From: haque@signal.ece.clarkson.edu.soe (Anisul Haque,,,)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: Writing in English?
Date: 6 Oct 92 15:14:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.1992Oct6.151411.15615
Reply-To: haque@signal.ece.clarkson.edu.soe
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

In article ld1otbINN7e6@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM, kabir@kabir.Eng.Sun.COM (Ihtisham Kabir) writes:
> 
> A few weeks ago, I accidentally ran into Begum Rokeya's "Sultana's
> Dream" in the local library. I read it and realized that she had
> written Sultana's story in English. (This clarified why the
> story called "sultanar shopno" that we had to study in class
> nine of ten was so awful - it was a bad translation!) This discovery
> led me to ask this question: why do so few Bengalis write in English?
> 
> Oh come on, I hear you say. Why should they? Who cares, anyways?
> Well, let me relate an anecdote. Last year I ran into a Canadian
> writer who, it turned out, was very fond of Tagore's work. He wanted
> to know more about Bangladesh. I searched and found no book (in print)
> that would do this in a way that exemplified the unique things in 
> Bangladeshi culture. For example, the English translation of "Bangalir
> Hashir Galpa" has long been out of print. In fact, the only knowledge
> of Bangladeshi life this gentleman had was from reading Nirad Chaudhuri's
> "Autobiography of an Unknown Indian" !
> 
> There are of course many reasons why Bengali writers would not want
> to write in English. They write for a Bengali audience, for one.
> Another reason is that we Bengalis have paid such a high price for
> the freedom to use our language at all occasions that we cling to it.
> Among the literati, the humiliation that Michael Madhusudan Dutta
> received when he adopted English and tried to write in it probably
> haunts many subconsciously.
> 
> I think we now have no questions about the security of being able
> use Bengali. We now need to communicate with the rest of the world.
> For this, we need to be able to write in English. More importantly,
> we need to translate those marvelous Bengali works that are already
> written. There is some urgency in this - over the last two decades
> we have developed a reputation as acceptors, or takers. Now let us
> give something back to the world.
> 
> 
> - Ihtisham Kabir
> 
> PS, I am aware that quite a few books have been written by Bangladeshis
> in English on development, but I was thinking more about literature.
> 
> 
> 

Thanks for coming up with an interesting topic. I agree that there are 
quite a few English books available on development but hardly any on 
literature. I find it perfectly natural. 

The way books are written is largely influenced by the publishing 
industry. The author writes the book to share his/her experiences, but 
the publisher publishes to make money. The publishers in our country has 
no mechanism to sell books abroad (except for West Bengal). Also I don't 
think that the global interest on our literature is so intense as to 
support the publishing industry. So naturally, the industry isn't very 
intersted to print English translations. From author's side, since their 
primary interest is to communicate, they are more interested to write 
originals,which naturally are written in Bangla, than to translate. Unless 
patronized by the publishing industry, people are unlikely to go to the
translation business. If I am not mistaken, more books are translated into 
Bangla from other languages than from Bangla to English simply because they 
sell more.

I remember the English translation of Obaidullah's "Aami Kimbodontir Katha 
Bolchi" by Nazimuddin Hashem. It was a beautiful book. Nice translation, 
nice get up and very expensive. I don't see any reasons for Bangladeshis to 
buy it since the original Bangla one is much cheaper. I wonder if enough 
copies were sold to cover at least the expenses.

Finally an unrelated comment! Do you people remember all the great Bangla 
translations of the Russian literature (mostly by Nani Bhaumik) published 
by the progress pubishers of the former Soviet Union? And the books were so Cheap! Although it was a propaganda measure, but it provided us with an 
excellent opportunity to know Russian literature. I have heard that after 
the demise of the Soviet, they have decided to discontinue this project and 
to destroy all the manuscripts which are of no use to them. Isn't there any 
ways to save them? Any comments!

Regards,

Anisul Haque
Clarkson University
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh