‘Trans-creating’ across cultures

Sajitha PREMATUNGE

Vijita has always been a writer, but not those mushy melodramatic bits of poetry that school girls would usually write. Though she read Sinhala at the university she had not written anything in Sinhala. “I tried, but could never get it right,” confesses Vijita our next encounter. According to her, almost in exasperation she wrote the short story in English.

This marked the beginning of her literary career. On a whim she sent the short story – Missia – to the BBC and to her surprise it was broadcast.

She was introduced to translation while she was working at the Daily News as a journalist. Surely Namel Weeramuni, Vasantha Obeysekera and Siri Ranasinghe would not take offence if they knew that Vijita referred to them as ‘boys whose stories’ she translated and carried in the Daily News book page. “Writing a short story to be translated into English and published in the Daily News was a privilege at the time,” explained Vijita Fernando.

Q: As a judge of short story competitions and organiser of writing workshops, what is your comment on contemporary writing?

A: Most writing is substandard. But what’s worse is nobody tells these amateur writers about the poor quality of their writing. As a result of their self conceit they are driven to publish prematurely. They should be advised, but not looked down on.

Q: But shouldn’t substandard writing be discouraged?

A: Substandard writing should not be published, but not discouraged. Newspapers today, publish almost any poem that comes their way, this should be discouraged as this gives unwarranted publicity to substandard literary ventures.

Q: How did journalism inspire you to write?

A: It involves a lot of writing. But being a journalist doesn’t make you a good writer. However the training you receive through being a journalist, the discipline in writing and the accuracy, benefited my literary career.

Q: Why haven’t you written any novels?

A: I have just finished my first novel - Somewhere. It’s more of a novella. I am just doing the final touches. It is set in a village. Some romanticize the village, but there is much more to write about the village even without doing so. I am planning to publish it along with a few short stories.

The reason for the overdue publication is that I am a perfectionist. I cannot bring myself to publish something unless it is perfect. I often send it to be reviewed before it is published. This is something that amateur writers do not do.

Q: Why haven’t you written anything in Sinhala?

A: Although I have read Sinhala at the university, it just doesn’t come to me naturally. I know it’s a strange thing to say, but it takes a lot of effort to write in Sinhala. It was only recently that I was able to translate a book, Man-Eater of Punanai by Christopher Ondaatje, to Sinhala.

Q: Why do feminist issues interest you?

A: Because women are still not treated equally in Sri Lanka. By ‘equal’ I mean equal in intelligence ability and efficiency. Just because a woman is a housewife that does not make her a second class citizen. Sri Lankan women rarely get the deserved credit or status. The worse thing is that it is not only men that treat women as inferior to them, but women themselves regard their kind as inferior and week. But this is changing.

Q: Why are you preoccupied with the under privileged?

A: I wouldn’t call it ‘being preoccupied’, but I deal with the underprivileged because they are all around me. About 30 years ago there was only one latrine, for 500 people, in the slum across the road from my house. Human excreta would be allowed to run down the road. It was so filthy and was notorious for moonshining that the MOH flatly refused to even visit it.

Surprisingly it was the much maligned middle-east migration that finally turned things around in the slum. There is a huge downside to middle-east migration. The husbands go astray; children are neglected by grandparents who are too old to care for them. But despite all these, it brought money into the slums. Building latrines was the first thing the women who came from abroad did. It was not out of hygienic concerns but due to the need for privacy.

Q: What attracts you to topical issues like drug addiction and employment in the Middle East?

A: I encountered these issues as a journalist. There are good stories there. However I am not in it just for the story value, I am intrinsically and genuinely interested in issues concerning human beings.

Q: You are fond of rural settings, what’s your connection to it?

A: I was born in a village off Hikkaduwa. Although I stayed there only until I was about twelve, I have my roots there. It’s a very fertile source for writers.

Q: Can a creative writer effectively address his or her reader in a foreign language, English for example?

A: We have a very small English readership. There is a larger readership for Sinhala. However as far as ‘effect’ goes I doubt that the normal Sri Lankan reads much, they are more interested television and movies. Besides, most of them don’t have the time to read.

Q:What was the message behind ‘Wedding in the Family’?

A: I am not in that elevated position where I can afford to convey morals or messages through my writing. I write simply out of interest. However ‘Wedding in the Family’ does have a germ of truth in it. It is fiction based on a true incident.

Q: What do you mean by ‘traffic across linguistic and cultural barriers’, in referring to translation?

A: This is one of the main characteristics of a good translation. By translating a French work of literature into English, the writer brings to the English reader some cultural background of France.

Translation is one way of introducing foreign cultures. We have a huge body of Sinhala literature, without translations these will be virtually unknown to the rest of the world.

Q: Is language competence sufficient to make a good translator?

A: Creative writing involves only one language, translation involves competence in two languages. However it also requires a lot of background knowledge about the original work.

A translator has to have a sense of culture about the original work and the translation.

It is not mere translation of one language to another, rather it is a ‘trans-creation’. The end result is a work of literature in its own right, perhaps quite different from its original.

Q: Do you think the introduction of the Ian Goonatilleke Prize is discrimination of translations? Should translations and creative writing be treated equally?

A: When I won the first Gratiaen for Out of the Darkness, translation of Gunadasa Amarasekara’s Novel Asathya Kathawak and its sequel Premaye Sathya Kathawa, in 2003, it came under a lot of criticism, due to the mere fact that it was a translation.

But Michael Ondaatje specifically mentions that translations be included in the competition.

It was only after this that the Ian Goonatilleke prize was introduced. The irony is that the first Ian Goonatilleke prize was not awarded and I won it the year after.

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