I became universal because I was able to read translations of literatures from other parts of the world in my mother tongue, Telugu,” explained the Telugu writer Volga, who has been extensively translated into Kannada. Recalling the abundance of Soviet Literature in the 60s and 70s, as it was with Maugham, Pearl S. Buck, and Mark Twain, she said that she felt closer to these texts in Telugu than in English. “In fact, Tom Sawyer became my own boy from my own region,” she recalled her early reading years. “I differ with you,” said Sitanshu. Translation is travel, and at once travelogue too. So, even in translation, Tom Sawyer has to remain an American boy, and not become the boy of your immediate neighbourhood, he argued. “Gems of Indian literature get translated into English, and not into regional languages. A second rate writer gets a good translator and becomes international. Whereas a superior writer, for instance, someone like Chandrashekar Kambar is poorly translated,” observed H.S. Shivaprakash. The other problem he saw in translations was the use of Sanskrit words. He recalled how poet K.S. Narasimha Swamy had reacted to Kuvempu’s excessive use of Sanskrit diction. “‘Kannada putadali enee samskrutada meravanige (what is this procession of Sanskrit words on the Kannada page?)’ he had remarked. In fact, translation can itself give you a sense of cultural politics…,” he remarked and explained how while the poet B.M. Shrikataiah translated Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, poet Da. Ra. Bendre was busy translating the national songs of all countries, except that of Britain.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:22:25 +0000
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