In a recent interaction about translated literature, film critic Baradwaj Rangan made the observation that when we read a treasured classic of world literature, such as The Idiot or One Hundred Years of Solitude, very often it is a translation — and a translator — that we are reading. Without a Gregory Rabassa or Edith Grossman, we cannot access the thoughts of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In the late 18th century, Goethe proposed the idea of Weltliteratur (world literature), but translators have before and since been going back and forth across the world, knitting its thoughts into shape. What translators carry across are not simply well-formed ideas — a finished product — but new ways of using language that are essentially novel ways of thinking and seeing: a process of thought.
In a country like India, home to many languages and dialects, translations and adaptions have always been around. In the early part of the 20th century, there was a fervent interest in bringing world literature in various Indian languages with a view of enriching their modern idiom. Works written in one Indian language were eagerly translated into another. Since the early 2000s, however, attention has shifted to translations into the English language. There has been a push in the reverse — to convey the intellectual contributions of Indian languages to the broader Anglophone world.
There are a few reasons underlying this phenomenon. The first is a population that increasingly reads only in English and uses it as a medium of creative expression. The second is a burgeoning interest in the hyperlocal — folk arts and traditions, rural realities, rooted conceptions of caste and gender — a trend that is visible in contemporary cinema as well, as evidenced by movies like Kantara and Kottukkaali. The third is a growing awareness of the importance of intellectual contributions generated by non-English Indian traditions, and the urge on the part of translators to convey them to the Anglophone world.
American literary translator Edith Grossman. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons
Only one mentorship programme
An expanding readership and pool of talented translators means that the publishing landscape has also altered significantly, with more mainstream, commercial publishing houses stepping in where once a small bevy of academic and institutional presses such as Oxford University Press and the Sahitya Akademi held sway. More recently, online journals have taken to inviting translated fiction as a distinct category.
So, if there are more and more opportunities for us translators to find an outlet for our work, what gives? In India, the craft of translation is mostly self-taught. The opportunities to learn formally or collaboratively are few and far between. There exists only one mentorship programme, South Asia Speaks — of which both of us are alumni — that has a dedicated space for translators from India. A couple of universities offer degree-level programmes in literary translation. All other initiatives require us to pit ourselves in the global arena. While there are an increasing number of initiatives that are South Asia-focused (The SALT Project, the Armory Square Prize, English PEN’s grant for sample writing), we still lack an organised body in the mould of the LTI Korea or Germany’s Geothe Institute that can foreground our literature and translators to the world. In contrast, we do not have a cohesive presence at a language level, let alone as a country.
Writer and translator B. Jeyamohan. | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam
What’s more, if mastering the craft is a journey in itself for a budding translator, walking the maddening path of obtaining rights from the author, or their next of kin or a publishing house, can be nightmarish. At Mozhi, we run an annual short fiction translation competition, and most of the emails we receive during the submission period are frantic cries for help in obtaining translation rights. Often, young translators are denied rights. While the profit motive plays a role, fear around misuse of rights is also a factor. If we must spread our homegrown bodies of knowledge far and wide, we need more than passion and initiative from translators — we also need awareness and support from other stakeholders.
Rabindranath Tagore, poet, writer and translator nonpareil.
Regional exchange decreasing
While this is the scenario around translation into English, we must note that compared to past decades, the direct translation exchange between other Indian languages has, sadly, decreased. One wonders if we will see the likes of Su. Krishnamurthy, who translated more than 36 titles from Bangla into Tamil, in the present times. As compared to the Anglophone world, there is an even starker lack of funding, mentorship opportunities, and fair pay in this sphere that must be urgently addressed.
We believe that a translator’s unique contribution to the letters is their role as an intellectual and purveyor of aesthetics, and not merely a wordsmith. The recent preoccupation with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the assumption that it can replace human translators stems from a misconception: that translation is simply an exercise of replacing words in one language with another. The best translators read widely and deeply, and cherish their role as curators and connoisseurs of literary taste. Often the best of writers — from Tagore down to Jeyamohan — have also been translators. It is careful intellectual work. The judicious choice of word, metre, register and rhyme to artfully convey a mood, an impression, a forceful thought that makes the heart surge and sing, is something that is as yet beyond the scope of AI. As is connoisseurship. As long as translation involves original thought, a human translator will always be several steps ahead of AI.
The writers are literary translators and co-founders of Mozhi, an initiative that aims to bring together literatures from various Indian languages.
Published - September 27, 2024 10:00 am IST
