Rumpelstiltskin. What a weird name and a freaky character, I thought. As we younger kids were listening to my sister telling us the stories in one of those evening story-telling sessions. We could barely see her face as we sat in the shadow of a kerosene lamp that barely lit up the small verandah. But we clearly saw the freaky imp and the girl who spun golden straws. We could see the house that was made full of chocolates and the witch who was waiting for kids to trap them to it. We could not have known those stories and characters if not for the translation and story-telling skills of our elder sister. Those stories had come up from her pre-degree text books.
I was introduced to the classics and world literature through the translations. Remember those beautiful Russian stories that made Masha/Pasha/Thasha a household name among Malayalees? And the works of Victor Hugo, Dostoyevsky and such. Imagine what would have the clergy done if not for the local language translations of the Bible. Translations opened up a whole new world before the readers’ eyes. It helped see the places, people, culture and above all the human emotions are the same everywhere in the world. It gave wings to our imagination which otherwise would have been limited. These days, so many classic and contemporary literature are made available to the non-English speaking Malayalees. And DC Books does a great job on that.
Today, I say a big thanks to all those translators. Our world would have been much smaller without your work. Happy International Translation Day!