Rita Kothari’s ‘Uneasy Translations: Self, Experience and Indian Literature’ published by Bloomsbury Publishing is a quietly political book that questions what we consider legitimate knowledge. Rita Kothari is a Professor of English and the Director of the MA in English Programme at Ashoka University. She is also the Co-Director of the Ashoka Centre for Translation.
As a multilingual scholar and translator, she has worked extensively on translating Gujarati and Sindhi writings into English. Her new book, “Uneasy Translations” interweaves the personal journey of an academic into reflections around self, language, and translation with an eye on the intangibly available category of experience. From exploring the language of Hindi film songs to establishing the demarcation between shame and humiliation to explaining the relationship between gender and translation, this book questions the normative.