A collection of short stories by writer A. Muttulingam has been published in English by Oxford University Press. This volume includes five of his stories that I translated into English: The Story of Ekolu, Dilemma, The New Wife, The Fall, and A Primal Quality. All five translations were completed during 2023–2024 and appeared in American literary journals such as Spill Words Press, Defunct Magazine, and Consequence, as well as the British journal Imspired. Among these, Consequence is a journal devoted to publishing stories about people devastated by the brutalities of war. It was there that Muthulingam’s “The New Wife” appeared.
Typically, American and British literary journals take four to six months just to inform you whether a submitted story or translation is suitable for publication. I have waited for months for my own stories, and many of my translations, to appear. I often submitted work to multiple journals at once, hoping that if one rejected it, another might accept it. Through the website Submittable, one can send work to countless journals. When I look at my submission history, I see at least fifty rejections. Each rejection taught me something about refining my writing, whether fiction or translation.
When I realize now that not a single journal has ever rejected any of the Muttulingam stories I translated, I cannot help but be astonished. His stories span diverse worlds, feature compelling characters, and possess the hallmarks of a finely crafted short story. Any story of his lingers long in the mind; one can recount it beautifully to someone else. Gentle irony and sarcasm and even parody run through all his work. Many of these stories were written decades ago, yet the journals that published them were drawn to their freshness and distinctive literary beauty, and accepted them immediately.
In 2023, I was continuously translating stories by writer Jeyamohan. Some of those appeared in American literary journals. After reading them, A. Mu Ayya himself called me. He praised me for carrying over the literary flavor of Jeyamohan’s stories into English without loss. He appreciated the freedom I took in joining and separating phrases to create natural English sentences. That was when I gained real confidence in my translation method. I had taken up translation as a bridge before moving fully into fiction writing. But when he asked, “Can you translate some of my stories?” I could not refuse.
A. Mu Ayya pays close attention to the translation of his stories. I would translate each story and send it to him. He would read it line by line and tell me which parts worked well and where revisions were needed. He also shared the translations with a former editor of a Canadian literary journal and asked for feedback. That editor revised the first two stories, but the changes were fewer than five. From the third story onward, he told him, laughing, “There is nothing for me to correct in this translator’s work. You are paying me for nothing.”
It has been more than a year since these stories were submitted to Oxford University Press. A week ago I spoke with A. Mu sir, and he told me the book had been released. “They’ve sent me a copy. As the translator, they should send you one too. Email them,” he said. His voice carried the delight of a child. He asked, “What are you writing now?” I told him I had completed the seventeenth part of my series on Advaita Vedanta for Solvanam magazine, and that I would soon resume work on my first English novel. “Sir, even at this age, you have preserved the child within you. I too am striving to protect the child within me. The inspiration and encouragement for that, I receive from you,” I told him.
