Bangla Translations of Latin American Poetry: A Critical Study

Abstract

The aim of this study is to map the reception of Latin American Poetry within the corpus of the Bangla world of letters for three decades, from 1980 to 2010. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the influence and reception of Latin American Literatures in Bangla was reflected primarily in the introductions to translations, preludes, and conclusions of translations. During the late 1960s and the early 1970s Latin American poets like Pablo Neruda, Victoria Ocampo, Octavio Paz, and Jorge Luis Borges had caught the attention of eminent Bangla poets like Bishnu Dey, Shakti Chattopadhyay, and Shankha Ghosh who started taking interest in their works. This interest soon got reflected in the form of translations being produced in Bangla from the English versions available. The next two decades saw the corpus of Latin American Literatures make a widespread entry into the world of academic essays, journals, and articles published in little magazines along with translations of novels, short stories and poetry collections by leading Bangla publication houses like Dey’s Publishing, Radical Impressions, etc. This period was marked by a proliferation of scholarship in Bangla on Latin American Literatures. By the 21st century, critical thinking in Latin American Literatures had established itself in the Bangla world of letters. This chapter in particular studies the translations of Latin American poetry by Bengali poets like Shakti Chattopadhyay, Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Bishnu Dey, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Shankha Ghosh, Biplab Majhi among many others. The analysis relates to issues they focus on including themes like self, modernity, extension of time and space, political and poetic resonances, and untranslatability. Through a step by step research of the various stages of translation activities in Bengal and Bangla, it traces how translations of Latin American Literatures begin to take place on literary grounds that had already become sites of engagement with these issues. The chapter further explores the ways in which all these poet-translators situate their translations in relation to the issues of concern. In addition, it also addresses the question of what they hence contribute to Bangla literature at large. I first chose to explore the ways in which these issues are framed in the reflections and debates on translation in India and Bengal in the 20th century. Thereon I have tried to show how these translations of Latin American poetry developed their own thrust in relation to these issues and concerns.