A&L Nov_2018

DLF 2018
‘Translation is the art of loss’
The moment I turned the last page of Shokhi Rongomala, I knew two things:
I had to translate this book because it deserved a wider readership, and it was
going to be the most difficult and intense translation project I’d ever undertaken.
Tell us about your journey as a translator.
I think the first translation I ever did was as a young teen—I wanted to share
a sci-fi story I loved with a friend and she refused to read the English version.
But I didn’t think of that as a “translation”—it was just something I did for a
friend. As a graduate student, I was invited by my professors, Dr. Niaz Zaman
and Dr. Firdaus Azim, to translate a handful of stories for an anthology
of women’s writing they were co-editing. That’s when I first realised that not
only could I do this, I really loved doing this. I was blown away by the intense
joy of finding the perfect equivalent or an exact turn of phrase.
I’ve come a long way since then. My style has evolved, and I’ve moved
away from trying to cling too close to the text, to trying to find the smoothest
read in English while retaining as much as the original flavour as possible.
Translation is the art of loss; the challenge is to focus on what you can hold
on to. I’ve translated poetry and non-fiction as well as fiction, although fiction
remains my primary genre, and each genre comes with its own unique challenges,
as does each text.
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• Arts & Letters Desk
Shabnam Nadiya is a writer and translator. She has an MFA from the
Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her translation of Moinul Ahsan Saber’s The
Mercenary came out earlier this year from Seagull Books, and her
works have previously appeared in anthologies such as Golpa: Short
Stories by Bangladeshi Women and Lifelines.
You have translated Shaheen Akhtar’s novel, Shokhi Rongomala (Beloved
Rongomala), which will be launched at DLF this year. Tell us your experience
about translation. Did you personally feel invested into the book?
It’s difficult for me to work on any translation unless I really feel invested—but
this is especially true for Shaheen Akhtar’s work as it is intensely demanding.
I’ve been translating her fiction for many years now, although this is the
first novel of hers that I’ve attempted. Her prose is a delightful mixture of the
colloquial and the poetic and it always draws me, as do her characters who
are complex and real. These strengths of her writing find high expression in
Shokhi Rongomala. How could I not fall for a low-caste royal mistress who
writes love letters with lines like, “I sought and found that I had none/You, my
moon, the only one”; or a young queen who’s a fanatic about birds and hides
her muddy shoes in her philandering husband’s bed to punish him; or the
young queen’s chief maid, who, despite her bitterness about being used and
abused, doesn’t lose her capacity for love or to do what is right?
eople who grow up with some familiarity and
love for Bangla books are more likely to invest
their literary energies in translating
Quite a good number of translated books have been launched at DLF over the
last few years. How do you see the prospect of literary translation in Bangladesh?
I don’t know that I would say “quite a good number”—a handful of books have
indeed been published. Given the breadth of Bangla literature, there is still so
much to do in the realm of translation! What we should be focusing on more,
however, is the quality of translations that are coming out. BLB’s Library of
Bangladesh series has set a good example there, under Series Editor Arunava
Sinha’s guidance. DLF is certainly playing a role in making the Bangladeshi
translation scene more vibrant.
I’m hoping that with the English writing scene expanding, there will be
more of us with the requisite skill in both source and target languages who are
interested in translation. People who grow up with some familiarity and love
for Bangla books are more likely to invest their literary energies in translating.
In the past, literary translation had seemed to be the domain of academics—
done by them and meant for them. The readership I want to reach, with my
own translations as well as with the work of newer translators, is the common
reader. I want someone to pick up a copy of Shaheen’s Beloved Rongomala or
Mahmudul Haque’s Black Ice or Elias’ Khoabnama because the story and characters
sound interesting and the cover draws the eye.
What’s your next translation project?
The next year is slotted for my own novel, which I’m working on right now.
However, alongside that, I am in the process of finalising my translation of
Leesa Gazi’s debut novel, Rourob (Hellfire), a narrative about a family of two
sisters and their parents, where the mother is an abuser and the father an enabler.
I find its depiction of familial dysfunction fascinating. I also enjoyed its
frank and unapologetic depiction of women’s sexuality.
Other than that, writer and translator Mahmud Rahman and I have been
discussing the possibility of undertaking a collaborative translation of
Mahmudul Haque’s seminal novel Jibon Amar Bon (My Sister, Life). The language
of Jibon Amar Bon is lyrical, at odds with the political violence of its
world, and dependent on the rhythm and sound of the sentences to achieve
its effect. I know this is going to be another challenge, but this has been one of
my favourites for such a long time, it would be an honour to be able to bring
this novel to a wider world. •
ARTS & LETTERS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2018 | DHAKA TRIBUNE