The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp
Fiction, Vol II
edited by Rakesh Khanna
translated by Pritham K Chakravarthy Blaft, 2010
In her Translator's Note for Volume I of this series, Pritham K Chakravarthy wrote that the work, which was also the first publication by the Chennai-based Blaft, was 'an attempt to claim the status of "literature" for a huge body of writing that has rarely ever made it into an academic library.' These works of popular fiction, she explained, were typically not considered 'serious' or 'meaningful' enough to be translated. Her colleague and co-founder of Blaft, Rakesh Khanna, who started the publishing house in 2007, adds that the idea behind Blaft was to 'capture different voices'. For instance, Charu Nivedita, a Tamil writer who wrote overtly sexual prose, was one among many writers whom Blaft began to translate and publish.