Fresh from his recent sojourn to Germany where he had the
honour of releasing his collection of short stories ‘Teresa’s Man’ at the
prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, Damodar Mauzo is still beaming at the
experience. It is one that has also served to reveal the lacuna in the Indian publishing
scenario. “It was a wonderful experience, but not the kind that made an impact.
It’s a step forward, but Indian publishers and agencies like National Book
Trust need to do much more in order to promote Indian writers to the rest of
the world. Our writers need to get an experience across the country and abroad.
I was fortunate to have such an opportunity and I do hope many more writers
will have this chance,” avers this Sahitya Akademi Award winner, who has
written 13 books in Konkani, out of which four have been translated into
English and other regional languages. The four books are ‘Karmelin’, ‘There are
my children’, ‘Tsunami Simon’ and ‘Teresa’s Man’.
Although Mauzo’s book was released on October 9 at the hands
of renowned German publisher Christian Weiss, the launch in itself was
extraneous to the larger purpose of the fair. “It is the world’s largest book
fair, but its main purpose is for business between publishers and agents. I
could see hundreds of publishers from Germany, America and Africa discussing
and making deals. Unfortunately this is not happening in our case,” he
reiterates.
But Mauzo is content with his writings in Konkani over the
last three decades which have reached wider audiences. Deeply indebted to
Xavier Cota for his accurate translations, Mauzo’s latest offering is also a
collection of short stories written over a period of time, which Cota has taken
over a year to translate. “‘Teresa’s Man’ has gone into many national and regional
anthologies as it dwells on different concept of a man writing about a woman. It
has given me much fame,” he states. All his stories are invariably woven around
his beloved village, Majorda, but with a much wider significance for people in
Goa and those around the country. “‘In the line of humans’ dwells on how outsiders view Goa as
a humane place,” explains Mauzo who is elated that eminent writer and novelist Amitav
Ghosh will be doing the Goa launch. On another note, he looks forward to
another season of GALF which he has helped to shape.
Making every story count, literature, for this gentleman, by
his own admission, is indeed a lifeline.
