TRANSLATION AS CREATIVE WRITING

 

 

            In olden days, translation was considered as a mere rendering of SLT in TLT.  Many scholars and translators considered translation as creative process and as new writing.  Best translations are that does not read like translation at all.  Translation theories have undergone sea change with the modern critical theories.  Modern critical theories give new meaning to literature.  Based on their argument, we could easily say that translation is creative for it recreates SLT into TLT.

            A translator is a reader, an interpreter and a creator.  Sir Aurobindo says “a translator is not necessarily bound to the original he chooses; he can make his own poem out of it, if he likes…”

            Old classics, in our country, like Upanishads, Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata have been rendered into many languages of India and the world.  Every such rendering is called as a new writing.

            K. Ayyapa Panikar says that the evolution of translation in our country began in the middle ages with the translation of Sanskrit classics like epics and puranas.  They were translated without exactness and accuracy.  These works are translated based on the features of the target language and the taste of the target readers.  The Aryan texts were translated to the Dravidian or south Indian languages, they were localized.  These localized versions are well received by the public and there is nothing alien about them.  These stand an example for the fact that translation is more of creation and not mere imitation.

            The concept of translation as a creative writing can be better understood if we examine the works of self-translators.  Self-translators are people who write the same work in two languages.  For example, Tagore’s Gitanjali in English is vastly different from his original Bengali version.  Manoj Das, a bilingual writer in Oriya and English, writes a short story in Oriya and gives sometime to translate it into English.  He keeps the plot of the story but changes many details while translating it in English.  He creates a new version in English.  Both their writings, language 1 and language 2, should be considered as new writings and creations.