How the power of translation helps many a Heart Lamp shine

India Today

25-05-2025

Not everything is lost in translation – sometimes, entire worlds are found. This is especially true of Indian literature, which both Indians and the world have discovered, all thanks to translations. This was also acknowledged in the International Booker Prize, which was awarded to two Indian women this year. Writer Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the award for their collection of short stories, Heart Lamp.advertisement"These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects," said Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 committee, announcing the prestigious award.This is the second International Booker in three years for an Indian author – a testament to the variety and power of Indian literature. In 2022, it was the translation of Ret Samadhi that won Geetanjali Shree the award.
The English translation of Ret Samadhi – Tomb of Sand – by Daisy Rockwell introduced both non-Hindi readers in India and the world to Geetanjali Shree's work. Tomb of Sand was published in Britain in 2021. Since winning the award, it has sold 30,000 copies in Britain and 20,000 reprints in India.Such is the importance of translation that the International Booker Prize, formerly known as the Man Booker International Prize, has been instituted for works translated into English.advertisementThe work of translation is intricate. What seems like a verbatim translation of written words is a larger conversation with the original text and the realisation of how to best convey the context, the people and their sentiments to a reader, for whom those concepts might be absolutely alien.Come to think of it, there wouldn't be any world literature without translation.Much of what we consider world literature today — Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk — was made accessible only through translation. It is through this invisible art that languages speak to each other, and the world listens.It was Ralph Manheim, a great translator of the works of writers Bertolt Brecht and Hermann Hesse, who once said, "Translators are like actors who speak the lines as the author would if the author could speak English."The latest Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to South Korean writer Han Kang after her works were translated. Deborah Smith learnt Korean to translate Han's works into English.The tradition of translating India to the world is not new.Over a century ago, Rabindranath Tagore translated his own poetry collection, Gitanjali, into English. He became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.advertisementOriginally in Bengali, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) introduced the spiritual depth and lyrical beauty of Indian poetry to the world.Tagore's win marked a pivotal moment in the global recognition of Indian literature. In more recent years, works like Perumal Murugan's Pyre and Fire Bird, and M Mukundan's Delhi: A Soliloquy have found new audiences through translation.Translation is especially important for a country like India that is culturally and linguistically diverse."Without translation, people in a country like India would be locked into their own linguistic islands," Arunava Sinha, a literary translator, tells India Today Digital.HEART LAMP, TOMB OF SAND AND THE MANY 'ENGLISHES'In Kannada, Mushtaq's anthology – Heart Lamp – is called Haseena Mattu Itara Kathegalu.After receiving the International Booker Award, Mushtaq said of her short stories that her heart had been her field of study. But for the Booker prize judges, it was the "new textures" of the stories and their "radical translation"."A radical translation which ruffles language, to create new textures in a plurality of Englishes. It challenges and expands our understanding of translation," stated Max Porter.Languages do not naturally map onto each other and await intricate translation.advertisementThat translation is particularly difficult when it comes to new words or expressions, was revealed by Frank Wynne, one of the member judges of the International Booker in 2022, when Geetanjali Shree's book won the award."In Tomb of Sand, I loved all three. World play, punning, neologisms and humour," said Wynne. "These are inherently difficult to translate since languages do not map onto one another; this is all the more true when the cultural context is very different."In India, Tomb of Sand sold 50,000 copies, making it a resounding success for a work of literary fiction, and Ret Samadhi sold more than 35,000 copies. The novel became ubiquitous in train stations and airports across India, the New York Times reported.INDIAN LITERATURE REACHES INDIANS, AND THE WORLDTranslated literature is about listening to the varied voices from across the world, sometimes even from the corners of one's country."How will we talk to one another and listen to one another without translation? Translation is the language of democracy," author-translator Sinha tells India Today Digital.While Heart Lamp and Tomb of Sand were winners of the International Booker Prize, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan's Pyre made it to the award's longlist in 2023.advertisementPyre reached the global audience because of the translation by Aniruddhan Vasudeva. The judges acknowledged how it was both "specific and universal" and "how flammable are fear and the distrust of others."This was also seen in Murugan's Fire Bird.Janani Kannan's translation of Fire Bird made the novel accessible to a global audience. Fire Bird won the 2023 JCB Prize for Literature, with Murugan receiving Rs 25 lakh and Kannan Rs 10 lakh in prize money.The jury praised Kannan's translation for carrying "the rhythms not only of Tamil but of an entire way of being in the world", amplifying the novel's universal appeal.Similarly, the English translation of M Mukundan's Delhi: A Soliloquy (originally Delhi Gadhakal in Malayalam), translated by Fathima EV and Nandakumar K, played a crucial role in elevating the novel's visibility and impact.The translation introduced Mukundan's vivid portrayal of Delhi's underbelly and the lives of Malayali migrants to international readers.LOST IN TRANSLATION: WHAT REMAINS UNTRANSLATEDTranslation, while a bridge between cultures, is not without its gaps. The act of carrying a story from one language to another often leaves behind subtle nuances, cultural idioms, and emotional undercurrents that defy translation.advertisementFor instance, the rhythmic cadence of Tamil in Perumal Murugan's Pyre. Words rooted in specific cultural practices – like the term Agmark (a certification mark), used colloquially to denote authenticity in Fire Bird – lose their immediacy when substituted.The untranslatable also includes the intangible: the smell of rain-soaked earth in a Malayalam poem, the cadence of a Bengali lullaby, or the weight of Partition's trauma in Ret Samadhi.As translator Aniruddhan Vasudeva noted in a 2023 interview, "You can translate the words, but the silences between them? That's where the story lives."When asked about translation and its limitations, Geetanjali Shree had a point to make: "Translation is not about producing a replica or a clone. It is making another living being that carries the culture of the earlier one in a new avatar".MANY MARQUEZ IN INDIA'S REGIONAL CRYPTS?Though translation has certain limits, it is this magical art that completes world literature as we know it.Gregory Rabassa's translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude captured the lyrical richness of Marquez's magical realism, letting non-Spanish readers experience a Colombia infused with myth and memory.Similarly, Michael Heim's rendering of The Unbearable Lightness of Being made Kundera's Czech philosophical reflections accessible, resonating with Cold War-era readers exploring questions of identity, freedom, and political disillusionment.These translations did more than convey meaning – they recreated rhythm, tone, and cultural nuance, allowing the soul of each work to survive linguistic migration.Constance Garnett's translation of Anna Karenina made the classic of Russian literature reach the world.Pamuk's My Name is Red, through Erdag Goknar's deft translation, brought Ottoman aesthetics and philosophical depth into global consciousness, with dense cultural layers made legible but not diluted.There is no need to make a case for translation, but it is important to reiterate how vital it is for the world of literature.Edith Grossman, Marquez's translator, once stated, "The impact of the kind of artistic discovery that translation enables is profoundly important to the health and vitality of any language and any literature".That is truer for entire genres of Indian literature. Oral traditions, regional folklore, and lesser-known dialects languish without translators or publishers.What if they are pulled out of their regional crypts, and placed under the sun? We would discover the soul of Indian literature –and a whole new universe.