Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 8022

Q: X told me that Y has translated a novel in English half of which is corrected by you; this practically means that X makes you translate somebody’s novel instead of himself translating “Arya” which would be more reasonable. What ordeals for you to pass through! Perhaps the person who remarked in a London paper that you had written five hundred books was not quite wrong; by this time your letters to sadhaks would make three or four books for each of them and if to these are added your poems, translations and other writings the total would not be less than five hundred.

A: The idea of Y translating Arya makes the hair stand on end! It would be much easier for me to write five hundred books. Perhaps I have done so – if all I have scribbled is to be taken into account against me. But most of it will not see the light of day – at least of public day; I may still escape establishing the record in book-production.

3-2-1935