Literary Translation and Bengali

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In seven chapters, two appendices, and bibliography. Aditi Ghosh, who was a Research Fellow in Language and Linguistics in the Asiatic Society, presents an explanation, with many examples, of a difficult subject in a style and form which deserves appreciation. The book is a commendable linguistic work, replete with sound and logical analysis of the technique of Bengali and English translations. The theories of translation have also been analysed with historical references. In Appendix I and Appendix II. The author has presented two translations of two writings from Lila Majumdar's Kheror Khata. These translations are very good. The bibliography is by and large comprehensive. I hope that this work would be appreciated by the readers.

This book is an attempt to analyse and explore the multifaceted discipline of literary translation. This is also a product of my research project undertaken at the Asiatic Society, which lasted for about three years. It has to be mentioned here that Translation Studies, though a topic of great intrigue, was not my first choice when I was granted the research fellowship in Language and Linguistics at the Asiatic Society. The topic and the method of analysis were decided upon in consultation with Prof. Ujjal Kumar Majumdar, my guide-supervisor for the project and a great enthusiast for Translation Studies. Whereas I have some doubts over whether I did justice to this widely researched topic, there is no doubt that I immensely enjoyed doing this work. Reading and re-reading translations of great masters like Tagore. Satyendranath Dutta. Bisnu Dey and Sudhindranath Dutta was in itself a truly enriching and rewarding task.

This book is divided in seven chapters, of which the first deals with Translation Studies in general. It attempts to summarise the whole plethora of theories, outlooks and strategies on Literary Translation- the linguistic as well as cultural, the Target Language/cultural oriented and Source Language oriented, the literal and free etc. This chapter also tries to follow the history of translation theory through ages and in different parts of the world. The following five chapters adopt a descriptive comparative approach and look into some literary translations. The first of these, the second chapter of the book. Looks into the approach taken by two translators when translating the same story written by Tagore. One of these translations is by Tagore himself. The third chapter deals with another instance of Tagore's copious self-translations, in this particular occasion he translates the same poem twice at different times and for different volumes. Chapter four tries to demonstrate of how translations invariably bear the mark of the translator. This is done through a study of Bengali translations of Shakespeare's sonnets by various translators- many of whom are celebrated poets Bengal. The chapter also brings in the question of the 'originality of the translated text.

**Contents and Sample Pages**