Shedding light on Multilingual Publishing

“How are different languages responding to each other and to the ubiquitous creep of English in our lives? How are authors, filmmakers and songwriters responding? And just as importantly, at which frequency is the book publishing industry receiving these signals?” asks Manisha Chaudhry, Head- Content, at Pratham Books, in an article. She makes an eloquent response on the challenges and joys of multilingual publishing in the current issue of Muse India, a literary e-journal with the primary objective of showcasing Indian writings in English and in English translation to a broad-based global readership.
“As if difficult access and low choice were not daunting enough, there is the issue of price. Individual book buying is not a priority spend. Multilingualism only adds another level of complexity to a difficult situation. Assuming that it was possible to choose, in which language would a child like to buy a book? …..So why would anybody want to be a multilingual children’s publisher of ‘story books’? Because there are sudden shafts of sunlight in this grim picture that give us compelling reasons.”

You can read the entire article here.