New 5 Stories anthologies in Konkani and Kannada lift the bar for Indian translation

Two recent anthologies, both titled 5 Stories and published by Bloomsbury, bring Konkani and Kannada short fiction to English readers. Part of a series edited by Mini Krishnan, the collections are translated by Vidya Pai and Susheela Punitha respectively, and together they set a high standard for translated Indian stories.

The Konkani volume opens with Damodar Mauzo's 'Cry, Now', in which a couple who long prayed for a child lose their grown son in an aeroplane crash on his way to Kuwait. Jayanti Naik's 'The Ceremonial Bull' and Mahabaleshwar Sail's 'The Potter's Kiln' portray a close-knit community bound by traditional work, caught between abandoning its gods and filling its stomachs. Pundalik Naik's 'Victory' examines the difficulty of seeking justice through resistance, warning that stale bread cannot be snatched from someone's hand unless fresh bread has been arranged. The collection's most recent story, Prakash Parienkar's 'Man of the Forest', unfolds in a neutral space that could belong to any environmentalist writer, signalling the erosion of specific regional identities.

In the Kannada collection, Vaidehi's 'Worlds Within Worlds' sketches Baluvate Narayana, a shameless freeloader, and his wife Mankaliyamma, whose anguish recalls Dorothea's in George Eliot's Middlemarch. Mogalli Ganesh's 'The Spinning Top' begins with a child's fascination for a top and grows into a portrait of life in a Shudra community, where grief means different things to a child, a trapped animal and a Dalit community seeking dignity. Amaresh Nugadoni's 'This Heart Longs For More' sets rumours of a Hindu girl eloping with a Muslim boy against the 1999 Kargil War and an India-Pakistan cricket World Cup final, with much of the tension unfolding at an ordinary tea stall. Bolwar Kunhi's 'Worship' and International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq's 'Not a Woman' explore the Muslim experience, touching on the jamaat, interpretations of the Koran, the powers attributed to Auliyas, Sharia traditions, the mehr, triple talaaq and the corrosive influence of money.

The translators retain Indian rhythms and local words, from marasinge leaf and namagorate buds to chaddi dost, ahirat and balpa, along with expressions such as a wolf in a pit drawing stones from every man. The Konkani translator's note is comprehensive enough to serve as a blueprint for other books in the series, and the stories are drawn from magazines including Jaag, Prajavaani, Patrike and Kannada Prabha. The collections make a case for unpretentious fiction, showing that the short story can serve as subterranean social history.