Surprisingly, Das Kapital ( Capital ), the seminal work of 19th century political theorist Karl Marx, was not available fully in Kannada even though it had been translated to most other Indian languages decades ago. But not anymore.
The first of the three volumes of Capital , translated into Kannada by a team of 20, will be released on Friday. Reputed publishers Nava Karnataka and Kriya Pustaka came together to publish a series of works of and on Marx in 2017 to mark “200 years of Marx – 150 years of Capital”. Capital Volume 1 , published as Bandavala Samputa 1 , will be the eighth book in the series.
N.K. Vasantharaja, director of Kriya Pustaka, said this is the first time the entire work is being translated into Kannada. “The world over, there is a renewed interest in Marxian thought in light of the crisis in capitalism and the economy suffering from slowdown. Capital is a classic study of the capitalist society and the internal laws that govern such a society. Capital remains relevant, perhaps more than ever today,” he said. “It remains the most cited social science work published before 1950 in social science papers today.”
The 700-odd-page book with 33 chapters was translated by a team including writers and thinkers like G. Rajashekhara and V.S. Sridhar over two years.
“There were two challenges — to find apt Kannada equivalent terms for economic terminologies used by Marx and to maintain a consistent tone in the book, though [it was being] translated by 20 people,” Mr. Vasantharaja said.
An editorial board was formed to tackle the twin challenges. Senior writer G. Ramakrishna drafted a dictionary of Kannada equivalent terms for economic terminologies, which was followed as a style sheet by all the translators, said G. Rajashekara, a senior writer and one of the translators.
“Since we were guided by this dictionary, the translation did not turn out to be hard,” he said. The draft translations were also reviewed by the editorial board to maintain a consistent tone in the book. The publishers are now planning to translate second and third volumes of Capital.
