When Jerry Pinto began translating Sachin Kundalkar’s Marathi novel, Cobalt Blue, into English last year, the task demanded that he bring out not only what the original had tried to say, but also how it had been said. “Because it’s not that you’re taking one word and replacing it with another,” said Pinto. “You are actually taking one culture and replacing it with another.” The implicit meaning, staying true to the characters’ voices and intricacies of everyday parlance were as crucial as the plot, centring on a brother and sister who love the same man.

“I was moved by (the translation),” said Kundalkar, “It was fluid, poetic and had the exact tints and textures of emotions as the originalMarathi novel.” The achievement is no insignificant one, considering Marathi isn’t Pinto’s first language.

Translation is never an easy process, whether one is working between regional languages, or translating into English. In the case of Marathi-to-English works, however, things move into trickier territory. It’s one of the major reasons why there are so few Marathi books being translated into English, as compared to the other way around. More.

See: Times of India

Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.