India, March 4 -- Imagine a father writing to his daughter's rapist thanking him for curing her homosexuality through the rape. It sounds utterly offensive. But this was how homosexuality was once perceived in some major works of Hindi literature: as an aberration that needed to be "fixed", and one whose roots lay in a bad childhood, violence, or the unavailability of heterosexual sex.

Rajkamal Choudhary's 1964 novel Machhli Mari Hui is a bold exploration of homosexuality. Now translated from the original Hindi by Mahua Sen, Dead Fish was groundbreaking not only for its portrayal of same-sex relationships but also for its graphic depictions of violence and rape. While the original was perceived as obscene, in translation it is clear that...