THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘Oru Desathinte Kadha’ had warded off attempts at translation and remained unavailable to the non-Malayalee reading community for four decades despite its epic status. One of S K Pottekatt’s few books that has not been translated, it can also be singled out among Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi award-winning works for remaining untranslated for so long. It took Sreedevi K Nair and P Radhika five years to dissect through the resistance put up by the voluminous vernacular to wrap up ‘The Story of a Desam’. The project, selected for the 2010-11 Translation Grant from the International Center for Writing and Translation (ICWT), University of California, Irvine, will duly be published in book form. The ICWT translation grant is offered to a single project every year selected from proposals received from all over the world. The grant intends to support translators for undertaking translations of literature or theory into English. Sreedevi K Nair, Associate Professor of English, NSS College, Neeramankara, says, "They are particularly interested in translating works that reveal little-known cultures. ‘Desathinte Kadha’ caught their interest for the same reason.” Despite the culture-specific language and narrative, the translation is as loyal to the original as possible, adds P Radhika, Associate Professor of English, Fatima Matha National College, Kollam. “We have found linguistic equivalents for as many usages and words possible and where we could not afford a literal translation, we have tried not to digress from the idea. It is very important that the reader gets a sense of the culture represented in the book,” she says. The ICWT grant will comprise of an amount of $ 5,000, which will be awarded on the completion of the project.Sreedevi and Radhika are also collaborating on ‘Anthology of Indian Discourse on Translation’, a major project commissioned by the Sahitya Akademi, which will compile translation theories that have appeared in 24 Indian languages.
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