Translation

Kidnapped

By AINUR KARIM

Translated from the Russian by SLAVA FAYBYSH

 

Piece appears below in both English and the original Russian.

A rectangular, beige apartment building squats under an overcast sky. Dead branches and leaves crowd the foreground.

A typical apartment building in a residential area of Almaty.

Translator’s Note

There are probably many reasons why people in the West don’t know much about Qazaqstan. Not only do we not know much, but the little we do know is probably all wrong, as much of what we’ve heard is skewed by who told the story. Most people in the U.S. have never read a short story or seen a play or movie written by someone from Qazaqstan (not much is available, frankly). That’s why it was such a delight to be able to translate this excerpt from Ainur’s as yet unfinished novel.

I also imagine that many readers may not be aware of the existence of bride kidnapping, so my hope is that “Kidnapped” will not only introduce something new, but it will demystify the custom from the beginning. I myself did not know anything about this cultural practice until I sat down to translate the story. And now, being a translator means I get to share it with others. Bride kidnapping has been on the rise in Qazaqstan since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Having said that, Ainur made clear to me that the way it works in the real world varies, and it often doesn’t look quite like it does here.

—Slava Faybysh

Kidnapped
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Translation: Master of the House

By AHMET HAMDI TANPİNAR
Translated by AYSEL K. BASCI

Piece appears below in English and the original Turkish.

 

Translator’s Note:

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962), a renowned 20th-century Turkish author, poet, essayist, intellectual, and educator, wrote two of the finest works in modern Turkish literature: The Time Regulation Institute and A Mind at Peace. In fellow Turkish author Orhan Pamuk’s 2006 Nobel Literature Prize acceptance speech, he thanked Tanpınar for his considerable influence and inspiration as a literary icon. 

Translation: Master of the House
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Puppets

By MANISHA KULSHRESHTHA
Translated by CHINMAY RASTOGI

Piece appears below in both English and the original Hindi.  

Translator’s Note

Hindi is comprised of words from a variety of regional languages of India and has various dialects. The way people speak it changes almost every hundred kilometers, with the language taking on a new garb and flavor, just like the clothes and food of the people who speak it. What delighted me about this story was the place it is set in and the dialect of the characters. It’s not common to come across literature set in the remote areas of Rajasthan, full of Marwari words (the primary language of the people of the state). As someone who spent most of his life in this state, I was even more invested to present the dialect, life, and customs of the communities.

Puppets
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Translation: Sindhu Library

By GEET CHATURVEDI
Translated by ANITA GOPALAN

Piece appears below in both English and the original Hindi.

 

Translator’s Note

There is an inherent quiet music and a brokenness in the story “Sindhu Library” excerpted from Geet Chaturvedi’s fiction Simsim. In its simple external reality, the story thinks with images and situations. There is a delicate textuality in the characterizations that take shape in a kind of leisureliness, be it the old man sitting among tattered books in his library or the balloon woman appearing at the start and end of the story, which is very poetic. I have translated the author’s pauses whenever I could, building a balance between language and sensation, between rhythm and vacuum.

Translation: Sindhu Library
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My Grandfather’s Songs

By ALONDRA AGUILAR RANGEL
Translated by JENNIFER ACKER

Piece appears below in both English and Spanish.

 

There are people who express with songs what they can’t express with their own words. My grandfather is one of these people.

Papá José, as we grandchildren call him, is a reserved man, but he has a unique way of talking about his life and expressing his feelings. His hair is now covered in white and his face in lines. He usually wears a pair of gray pants, a flannel shirt, his old sandals and his light brown sombrero. He’s a working man of the countryside.

I visit him only once a year. Like many people from my country, I go to Mexico every December to spend Christmas and New Year’s with my family. It has been twelve years since I left home, the house where I grew up, the dirt streets and brick houses where I spent my childhood on the outskirts of Morelia, the capital of Michoacán. I went to elementary school there, then junior high school, until my family and I moved to the United States. So much time has passed since then. And now I have repeated the family history. Three years ago, I left my parents’ house in California to go study on the other side of the world. I can travel only once a year. The distance and time make me miss my family a lot. I question why we are constantly moving: Why do we keep looking for a better life somewhere else? This is why, for some time now, I have felt the need to talk more with Papá José, to know more about his life. I try to take advantage of every visit to talk to him and listen to his stories.

My Grandfather’s Songs
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The Substitute

By AMAR MITRA
Translated by ANISH GUPTA

ONE

Ask Kartik. He will show you.

Ask Kartik how Hrithik Roshan, the film star, sings, how he walks, and Kartik, the neighbourhood tailor, will show you how he sings and how he walks.

Ask him to show you how superstar Shah Rukh Khan proposes to matinee queen Kajol, when and how he delivers those romantic dialogues, and Kartik’s imitation of Khan will make your jaw drop.

The Substitute
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Jacinta Murrieta

By JULIO PUENTE GARCÍA
Translated by JENNIFER ACKER, with thanks to Luis Herrera Bohórquez


Para Violante, en sus primeros meses

I met Jacinta in the migrant camp where we grew up. I remember that it was the beginning of June, a few days into the start of the harvest. At that time, Jacinta had lived for nine springs—she was two years younger than me—and for obvious reasons she still used her given last name, López del Campo. Those of us who saw her timidly climb the stairs and enter the last shack, which served as our classroom, with her butterfly notebook pressed to her chest and her gaze glued to her sun-toasted legs, never imagined that in less than ten years she’d be proclaimed the artistic heir to Joaquín Murrieta, a figure shrouded in dust but fondly remembered within the Mexican communities settled in the central lands of California.

Jacinta Murrieta
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Translation: “The Old Song of the Blood”

By HUMBERTO AK’ABAL

Translated from the Spanish by MICHAEL BAZZETT

 

Humberto Ak’abal (1952-2019) is widely known in Guatemala. His book Guardián de la caída de agua received the Golden Quetzal award in 1993, and in 2004 he declined to receive the Guatemalan National Prize in Literature because it was named for Miguel Angel Asturias, whom Ak’abal accused of encouraging racism, noting that his views on eugenics and assimilation “offend the indigenous population of Guatemala, of which I am part.”

What does it mean then to meet Ak’abal in English? What does it mean to translate an indigenous writer who spurned institutional accolades from one dominant, oppressive language into another colonial tongue?

Translation: “The Old Song of the Blood”
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