Writing Places has made it possible to bring together writers and translators in a series of international workshops and mentoring opportunities.
In January 2017, we organised a Literary Translation Winter School at Jadavpur University, in partnership the Centre for the Translation of Indian Literatures and the British Centre for Literary Translation. Three writers from Norwich – Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Tiffany Atkinson and Sarah Bower – were translated into Bengali, while Dr Ramkumar Mukhopadhyay (Bangla), Dr Gourahari Das (Odia) and Udai Thulung (Nepali) were translated into English.
In July 2017, we supported a Bengali-English translation workshop at the summer school, with participants working with translator Arunava Sinha to translate extracts from a novel by Kolkata-based writer-journalist Sirsho Bandopadhyay, who also attended the workshop.
Arunava Sinh leading a session at the BCLT International Literary Translation and Creative Writing Summer School (c) Anita Staff
Several Indian languages have been incorporated into the National Centre for Writing’s mentoring programme, including:
The 2018 Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize will focus on Bengali. The winning translator will be awarded and a mentorship with the renowned translator Arunava Sinha, plus £1,000 and a selection of Harvill Secker books.
The judges will consider translations of the short story ‘Half-Timer Pawre’ by Shamik Ghosh, from his collection Elvis O Amolasundari. This year’s prize will be judged by translator Arunava Sinha, anthropologist and novelist Tahmima Anam, writer and television presenter Konnie Huq and Harvill Secker editor Mikaela Pedlow.
Deadline for entries: 28 August 2018. To enter and for further information, please visit www.penguinrandomhouse.co.uk/youngtranslatorsprize
Somrita Urni Ganguly and Pritam Banerjee (c) Flo Reynolds
