the history and literature of Iceland (D'haen 5). This information draws our attention to the origin, historicity and the first occurrence of the term much before it was conceived as a nomenclature (Nachiket 14). It reveals that the movement of the idea of World Literature is not from one locale to the entire globe, instead it is concurrent in many locales. This forms the original idea of World Literature: the concept of the ‘world’ in World Literature does not emerge from one place but stems from multiple sites in the world. After 134 years of Scholzer’s coining and exactly after 80 years of Goethe’s proclamation, the use of this terminology as Visva Sahitya appears in the Indian cultural scene by Rabindranath Tagore in his essay “World Literature” featured in the journal Bangadarsan, under his editorship in 1907 (Tagore 47). Almost after a decade, this terminology finds its first mention in print in Odia literature in 1919, by Sri Girija Sankar Ray, in his essay ‘Samalochana ra Dhara O Lakhya’, in a contemporary monthly magazine Utkal Sahitya (Ray43). Interestingly, it finds a second mention along with the idea of world literary market in the editorial of another literary magazine Jagaran, (3) the mouthpiece of Utkal Sahitya Samaj, published in 1942. The third use of this terminology is made by Grantha Mandir itself in 1949. Available evidence confirms that only one title appeared in two parts, “Dasakumar Charita” by the famous Sanskrit grammarian Acharya Dandi, translated by Sridhar Mahapatra. Surprisingly, no other translation by world authors appears under this title Biswa Sahitya Granthamala. But from 1969, the series of World Literature appeared as a set, received well, flourishing and running successfully till date.  The blurbs of the storybooks reveal interesting information about the project and clearly state that this is an initiative by the publisher to introduce and popularize World Literature in Odia language. This declaration by the publisher forms a response to the question: “Is English always to be the lingua franca that determines what can be said, handing an advantage to the native speaker?” (Parks) So, here is an attempt to create World Literature, not in English but in a local language. This leads to vernacular cosmopolitanism: a vernacular language expressing the world which is cosmopolitan in nature. Unescorted by English, World Literature emerges and survives successfully in a local language. A local publisher, with a team of thirty translators, introduces World Literature outside the ‘space within which the world lives as world literature’ (Damrosch 283). This bold attempt is a milestone in the history of Odia literature.

The project published a series of world literary texts in abridged versions and made an inclusion of literary genres like novels, fantasy tales, adventure stories, morality tales, drama, scientific fiction, fairy tales, plays and many more, meant for young readers. This series contained around 190 books with about 1000 stories, drawn from 60 authors across the world. It printed 15 editions till present and sold 100 sets every year. The cover page of the series carried the title of the story, the name of the project (Biswa Sahitya Granthamala) at top center of the book, and the name of publisher (Granthamandira) at the bottom. Many books carried an illustration of the story, whereas some carried only the picture of the world authors even without their names. This is not surprising as an English–knowing readership is supposed to be familiar with a world author’s fame. There is one more reason, as they are presented chiefly as storytellers, hence no other information is supplied.

This further reveals another interesting perspective on the reception of world authors: they become more inviting when dressed as storytellers in palm-size thin books. This new format is interesting as it differs from the scholarly discipline of World Literature, which is always received in academic contexts. These fresh storytellers are quite alluring for young readers where the focus is not on the style and form, but on the story only. The series appropriates world authors like Homer, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Anton Chekhov, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte, Guy De Maupasant, Leo Tolstoy, Arthur Conan Doyle, Miguel de Cervantes, Charlotte Bronte, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy, Victor Hugo, Alexander Pushkin, George Alfred Henty and many more. This project includes some Indian writers of world fame as, Kalidasa, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and the major Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Another interesting feature of this project is that it excludes all Nobel Laureates chosen for the previous project under the auspices of Prafulla Pustakalay. Two possible reasons may be considered: at first, to avoid repetition and secondly, to present the natural scope of World Literature which is not limited to a specific category under a separate title.

This attempt is an important cultural fact and a landmark in the history of Odia Literature. Before the appearance of BSG, there were a large number of translational activities and many projects emerged, but nothing appeared under the rubric of Biswa Sahitya. The publication is an important cultural event not only for the locale where it appeared, but for the entire world. It interrogates the idea of monolingual World Literature, thus creating possibilities for a multilingual alternative.

Works Cited

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Damrosch, David. What is World Literature?.  Princeton: Princeton UP, 2003, 283. Print.
Dandi Acharya. “DasakumarCharita”, translated by Sridhar Das, Cuttack, Book- 1.
          Granthamandir, Odisha, 1949. Print
---. “Dasakumar Charita”, translated by Sridhar Das, Cuttack, Book-2. Granthamandir, Odisha,
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Joshi, Nachiket. “The Absent Traveler: World Literature as Intimacy”. Diss. University of
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Nayak, Jatindra Kumar. “A Battle of Books: Translation in Odisha in the Shadow of Cold War.” 
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Parks, Tim. “Does Talking About Books Make Us More Cosmopolitan?”. The New York Review
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Ray, Girija Sankar. “Samalochana ra Dhara o Lakhya”. Utkal Sahitya. Vol 22. No.10.
          1919. Web. https://odiabibhaba.in/en/magazines/utkal-sahitya-e/
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Tagore, Rabindranath. World Literature. World Literature in Theory.UK: John Wiley and Sons,
           Ltd, 47-57, 1907. Print.