Lost in translation: A German Padmashri ignores co-authors

After the pulping of a Wendy Doniger book, here’s another storm in publishing. This time it’s not over content perceived as offensive but over authorial rights. Tem­ple Tents for Goddesses in India, an illustrated monograph on the painted canopies used by the Devipoojaks and some other communities of Gujarat to create sacred spaces, was first publi­shed in German in 1982, with Dr Eber­hard Fischer, Haku Shah and Dr Jyo­­­­­t­indra Jain as co-authors. But the Eng­lish version that was published some months ago by Niyogi Books, Delhi—a near-replica of the original, barring some editing, an extra chapter, and the additional word ‘Gujarat’ in the title—makes no mention of Shah or Jain.