“If the description is vague or cryptic, we need to know so that our version can also be vague or cryptic. Rockwell says the extensive wordplay and unique prose style in Shree’s novel required seven drafts before she even sent it to editors. And translators must be aware of the path at every step. “If we imagine ourselves carrying the text, like a bundle of clothing, across a great distance or a small one, we can understand that the longer the journey, the more the contents of the bundle will change over time.” “If you take look at the Latin roots of the English word ‘translation’, you learn that it means ‘to carry across or over’,” she says. Rockwell has a simple analogy for what it means to turn a great story in one language into a great one in another. Maybe a boomlet - because so much remains untranslated and unpublished.” In comparison, what we have now is a boom.
“Very few modern literature translations were published until the 1990s,” Rockwell says. “The quality of Indian fiction in translation has been getting better over the years,” he says.ĭaisy Rockwell, whose translation of Geetanjali Shree’s 2018 Hindi novel Tomb of Sand won this year’s International Booker Prize and is on the JCB longlist, echoes Sinha’s observation. He translated Manoranjan Byapari’s 2021 Bengali book, Imaan, about a man struggling to adjust to the free world after years spent in jail. Sinha, who has translated 70 books and won the Distinguished Translator Award at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year, features on the list too. And when the winner is announced on November 19, “there’s a good chance that, like 2021, a translated book will take the prize,” says writer and translator Arunava Sinha.
Hindi, Urdu and Nepali translations have made an appearance for the first time. Six of the 10 books on the longlist are works not originally written in English. In how many languages can you say congratulations? Some time in the coming week, the shortlist for the JCB Prize, a ₹25-lakh literary award, will be announced.
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