The character “Khabees Orat. portrays the opposite of what an average Pakistani woman is expected to be, in return becoming the representation of the inner voice of a large majority of local women. ” Where “orat” can literally be translated into “woman”, “Khabees” is a combination of “notorious,” “wicked, “dishonorable,” “devilish” and “corrupt” qualities.
Sumaira Nawaz reflects on Urdu educational texts in colonial North India and how they informed new sensibilities and identities across religious divides
Tedros Abraham takes us on a journey across time and continents, comparing the way three women poets in Ancient Greece, India and Eritrea claim immortality through their poems and rebel against social norms
In an ecocritical reading of Hindi author Phaniswarnath Renu, Amul Gyawali explores the dichotomies in his writing: state-society, centre-periphery and, crucially, man-nature
Javed Majeed joined us for an informative and enjoyable reading group where we discussed his work on the Linguistic Survey of India and its superintendent, George Grierson.
When does a book become part of world literature? When it is translated into a major language, published by a metropolitan publisher and endorsed by renowned writers? So why has Qurratulain Hyder’s novel failed to register?
Statistics show that only between 3 - 5% of literary books published in the UK are translations. Ann Morgan in A Year of Reading the World writes about the difficulty in finding out about and getting hold of translations, even in the age of global publishing.
What happens when a text from 17th century India passes through a double translation over the next two centuries? Qurratulain Hyder's translation of Hasan Shah's The Nautch Girl reveals some of the changes that occur when texts move across time and space.
