An exclusive excerpt from Out of Sri Lanka- Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas edited by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett. (Published by Penguin India, 2024)
- Editors: Vidyan Ravinthiran, Seni Seneviratne and Shash Trevett
- Pages:424
- Price: INR 599
- Publisher: Penguin India(Vintage)
When choosing Tamil and Sinhala poems we were reliant on existing translations, some of which were excellent, some not so good. All too often we found translations which prioritised the literal over the aesthetic. As Walter Benjamin has written, those who merely ‘transmit’ meaning from one language to another ‘cannot transmit anything but information – hence, something inessential’. These ‘inessential’ translations failed to capture the cadence, the lilt of the original poem; we had to make decisions on whether to include an important poet, poorly translated, or to leave them out of the book. Regrettably in a few cases we opted for the latter, deciding that it was better for the poet to be absent than to have their work represented by a translation which failed to sing. It is our hope that in the future, a commitment to translating Tamil and Sinhala poetry might become a priority in the country, with funding, mentoring and editorial assistance being given to a new generation of translators, who, build- ing on the work of Chelva Kanaganayakam and Lakshmi Holmström, Ranjini Obeyesekere and Lakshmi de Silva (to name but a few), would keep poems from the past relevant to changing times.