SOURCE: THE HINDU

My literary hero, the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o, once said that for most writers (and publishers), heaven is divided into French, German, Spanish and English. Since 2014, when he delivered that speech, a powerful stream has opened another gate into paradise. This force, which has always operated in the building blocks of knowledge, but not properly recognised for what it is, he described as the language of languages: translation.

Heaven now has more than four lanes. Through this medium flows the novelty of experiences from translated languages. A bit of a shock to the literary system which still has some difficulty accepting even the possibility that there might be riches stored in languages other than what a European heaven has to offer.

Aime Cesaire (poet and politician from Martinique) said that language contact through translation was “the oxygen of civilisation”. Both Ngugi and Cesaire refer to the capacity of translation to build, to connect, to renew meaning and life — in short, to create. Where would the giants of world literature be without translators and their skills? We experience second-hand, what the translator did first-hand as she internalised and travelled with the original experience into the target language.