Tonkin On Translation

In The Independent, Boyd Tonkin regrets that there aren't more English translations of works from the subcontinent available in his neck of the woods: "After enjoying work brought from Japanese or Arabic, Hebrew or Slovenian, I still think that one mighty gap remains. There seems to be no will, or means, to publish in the UK work by Subcontinental authors in languages other than English. Go to India and you find translations into English of Hindi or Urdu, Tamil or Bengali, writing - often marketed by regional giants such as Penguin India. Yet no one appears to wonder if these versions might deserve a market overseas."