As I sat down to write this column, news arrived that forensic scientists had successfully concluded their quest – often described as “quixotic” – to find the remains of Miguel de Cervantes who is called the Shakespeare of Spain. Both were contemporaries and Shakespeare died in the same week as Cervantes was buried. It’s a pity that his most famous novel “Don Quixote” did not sell during his lifetime and he died almost penniless like the Dutch painter Van Gogh. However, today, in terms of its international sales, the novel is considered next only to The Bible. What an irony!
In his declining years, Cervantes had joined the Third Order of St. Francis and, according to contemporary historical records, he was buried on April 23, 1616, in the crypt of the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in the Barrio de Las Letras (Literary Quarter) in Madrid.
As Spain will be observing Cervantes’s 400th death anniversary next year, the discovery of his remains has ignited renewed interest in the great writer and his work.
ADVERTISEMENT
The first volume of “Don Quixote” was published in 1605 and the 400th anniversary of this momentous event was celebrated ten years ago all over the world. The Hindi world too did not lag behind and Vibha Maurya, professor of Spanish language and literature at the Delhi University, came up with her translation of the first volume in 2005.
As is vogue in Hindi, most foreign works are translated from English and not from the language in which they were originally written. So, paraphrasing Plato’s “Theory of Forms”, one can safely describe them as “twice removed from reality” as they are translations of translations. While it’s true that this trend is slowly changing as more and more Indians have started learning foreign languages, the day is yet to arrive when Hindi will have authentic translations done straight from the original. However, being a scholar of Spanish language and literature, Maurya offered a faithful and authentic Hindi version as she translated from the original and made a successful attempt to convey the flavour of Cervantes’ inimitable style. The Hindi world welcomed it with open arms.
The second volume of this epic novel was published in 1615 and Cervantes died the next year. To mark the 400th anniversary of its publication, Maurya finished translating the second volume too and both the volumes have now been put together to make one book, brought out by Parable International in February this year.
ADVERTISEMENT
It’s no mean achievement as rendering Cervantes’ work in any other language is extremely difficult because of his extraordinary wit and satire. Moreover, his language is not contemporary Spanish and has many archaic usages, cultural and literary allusions and situations as they existed four centuries ago.
That’s why Vibha Maurya viewed her task as part of the “inter-cultural exchange” that has been going on for a long time between the two markedly different worlds of Hindi and Spanish. She has based her translation on the text prepared by an editorial committee headed by well-known Cervantes expert Francisco Rico. In an informative foreword, Maurya explains that while translating “Don Quixote”, she had set two objectives before her — to offer the Hindi reader an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand rendering of the novel as well as to keep the wit, mirth and satire of Cervantes intact to the maximum possible extent. In the process, she has not paid undue attention to retain the ‘register’ of the original Spanish and has used contemporary Hindi words, idioms and sentence structure. In her view, translation is a process that is located in the complex web of ideas, political and cultural structures, and history. It is not concerned merely with language. Consequently, she has devoted greater attention to the novelist’s artistic intention, pace of the language and plot, complexity of Cervantes’ Spanish expressions and materials that went in creating the wonderful tales of Don Quixote’s adventures.
“Don Quixote” has been variously described as the “mother of all novels”, “the first book in the genre of novel” and “the novel of novels” and its literary appeal is yet to decline.
Its complex plot structure is truly amazing and the continuous dialogue between the novelist and his characters indicates that what is currently described as ‘meta-fiction’ owes its origins to the literary devices employed by Cervantes.