In this note, adda participant Lav Kanoi writes about the
multiple roles that Sunandini Banerjee performs at Seagull, and also about the
extraordinary work and work-environment that Seagull provides for its
remarkable employees to do remarkable things.
A visible example of this is in Seagull Books’
recent publication, the first English translation of Anselm Kiefer’s Notebooks
(Volume 1: 19998–99). Working on this text, Sunandini began her engagement as
any good copyeditor should, checking for style and consistency, dotting the i's
and crossing the t’s. But occasional lines and phrases kept calling out to her
softly. The writer had been interlacing his work with references to a variety
of texts—lines from novels, poems, scriptures, astronomical and astrological
texts—and sometimes was or was not indicate these quotations typographically. Her
curiosity piqued with these sudden shifts in his tone and register, Sunandini embarked
upon a research project of sorts, annotating each of these with the appropriate
source. Suddenly, from copy-editing the text, Sunandini was commenting
on it. A scholar emerged forcefully from the scratchings of the copyeditor.
Now, the copyeditor was facilitating the reading of a text not by being a
transparent glass, rather by acting as a focal lens, directing the reader
towards hidden meanings in the text. 
I should draw my reader’s attention to the other delightfully visible
aspect of Sunandini’s work: that of an illustrator and cover designer.
Sunandini shared a splendid portfolio of her design work with us, which
included covers of books, pages and illustrations for stories.
If editing requires a complete perusal of the text,
design of this kind generally depends on a less lengthy engagement. Often,
there is only a small brief that accompanies the assignment. Typically, for
cover or book design, although the designer is allowed to build only a
perfunctory relationship with the text under treatment, she must somehow
distill the book into its cover. This is not to say that the entire text is
powerfully compressed into a few compelling visuals (is that possible?). My
point is that, in Sunandini’s case, the same person carries out a very
different aspect of the production of the book. However, Sunandini’s remarkable
dual-position at Seagull also gives her the opportunity of a more comprehensive
visual engagement with occasional texts. In this respect, the publication of Victor
Halfwit is as remarkable as the story itself. When the translation of this
work was commissioned from Thomas Bernhard’s German original, the firm readied
itself to publish a voluminous book. However, nobody at Seagull had seen the
German original. So when Martin Chalmer’s translation arrived, they discovered
that the story spread over all of two pages. So, the mad-hatters at Seagull
transformed the story, quite literally, into an extraordinary graphic novel (if
I may use the term) of two-hundred odd pages.
If in her copyediting role at
Seagull, Sunandini must efface her self and her presence from the text, in her
role as an illustrator, she must imprint her creative self on the text, and
sometimes across different texts.
I cannot express how delighted I was by the story
of the work, and the transformation the work underwent at Seagull. I am also
astounded by the kind of spirit that Seagull and its people display in their
engagement with different kinds of texts. Indeed, it is a testament to the
remarkable organization it is that Seagull facilitates the making of such work
by supporting remarkable people do remarkable things.
