1 - 5 February 2024 | Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur
Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and non-fiction from Bangladesh and India into English. Over 50 of his translations have been published so far. His recent translations include Kunal Basu's The Endgame, Bani Basu's Moom, Taslima Nasrin's Shameless, Desire for Fire: Modern Bengali Poetry in Translation and the forthcoming Akhtaruzzman Elias's Khwabnama.
The late Bangladeshi writer Akhtaruzzaman Elias’ novel, Khwabnama, weaves a tapestry of magical realism blending dreams and memory, legend and history with the struggle of marginalised people and the stories of their ancestors. Translated from Bangla to English by Arunava Sinha, the narrative is set in the time of the Tebhaga Movement within Bengal in the 1940s and explores the hopes and aspirations of a farmer as he cultivates his land. In conversation with historian, author and translator Rakhshanda Jalil, Arunava Sinha discusses the nuances of translating a text so heavily steeped in history and the essence of land as a harbinger of hope and the future.
“No two persons ever read the same book.”
Renowned for its melancholic nature and dark humour, the cult Bengali novel Herbert written by Nabarun Bhattacharya has, in recent years, been translated thrice into English by Jyoti Panjwani, Arunava Sinha and Sunandini Banerjee in their separate writings. In a fascinating conversation, Banerjee and Sinha discuss this classic from the 90s and give us insight on the forms of interpretation and translations of regional literature and how it has evolved through the decades. They also discuss Bhattacharya’s voice and syntax, the need to translate Herbert multiple times and the experience and challenges of translating his work.