Welcome to the second edition of the Himal Fiction Fest, where we celebrated Southasian fiction in translation. Southasia’s rich literary tradition spans hundreds of languages, cultures, regions and traditions – and translators play a vital role in bringing these works the exposure and recognition they deserve, and connect.

To kick off the festival, we hosted an online reading of translated stories originally written in Bangla, Farsi, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi and Tamil by their translators. These stories are published on our website. This was followed by a panel discussion on the future of Southasian fiction in translation, which featured the prize-winning translators Daisy Rockwell, Musharraf Ali Farooqi and Jayasree Kalathil, as well as the leading literary agent Kanishka Gupta.

The event was held in partnership with the Armory Square Prize for Southasian Literature in Translation. The 2024 prize finalists read excerpts from their translations before the announcement of this year’s winner.

The event took place on Monday, 10 June 2024

Featured in the fest:

My Sister, Life (excerpt) by Mahmudul Haque, translated from Bangla by Shabnam Nadiya and Mahmud Rahman

Insects (excerpt) by Fauzia Rafique, translated from Punjabi by Haider Shahbaz

Unknown by Mayilan G Chinnappan, translated from Tamil by Kalyan Raman

Chowmein by Durga Karki, translated from Nepali by Sandesh Ghimire

Lord Almighty, Grant Us Riots! by Anil Yadav, translated from Hindi by Vaibhav Sharma

One Day Forever... (excerpt) by Lina Rozbeh Haidari, translated from Farsi by Laila Ghezal Azimi