At a time when literature festivals are being organised across the country and language conflicts are becoming increasingly common, Jadavpur University is holding a translation festival in Kolkata that seeks to strengthen the archive of Indian literature and give a boost to indigenous dialects.
Coinciding with International Translation Month, the festival began on September 12 and will continue till September 19. It is also being held to mark 20 years of the university’s Centre for Translation of Indian Literatures (CENTIL).
According to organisers, the festival is “unique” as it is structured around five one-day translation workshops involving students from five institutions — Amity University, Basanti Devi College, Gurudas College, Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, and Jadavpur University. Spread across as many venues, the workshops deal with multiple languages simultaneously: Bangla to English, English to Bangla, Nepali to English, Nepali to Bangla, and Nepali to Khasi.
“The festival is also important because it tries to popularise the idea of translation not just as an individual act but as a collaborative exercise where multiple individuals work on the same text, an approach we have been employing for years now,” said Sayantan Dasgupta, professor of Comparative Literature at the university and joint coordinator of CENTIL.
