Kolkata poetry translation workshop

  • The poets gather at the translation workshop with Siva Kumar
  • Binayak and Nilanjan on a walk
  • The Kolkata translation workshop poets at a performance, 2013
  • Talking at the translation workshop
  • The poets perform at Kolkata Lit Meet
  • Binayak and Doris talking at the workshop
  • Performing at Kolkata Lit Meet
  • Sampurna, Mamta and Doris
  • Lebu, lonka, lobon
  • Akshay and Mamta in Kolkata
  • The loser's chairs, Kolkata
  • Sampurna at Kolkata workshop in a crisp morning chill
  • The Kolkata group
  • SSVAD centre where the workshop took place

Literature Across Frontiers returned to India in January 2013 for our first ever poetry translation workshop in Kolkata. The workshop brought together European poets Doris Kareva (Estonia) and Kathryn Gray (UK/Wales) with lndian poets writing in several languages: Sampurna Chattarji, Binayak Bandyopadhyay, Nilanjan Banerjee and Mamta Sagar. Led by Akshay Pathak, this residential workshop concluded with a performance at the Kolkata Literary Meet. It followed on from our translation workshop in India in 2010 Poetry Connections which also brought together European and Indian poets.

‘Translation is not simply rendering words, of course. Translation is mood, personality, the ghostings of all that has gone into the shaping of those words in the first place.’ Kathryn Gray shared some of her experiences of the Kolkata workshop on the Wales Literature Exchange website.

Sampurna Chattarji also shared one of Doris Kareva’s poems on the Dubious Saints workshop blog.

And here you can watch the poets perform their choreographed reading at the Kolkata Literary Meet…