Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (MS)
Mangaluru, Oct 19: Renowned writer Jayant Kaikini has been conferred with National Translation Award (NTA) in Prose given by The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) for his work ‘No Present Please: Mumbai Stories’. This was translated from Kannada by Tejaswini Niranjana (Catapult).
The award was conferred on Jayant Kaikini in the 44th annual conference of ALTA, Inflection Points held jointly virtually and in-person in Tucson, AZ. The award was presented by Judge Anton Hur. Kaikini got $2500 in cash. Kaikini had a conversation during the presentation and also held a brief reading.
NTA is the only national award given away for translation by ALTA. This is awarded to any translated fiction, poetry and non-fiction that includes a rigorous examination of both the source text and its relation to the finished English work. The panel of judges for this year included Anton Hur, Annie Janusch and Jennifer Croft.
The judges opined that ‘No Presents Please: Mumbai Stories’ deserves the award for its intimate and life-affirming portrayal of Ordinary citizens of Mumbai. This collection of short stories features a range of people, from a modest shop owner who passes on his late parent’s love, to a Bollywood stunt artiste about to take to the air one more time. Each story is a perfectly crafted world where the unexpected suddenly expands the reader’s horizons in a single thrilling and affecting moment. Jayant Kaikini’s generous vision combines with Tejaswini Niranjana’s virtuoso translation to create a reading experience that is distinctly of its place, and profoundly universal at the same time.
Tejaswini Niranjana is a cultural theorist and translator. She has written several books including ‘Sitting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism and the Colonial Context. She has curated the Saath-Saath project, a set of collaborations between Indian and Chinese musicians, and produced three documentary films relating to music. She has been awarded the Central Sahitya Academy award for her translations from Kannada to English and the JCB prize for South Asian literature.