Words, Texts, and Meanings

The book introduces students to the importance of translation and answers various questions in the process: How should students approach the complexities of linguistic transfer both literary and non-literary? How much history of translation should they know? Given the power of European theorists and the uncounted wealth of Indian poetics how much theory should they learn? How might they engage in the joy of creating their own translations and discussing them with others?

Designed to encourage interactivity in the classroom, this book follows a self-instructional format combined with experiential learning principles. It is an attempt to open a door to the interdisciplinary zone of translation to both teachers and students through bilingual presentations of poetry in Kannada; in Tamil, both ancient and contemporary, including Dalit verse; fiction from Bengali and Tamil; and an excerpt from a play in Hindi.