Litterateur Rabindra Praharaj has been selected for the Sahitya Akademi Award 2014 for translation. The 77-year-old writer has to his credit 36 publications, including 14 books that he translated from other languages to the Odia, his autobiography, and two monographs. His most famous books are ‘Thomas Hardynka Galpa Sambhara’, ‘Speeches and Writings of Ambedkar’, ‘What India Can Teach Us’ by Max Mueller. Excerpts from an interview with Minati Singha

Q: Tell us how you feel after receiving the award from Sahitya Akademi?

A: Naturally, it gives me immense pleasure. I feel my writing has been appreciated by readers. Apart from this, I strongly believed that these works will be appreciated by scholars, who will consider them unique because the translation I did was not easy.

Q: Tell us about the award winning translation ‘Thila Gharara Gelhapua’.

A: The book is an Odia translation of ‘Alaler Gharer Dulal,’ a Bengali novel by Peary Chand Mitra (1814-1883), published in 1857. Mitra had written the book under the pseudonym Tek Chand Thakur. The prose style followed in this book and the original book was of 18th century folk language of Bengal. Since then, the language has undergone a lot of changes. So, it was initially very difficult to find the underlying meanings. I had to undertake a lot of research to write the book. More.

See: The Times of India

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