While mankind started out perhaps speaking the same language in the heart of Africa, now there are more than 7, 100 languages in the world. The differences in languages, cultures and rituals could be fanned as unsurmountable divides for political needs. However, translators build bridges with cultural and linguistic comprehension to create an overarching rainbow that shimmers with the colours of shared emotions. We celebrate International Translation Day with a discussion with five translators from South Asia on how they create links not just across vernaculars, but across cultures, time and space. We also have gathered together the colours of 28 languages and cultures and some unique discussions about books that have been translated recently.
Bridging Cultures across Time and Space: An exclusive discussion with Aruna Chakravarti, Radha Chakravarty, Somdatta Mandal, Fakrul Alam and Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
We are the World: Celebrating writers and translators who have connected us with these ideas across boundaries of time and place, we bring to you translated writings in English from twenty eightlanguages. Clickhereto read.
Professor Fakrul Alam discusses his new book of Tagore translations, Gitabitan: Selected Song-Lyrics of Rabindranath Tagore. Click here to read.
Saint Jerome (the patron saint of translators) by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448-1494). The International Translation Day is celebrated on the the feast day of St Jerome, 30th September each year. From Public Domain
Vincent Van Gogh written is different scripts. Courtesy:Creative Commons
The whole world opens up in the realm of ideas that have existed wafting and bridging across time and space. Sometimes they find conduits to come to the fore, even though they find expression in different languages, under varied cultural milieus. One way of connecting these ideas is to translate them into a single language. And that is what many have started to do. Celebrating writers and translators who have connected us with these ideas across boundaries of time and place, we bring to you translated writings in English from twenty eight languages on the International Translation Day, from some of the most iconic thinkers as well as from contemporary voices.
Prose
Tagore’s short story, Aparichita, has been translated from Bengali as The Stranger by Aruna Chakravarti. Click hereto read.
Nadir Ali’s The Kabbadi Player has been translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.
Kamaleswar Barua’s Uehara by has been translated from Assamese and introduced by Bikash K. Bhattacharya. Click here to read.
S Ramakrishnan’s Muhammad Ali’s Singnature has been S. Ramakrishnan, translated from Tamil by Dr B. Chandramouli. Click here to read.
PF Mathews’Mercy, has been translated from Malayalam by Ram Anantharaman. Click here to read.
Road to Nowhere, an unusual story about a man who heads for suicide, translated from Odiya by the author, Satya Misra. Click here to read.
An excerpt from A Handful of Sesame by Shrinivas Vaidya, translated from Kannada by Maithreyi Karnoor. Click hereto read.
Writings from Pandies’ Cornerhighlight the ongoing struggle against debilitating rigid boundaries drawn by societal norms. Each piece is written in Hindustani and then translated by a volunteer from Pandies’ in English. Clickhere to read.
Rakhamaninov’s Sonata, a short story by Sherzod Artikov, translated from Uzbeki by Nigora Mukhammad. Click hereto read.
Of Days and Seasons, a parable by the eminent Dutch writer, Louis Couperus (1863-1923), translated by Chaitali Sengupta. Click here to read.
The Faithful Wife, a folktale translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
An excerpt from Ramy Al-Asheq’sEver Since I Did Not Die, translated from Arabic by Isis Nusair, edited by Levi Thompson. The author was born in a refugee camp. Click here to read.
Poetry
Two songs byTagore written originally in Brajabuli, a literary language developed essentially for poetry in the sixteenth century, has been translated by Radha Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Rebel or ‘Bidrohi’, Nazrul’s signature poem, ‘Bidrohi‘, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Banlata Sen, Jibananada Das’s iconic poem, translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.