Translating Avenues

Updated on: Friday, September 11, 2009

Kolkata: A round-table interactive discussion on literary translation in India and England was held at Sahitya Academi on September 7 headed by distinguished literary translators and publishers with participants from south, east and North-eastern India, where experts addressed the common dilemmas faced by translators.

“Translation can never be finished. It can be improved with experience, as it is a creative process. With time, philosophical and intellectual space changes, and that’s what translator offers to readers,” said Manabendra Bandopadhyay, former comparative literature professor from JU, adding how in Indian stress has been on west European and ‘Markin’ language translation only, not on native ones.

Prof Amanda Hopkinson, director, British Centre for Literary Translation, shared how new avenues for encountering and learning languages have increased over time in UK with settlement of new communities, but how literal translation of literary works results in erroneous productions at times.

Prof Hopkinson also brought to fore the fact that while in England a translator earns a standard 85 pounds per 1000 words, in India the market is underpaid, holding immense potential for growth as people in India are fluently multi-lingual.

“Faithfulness’ to the original work, difficulty in translation of plays, bi-lingual dictionary compilation, non-inclusiveness of translated works in awards like Commonwealth Writer’s Award were some pertinent issues discussed at the meet.

The Programme of Action published in 1986 was a stepping stone for translation as it gave the impetus of taking up translation as a distinct discipline. “But even today it remains unresolved if certain translations like that of jokes and ghazals, will make any sense or not. As a playwright I could never translate my own plays. Metaphors and idioms cannot be translated however efficient you may be,” said eminent writer Udaya Narayan Singh.

As an unexplored but highly potential pocket of translation, Singh pointed to the Indian film industry. “We are at an amateurish stage even now, but we will improve. We are the highest producer of films, but it’s a pity that we don’t have Malayalam films in Bengali and so on. one really needs to re-look at these avenues.”

A translator can be a trans-creator, but the panellists agreed that translation from translated works be undertaken only as a secondary choice, to be pursued when no translator from original work is available, as a resort to losing the original work.

Translating Avenues

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