There’s good news for the translators of the South Asian literature — 50 per cent of the DSC Prize money will be shared by the translator of the winning book.
“Most prizes award translators as well. But since the DSC Prize award amount is very handsome, it makes it a very substantial prize,” says writer Ira Pande. “The Government’s role in doggedly pursuing translations when it was not promoted by anyone deserves credit. However, the fact that translations are now being commissioned by commercial publishing houses, with all the arsenal of the latest editing and marketing information behind them, is a new and exciting development,” she points out.
Though there is a shift, it is not a significant one. Not even in the West. Oprah Winfrey, who has recently entered the book segment with the Oprah Book Club, accepts that readers get to read diverse stories because of the talented translators, but we tend to take the translators for granted. In India, Namita Gokhale, who is a founder-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival along with author William Dalrymple, says, “Translators are given little importance.”
There are steps being taken for the underpaid translators, but these are hardly significant. On the role of the Indian Literature Abroad (ILA), of which she is currently the member-secretary, Gokhale says: “It is an initiative by the Ministry of Culture to translate and promote contemporary literature from the Indian languages into the major international languages, particularly the six UNESCO languages — English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Russian and Chinese.”
ILA is now trying to get experts into the field of translation. “There is a cultural translator to look into the creative aspect of translations; he/she is different from a language translator,” Gokhale says.
The English Chapter
What makes English such a popular language across the world, particularly South Asia?
Pande shares, “The international reach of the language is its most potent power. Else, readers outside India would never be able to see the enormous body of literature that has been generated by the country’s diverse cultural and linguistic regions. It may not always be the most apt language to convey the subtleties of cultural and regional variations, but as a vehicle of carrying this literature out of the country it is unmatched.”
While the reach of English is an asset, the inadequacy of the language in conveying subtleties remains a challenge. Susheela Punitha, translator of UR Ananthamurthy’s book, Bharatipura, found English failing miserably in expressing the different cultural nuances of Kannada. When she started the retelling of a Kannada story in English she realised that it was “not a spontaneous process”. She says, “As a translator, I see gaps in meaning, significance and local flavour.”
The challenge for her was to remain faithful to the original in Kannada, as blurring the real voice of the author is the defeat of a translator. She practises the process of transcreation of English with every novel she translates. And where she is unable to resurrect the author’s voice, she takes the help of footnotes, glossary and Translator’s Note. Despite the shortcomings, Punitha defends the language: “And yet English is suitable because it is the only language in which we can read literature from other regional languages.”
Gokhale points out that translating the works of regional writers involves exposure to different cultures, languages and backdrops. “In India, there is another challenge: Disconnect between India and Bharat,” says she.
Formula or fluke?
Literary translations aren’t formulaic. There are no fixed paths to be tread.
Polly McLean, the translator of Atiq Rahimi’s book, The Patience Stone, says: “While translating, one is mainly paying attention to register and style. For example, in The Patience Stone, what struck me first was the spareness of the writing, its resemblance to poetry and the evolution of the woman’s self-expression.”
As a translator, she encountered cultural references that were challenging to translate, and instances where she fought tensions between domesticating the text and allowing it to sound foreign. “The reader wants the text to flow and not sound like a translation, without losing any of its cultural specificity,” she says.
Punitha believes that the challenges while translating an original work vary from book to book, “and not every challenge can be met”. While translating Ananthamurthy’s novel, she says: “I could not convey the innate contempt Jagannatha, the Brahmin protagonist, has for the Holeyas, the scavenging community. The problem is with grammar. English grammar, unlike that of Kannada, does not have human and non-human pronouns in the third person plural. An English sentence like ‘they came’ has to be translated as avaru bandharu while referring to people, and as avu bandhavu with reference to non-human living beings,” she says. “When avu bandhavu is used for human-beings, it can signify contempt, equating human beings with animals. And that is what Jagannatha thinks every time he sees the young men of the Holeya community approaching him — avu bandhavu — as if they were animals.”
“Jagannatha’s inability to see the Holeyas as human beings is central to the angst in the novel. But I could not transfer it to the English text because the language is not equipped to describe such an emotional angst,” Punitha adds.
The best picks
McLean took up translation when she got inspired by watching the film, Cyrano de Bergerac, in which Anthony Burgess had done the subtitles, all in rhyming couplets and retaining so much of the wit as well as sense of the original. “I realised translation could be a real art-work, and that I wanted to do it. In terms of favourite translators, I think Sarah Ardizzone is a lively translator from French language; particularly look out for her translations of the books of Daniel Pennac and Faiza Guene,” she says.
Gokhale is currently enjoying Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu and considers it as one of the best translated works. The story of three sisters trying to come to terms with life after the Chinese Revolution has been translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin. She also recommends translated works of Leo Tolstoy by Constance Garnett, though the latter has been accused of ‘killing’ the original voices of a few Russian authors. Russian essayist Joseph Brodsky once said, “The reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Garnett.”
Pande agrees. “There are many translations that excite me and many that disappoint me. I pick translations according to the strength of the original and the translation. Often, a great story is visible behind even a bad translation and sometimes a stylish translation tries to take over the original. In both cases, I would prefer to pick one where the translator has not tried to take over the original and edited it to suit his or her own preferences,” she says.
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