The H.A.I. Goonetileke Prize for Translations Jury Report

In Arundhati Roy’s essay titled “In What Language Does Rain Fall Over Tormented Cities?” she answers this question, first posed by Pablo Neruda, “I’d say, without hesitation, in the language of translation.” We live in tormented cities, countries, and regions in very tormenting times. We, as the Jury for the H. A.I Goonetileke Prize, are delighted to present this report to you and share with you our journey with the exercise of judging such translations. We had many criteria, but fundamental to us was finding how far our country’s torment, in its various guises, its small joys, and big sadness was captured in the act of translation.

Translating vernacular literature into English has a long and political history tied, largely, to the Orientalist tradition. What was once the province of European Orientalists have today become a robust field of creative output across the South Asian region, where many translators are attempting to bring literary works written in South Asian languages into a greater conversation with other works from the region as well as the world. The prestigious H. A.I Goonetileke Prize and the entries submitted this year are a testament to the continued relevance of this work as well as the creative energy that goes into making intercultural dialogue and understanding possible.

Thus, it is our great honour, as the Jury for the H. A.I Goonetileke Prize for the year 2023 to first congratulate all the translators who took the time and expended creative energy to make literary works written in vernacular languages available in English.

This year, we received 07 translations, all, unfortunately, ONLY from Sinhalese into English. There were no translations from Tamil to English. This was of particular sadness for us, for we felt that for our stories to be told fully, they must be told with many tongues, even when translated into English. We sincerely hope that in the coming years this Prize sets the stage for us to witness the robustness of translation from Tamil to English along with that from Sinhala to English, together and in conversation with one another. Among the seven entries we received were three collections of short stories and four novels. The novels included an early Sinhalese novel, one by a modernist writer, and two contemporary novels. The short stories included two collections by a single author and one anthology collated by the translator. The time and effort that the translators put into their work are admirable, with some translating very long and complex works written in archaic Sinhalese and others translating award-winning works by prominent writers in the contemporary Sinhala literary scene. 

We had several criteria in mind when we set out to read the translations we reviewed. We decided to read the submissions for the readability of the text in English and how far the translation sustained the flow in the source text. Other criteria included gauging how much the text was translated with context, how far the translator managed to draw on the creative use of English in order to translate difficult idiomatic Sinhala. We were also concerned with the translator’s careful attention to remaining faithful to the original as far as possible avoiding both omissions and additions. Every translation is, in some ways, a reinterpretation of an original text. In this instance, we examined the level of adaptation and reinterpretation of the text involved in the act of translating. We also read the texts in the larger context of both Sinhala and English literature today, mindful of the text’s relevance and importance to representing the socio-political realities of contemporary Sri Lanka. While the latter was not a tie-breaker, it did enable us to eliminate some texts that were insensitive or willfully abusive when it came to the representation, particularly, of marginalized groups.

A unique element of our review process was that one of the Jury members could only read the English texts as she knew Tamil but not Sinhala. At every step of the process, she was able to identify distortions, possible omissions and mistranslations, especially those that had political ramifications, without having access to the Sinhala original. Similarly, she was able to identify translations that had a vibrant relationship to the English language while maintaining the integrity of the Sinhala. Having access to Tamil and thus Sri Lanka/South Asia made this insight possible. On the whole, we felt that this element is yet another testament to the power of translation as a praxis that makes room for conversations that can transcend knowledge of specific languages.

We found that the translators chose a variety of texts representing different historical moments and captured the rich multiplicity of Sinhala literature in their choice of texts. The submitted works included genres as varied as the historical novel, modernist writing, and contemporary postmodern writing sometimes bordering on magical realism. They captured an array of thematic concerns including political intrigue, violence and nationalism, migrant experiences, memories and histories of the war, and experiences of women, children, and the aging. While this selection of diverse literary texts was representative, we noted that not all of these original texts were strong enough to produce a complex translation. Some source texts required subtle variation in language that was highly demanding on the translator. In such instances, the choice of text affected the quality of the translation. This year’s entries highlighted the importance of selecting texts wisely. 

Another key area we focused on was how far the translator captured the style and ethos of the source text. Quite troublingly, we often noted instances of both omission and addition. In certain translations, elliptical and highly suggestive paragraphs in the source text were over-translated, with the translator explaining and adding sections obliterating the quality and style of the source text. Such attempts to fill in the text for the reader seriously challenged the translator’s integrity. In other instances, we found that even relatively better translators skipped over challenging sections or were simply careless when translating richly layered sections of the source text. We found such sloppiness even in the better translations that we shortlisted for ourselves, and we urge translators to be careful in not making needless changes to the original. Overall, we felt that greater attention to the original and a commitment to re-presenting the source text without distorting its original style is of utmost importance, particularly when it came to well-known writer’s whose style is the hallmark of their writing.

We found that translators often struggled with rendering the highly idiomatic diglossic Sinhala, in which several of the source texts were constructed, into English. Part of the difficulty, of course, is that English does not readily provide a comparable register, and translators must take significant liberties when making choices about using informal or non-standard forms of English to add variety to the text. Dialogues and long literary descriptions were more or less translated in the same register of English as were the archaic Sinhalese used in some of the older texts or were written in regional dialects. We thought that this was a challenge that most translators needed to work on.

During two challenging years, when the publication industry was extremely aggressive and publishing was expensive, some translators had chosen to publish their work. We would also like to commend the local publishers who took the additional risk of publishing translated literary works in English in a difficult market. We felt that, overall, these are also occasions for local translators to seek more international publishing venues, ensuring that their work reaches a wider audience and both the translations, and the vernacular literature would have better recognition in these markets as well.

It is in this larger context that we chose to award this year’s prize to a translator who took on the challenge of selecting short stories from a wide array of styles and themes, speaking to her ability to, first, understand the importance of picking original works that were well-crafted for translation. The selected anthology consisted of short stories by both male and female writers thereby giving voice to different perspectives and representing the experiences of children, older people, migrant and displaced people, victims of political violence etc., showing a deep sensitivity to the social experiences that shape contemporary Sri Lankan life. Some of the stories were deeply metaphorical expressions of the political realities of Sri Lanka, while others were complex studies of women, love, and sexuality. The translator managed to sustain the interest of the reader, giving a good sense of what the original is like. The short stories presented some unique linguistic challenges. For example, short stories with highly ornate and literary Sinhala were included in the collection as well as ones written almost entirely in only spoken Sinhala. We agreed that the translator had done justice to both, without trying to rewrite the original according to the translator’s own style. We felt that this anthology reflected the quality, variety, and depth of South Asian literature and the role that translation could play in bringing the work of several veteran contemporary writers to readers who cannot read them in their original language.

Thus, it is with great pleasure that we award this year’s H. A.I Goonetileke Prize to Manel Eeriyagama’s Jewels: An English Translation of Selected Sinhala Short Stories by Contemporary Writers. We would like to congratulate all those who submitted their work for the Prize this year, and we hope that the Gratiaen Trust’s continued interest and investment in honouring translators would encourage more translators to continue their challenging, but ultimately rewarding work. As more rain falls on our tormented worlds, we believe that this work will build its own kind of bridges across our divided and unequal realities. Thank you, Gratiaen Trust, for giving us this opportunity, and a big thank you to the organizers of this year’s event whose tireless commitment made our job easy and pleasurable.

Thank you!