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The book is canonical, but it occupies its own space.

What place does the book have in the Marathi literary canon today? Like a German woman and Marathi man falling in love. It took in diary entries, fables, letters, flashbacks, surreal dance sequences and it took place aboard a ship - a capsule of time and space where anything could happen. I believe it was well-received, but there was a measure of bewilderment about that reception. How was the novel received when it was published? I believe that each choice we make as individuals - whether it is a joke we crack, a news item we refuse to read or an event that we try to explain away - brings us closer and closer to the inflection point. That’s why I think it’s a book we all need to read. These processes end up hurting both sides. It deals with the horrors of othering, how you can turn a whole community into the ‘Other’, how you can treat them brutally and end up carrying the guilt of that treatment, as a society, as a nation. The difference is that there is no feeling of “Mine, mine, mine” instead, the feeling is “Ours, this should belong to more of us.” That’s when I set aside my writing and give priority to the voice of another writer.Īt the launch of Ranaangan, you said that it’s a book we should all read - and not just because you translated it. I read it many years ago and what remained was its effortless cosmopolitanism, acute sense of fascism’s dangers, and prescience. What was your first impression of Ranaangan?