The primary prize for the 2023 Jawad Memorial Prize for Urdu-English Translation has been awarded to “Palestinian,” Poorna Swami’s translation of “Falasteeni” by Fehmida Riaz. The runner-up is Mohd Aqib for “Prohibition,” his translation of “Pabandi” by Ahmed Nadim Qasmi.
This yr the prize switched from fiction to poetry, and the theme in focus was “freedom”, as interpreted by poets. The judges had been the bilingual poet Anisur Rehman and creator Raza Mir.
‘Palestinian,’ Fehmida Riaz, translated by Poorna Swami
“The poem ‘Palestinian’ translated its supply materials with constancy, however with out sacrificing a poetic sensibility of its personal,” stated the jury concerning the translation.
The successful translator Poorna Swami is a author and choreographer from Bangalore. She was previously the India editor-at-large for the worldwide translation quarterly Asymptote, the place she co-edited the journal’s first function on Indian language poetry in English translation. Swami is now a PhD scholar within the Division of South Asian Research at Harvard College, the place she research Twentieth-century Urdu and Hindi literature.
‘Prohibition,’ Ahmed Nadim Qasmi, translated by Mohd Aqib
“The translator has successfully communicated its resistance in opposition to censorship and prohibition,” stated the jury concerning the translation.
Mohd Aqib is a PhD candidate on the Division of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His PhD title is “Aesthetics of Bilingualism in English Self-Translations of Three Submit-Partition Urdu Novels.” His publications embrace translations from Urdu to English, Urdu ghazals, and two co-written e-book chapters investigating the interventions of digital expertise in Indian poetics.
