An Analysis of Spivak’s Translation of Mahasweta Devi’s Essay

Mahasweta Devi is a very well known figure in modern contemporary Bengali Literature and also a Ramon Magsaysay Award winner for her tremendous works in the field of literature mainly on tribals and marginalized people. Gayatri Spivak played a great role in making Mahasweta Devi known to the literature world through her translations and her work of subaltern studies on Devi’s texts. Spivak has translated many texts of Mahasweta Devi from Bengali into English. Translation has its own problems and issues and has been discussed at large and these issues and problems are matter of concern for every translator. The present paper is concerned with the problems which emerged after reading the select translated text â€Å"Draupadi† and what English/Western readers are deprived of while reading the translated text. Mahasweta Devi (1926- ) is a prolific Bengali writer and a very active social activist. Her works for the upliftment of the tribal people is extra ordinary. Along with the tribal people, she has also dedicated her struggles for all the subalterns, who are the victims of the system and class. Her works like Bashai Tudu, Chhota Munda and His Arrow, Rudali, Mother of 1084, â€Å"Douloti†, â€Å"Draupadi†, â€Å"Breast-giver†, etc. gives a realistic picture of the society where protagonists are oppressed and suppressed by the different tools of the system. Major portions of her writings are journalistic in nature and are directed against the mainstream. According to her mainstream people are the mute spectators and are very much part of the exploitations inflicted upon the subalterns. Though all her stories are written in Bengali, most of the works of Devi has been now translated into English and other languages for wider readership. While talkin... ...rding to Bertrand Russel, â€Å"no one can understand the word ‘cheese’ unless he has a nonlinguistic acquaintance with cheese.† (2000:113). To conclude we can say that whatever measures a translator may take but there will be always loss of information. The best a translator can do is to minimize the loss. Bengal with its rich culture, traditions and religious values it becomes all the more tough for the translators to avoid the dilution of those values. Works Cited 1. Devi, Mahasweta. Spivak, Gayatri C, trans. Breast Stories. Calcutta: Seagull Books.2010. 2. Spivak, Gayatri C. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen.1987. 3. Venuti, Lawrence, Ed. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge.2000. 4. Sen, Nivedita and Nikhil Yadav, ed. Mahasweta Devi: An Anthology of Recent Criticism. New Delhi: Pencraft International.2008.