'City of Joy' to be translated into Sanskrit

KOLKATA: 'City of Joy', French writer Dominique Lapierre's controversial novel on life in this metropolis, will be translated into Sanskrit, the overjoyed author said on Sunday.

"It is a rare honour for me. Very few Western authors can boast of their work being translated into Sanskrit," he said after being felicitated by the Dominique Lapierre Fans' Association.

He said that he had sent a fax message of approval to Ramesh Bhattacharya, the scholar who approached him with a proposal to translate "City of Joy" into Sanskrit.

"Now, my book will reach the pundits and holy men of India," Lapierre said.

The 1985 novel, portraying the existential blues of slum-dwellers of Pilkhana, has been translated into nearly 30 languages. It was made into a film starring Patrick Swayze and Om Puri by Roland Joffe in 1992.

After the book's publication, a section of reviewers criticised its misleading portrayal of Kolkata. The shooting of the film in the early 1990s met with strong resistence, mainly from the ruling CPI-M with then state information and cultural affairs minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had backed protests against it.

"Since the book was published, Kolkata has changed much. It is now one of the major economic centres of India. My only hope is that all these fruits of development reach the poorest of the poor," said Lapierre, the winner of many literary and philanthropic awards.