he first week of August this year brought me an opportunity to visit Colombo. The Sri Lankan capital is an unlikely setting for a week-long Hindi-Urdu workshop that was part of a new initiative, launched under the banner of South Asian Literature in Translation (SALT) by the University of Chicago, aimed at emerging translators across South Asia.

As someone who began translating literature more than a decade ago without any formal training, attending a workshop with forty other translators was a great opportunity for me. As I told fellow participants on the first day, I had attended only one translation workshop so far. It was held a few years ago at LUMS and was primarily focused on the translation and production of poetry, in a distinctly Pakistani context.

The initiative by SALT reflects the growing recognition of translation as a specialist field. While the West has a long tradition of valuing and recognising translators, South Asia is only beginning to appreciate the significance of literary translations.

During a session on Anglophone publishing, we learnt from a representative of Words Without Borders that in the West, renowned translator Jennifer Croft had led a campaign to have her name credited on the front cover of translated books.

In Pakistan, meanwhile, most critics, writers and publishers believe that it is acceptable for the translator’s name to appear on the first page rather than on the cover.

The forty-odd participants were divided into five workshops focusing on Hindi-Urdu, Bangla, Tamil, prose and poetry. These workshops were led by renowned translators such as Daisy Rockwell, who gained international fame when her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Hindi novel Rait Samadhi (Tomb of Sand) won the International Booker Prize in 2022; Arunava Sinha, who led the Bangla workshop; and Ranjit Hoskote, the translator of Kashmiri mystical poet Lal Ded and, more recently, the Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir.

Early discussions in the Hindi-Urdu workshop revolved around rewriting a text, such as a poem, for a specialist audience. The poems had to be unrhymed. Next, the same poem was rewritten to evoke either a romantic or a horrific tone. The participants were also tasked with translating the poem for a reading culture that did not use verbs before finally imagining an audience that could be potential readers of literary translations in a specific locale.

The locations assigned to the workshop groups included Turkey, Nigeria, Singapore and Dubai. As the days progressed, we began to better appreciate the value of these early exercises. Divided into various groups, the participants started analyzing and breaking down the short story we were tasked with. We edited it for clarity and retranslated it until we arrived at a translation that was both consensual and concise.

One of the highlights of the week-long SALT workshop was the session featuring a conversation with Sri Lankan Man Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka and Geetanjali Shree. Shree left a lasting impression with her insightful observation: “A good translation is a replica that is different.”

She also surprised the audience with her candid admission that Tomb of Sand had done more for her Hindi original Rait Samadhi than it had on its own, with many readers turning to the Hindi version after the success of its English translation.

A significant advantage of the Hindi-Urdu workshop was the presence of Asghar Wajahat, the distinguished Hindi scholar, fiction writer, playwright and scriptwriter. The participants worked on translating, editing and retranslating his short story, Chaadar.

While the West has a long tradition of valuing and recognising translators, South Asia is only beginning to appreciate the significance of literary translations.

On the final day, some passionate debates emerged over the meaning and significance of particular words, expressions and metaphors. The group effort and collaboration may have been precisely what the organisers had intended to emphasise—the value of working together to reach a consensus on the final version of a translated text.

The session where the mentors came together to share their experiences was the highlight of the event. Our mentor, Daisy Rockwell – famous for her ‘ten-draft rule’ before finalising a translation – delivered a ‘five-point manifesto.’ In this, she irreverently turned the conventional wisdom of translation on its head, emphasising that one discovers through translation rather than what is lost. She strongly advocated for creativity. In the workshop she had led, she had expressly forbidden the use of the phrase ‘fidelity to the text.’ She also memorably quoted the renowned translator AK Ramanujan, who once quipped, “Every footnote is a confession of failure.”

Ranjit Hoskote advocated for embracing an ethic of artisanal humility when translating, acknowledging that the text can present more challenges than a translator might initially anticipate, even if they feel confident in their mastery of it.

Other mentors emphasised the importance of re-reading the text several times and not being intimidated by the writer’s reputation when choosing to translate difficult works.

Aron Aji, originally from Turkey, perhaps best captured the spirit of the emerging translators gathered at the SALT workshop when he emphasised the importance of keeping company with peers in the profession. He suggested reading other translations from the source language and exploring work of notable translators from various languages – especially award-winning ones – and comparing various translations of the same work to gain deeper insights into translation methodologies.

Being placed in mixed-group workshops was both fun and fruitful. It allowed us to bond and learn from emerging translators working in other languages and genres. I befriended two translators from Tamil. One of them later introduced me to a potential Tamil publisher – a small feminist publishing house interested in translating the work of by Pakistani women writers into Tamil.

I also approached another Tamil translator after learning that she was the co-author of a book of English translations of Salma, the highly controversial and subversive Indian Tamil feminist poet and activist. Notably, these new Tamil friends of mine spoke fluent Urdu. Some of them treated us to special sweets from Pondicherry.

The short story translation we worked on in the workshop caused some heated discussions over cultural nuances. Even the use of the word chaadar or what shareef/ sharafat might mean or convey was disputed. We also debated whether the metaphor for speed would be better captured by referencing a contemporary, globally recognised runner like Usain Bolt (we ultimately settled on the phrase ‘bolted like Usain Bolt’) rather than an Indian athlete like PT Usha. In the end, everything came together little interference from the author (Wajahat sahib) and the mentor (Rockwell).

At the end of the workshop one was grateful also for the time spent outside the formal sessions with the likes of Asghar Wajahat – whether accompanying him on a stroll to the beach, joining his expeditions to shop for the ubiquitous Lankan masalas, discovering his talent for photography, or enjoying dinner by the sea while discussing his latest novel, Saat Asmaan, to be translated into Urdu in Pakistan.

We were also entertained by countless anecdotes about his encounters with various Indian maharanis and the tantrums of lead actors during the ongoing Bollywood filming of his script Lahore 1947. Equally cherished were the snippets of conversation over lunches and teas with Rockwell, where we exchanged the latest gossip about our favourite translators. I also returned home with a suitcase full of remarkable translations from Hindi, Urdu and Tamil, along with a single pack of aromatic Lankan tea, a gift from a generous host as an exotic souvenir, and fond memories of endless trays of mouth-wateringly fresh papaya, pineapple, watermelon and mango—not found in the season back home.

The inaugural SALT summer school in Colombo rekindled belief in the value of translation, not only in the importance of the translated text itself but also in the significance of staying connected with fellow translators. It underscored the benefits of re-reading, re-editing and, after many drafts and countless debates, finding beauty in consensus.

The serendipitous discovery that some of my fellow participants spoke languages like Gujarati and Pali reinforced our belief that translation is an empathetic exercise, and that language is one of the most beautiful creations of humanity. Looking ahead, one hopes that in future SALT summer schools, languages from currently ‘unrepresented’ South Asian countries like Nepal, the Maldives and Bhutan will be included, and that marginalised languages from dominant South Asian countries—such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Pashto, Balochi, Sinhala, Kashmiri, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu —will also find representation.

One can’t help but vehemently disagree with the Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s claim that translators are like ninjas—if you don’t notice them, they’re doing a good job. The skill and creativity of translators deserve recognition.

Let us look forward to and celebrate the World Translation Day on September 30.

The writer is a Lahore-based writer, critic, translator and researcher. He is currently translating Mumtaz Shireen’s short stories and unfinished autobiography. He can be reached at: razanaeem @hotmail.com. He tweets @raza_naeem1979