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Recently, JN Dahal’s Nepali novel Prahelika has been translated into English as Her Innocence Discovered. In this interview with Arjun Pradhan of The DMN News, Bal Ram Adhikari, the book’s translator, shares the inspiration behind the project, the challenges of adapting cultural and thematic nuances for a global audience, and the novel’s exploration of asexuality, identity, and gender discrimination. Adhikari, who holds a PhD in literary translation, is a lecturer in English Education at Tribhuvan University, as well as an accomplished educator, trainer, translator, and translation researcher.

What initially attracted you to translate ‘Prahelika’? Did you see it as particularly significant or relevant for an English-speaking audience? 

My encounter with the novel ‘Prahelika’ was a coincidence. I should better call it a serendipitous encounter. One random day last year I saw a message on my Facebook Messenger from JN Dahal, the author. The message was about his forthcoming Nepali novel. During the Facebook Chat that followed, I came to know that the author knew me through our mutual poet friend Nabin Prachin and had read some of my English translations. He wanted to translate the novel into English and asked me whether I was interested in working as a translator. I could not accept the offer instantly without going through the novel, which was yet to hit the shelves.

Usually, I choose to translate the book only if it appeals to my readerly conscience and sensitivity and if I see its relevance to a broader readership. After receiving the soft copy of the novel’s manuscript, I first scrolled through the chapters and then delved into the story.  Initially, three things caught my attention: chapterization of the story,  the themes of the Nepali-American diaspora and asexuality, and the story’s unfolding mainly through dialogues. I liked the way the stories of the two female protagonists interwoven in alternative chapters before they come to discover that they both suffer almost the same fate at the hands of their male partners. I liked this style which reminded me of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and Kafka on the Shore, two of my favorite readings.

I thought that English-speaking readers with diverse cultural backgrounds would easily relate to the stories of these characters struggling for their identities in the diasporic space and liberation from patriarchal sexual and gender norms. Moreover,  I had a feeling that the readers would find the girl’s struggle to discover her asexuality, challenging the abusive patriarchal ego appealing and thought-provoking. 

Translating literature often involves balancing literal meaning with cultural nuances. How did you approach maintaining the cultural essence of Prahelika in Her Innocence Discovered? 

These are the problems faced by all literary translators and they become more acute when the literary text is inhabited by characters with diverse cultural baggage. Cultural nuances defy literal translation, thereby calling for the translator’s creativity. Talking about this novel, the characters are, among others, from Nepali, American,  Irish and Russian backgrounds. At times these culturally diverse characters left me muddleheaded. Interestingly, I even had to struggle in deciding the spellings of the names of some of the non-Nepali characters. Is it Myles or Miles? Grayson or Greyson, for example? The same was true for the names of the places.

An interesting paradox was that I was translating a Nepali novel set in the present-day multicultural American context. That is to say, I could understand its language but had very limited information about the cultural context. To navigate such challenges, I adopted the method of close translation that demanded multiple rounds of close reading of the novel before and during translation and linear rendition of source text sentences. Moreover, the Google search was a great help for me to get additional information about the places and events described in the novel. Likewise, I turned to the author at times for the cultural and contextual information about the characters, places, and events.  

Anushka’s journey of self-discovery and her struggle with intimacy are sensitive themes. How did you ensure these complexities were handled with care in the translation? 

You’re right. This novel tells the tale of a newlywed Nepali girl who, unaware of her own biological sexual identity, marries an Irish boy. She is plagued by confusion, dilemma, and identity crisis regarding her sexual orientation until she discovers her true sexual self.  It was a real challenge for me to capture the nuances implicated in her predicament and  the journey of self-discovery and re-express them in English. From the onset, I knew that I could not do justice to this novel without relating to her battle for self-discovery. This required me to read the text multiple rounds, connect myself to the character(s) and talk with the author several times. To delve further into the issue, I constantly read online materials on asexuality that included Wikipedia, personal stories and research reports. It means I was reading, reflecting, researching and connecting to make better sense of the text and find better English expressions to re-articulate it in English.  

Was there a particular passage or scene in the novel that you found challenging to translate, and how did you overcome those challenges?

Several chunks posed challenges for me to translate because they contained expressions or sentences that read syntactically and/or semantically ambiguous, contextually dislocated or culturally alien to me. In the case of ambiguous expressions, I had to resort to the macro context of the story and the micro context of the problematic expressions to work out what the author actually intended to communicate through them. Similarly, I consulted the author to supply additional meanings of culturally unfamiliar chunks.

One such example from the novel is the description of a subdivision with a Deer Crossing sign. The description is so long that it runs a paragraph with nearly a hundred words. I could not translate the paragraph without understanding the meaning and function of the sign. To negotiate this problem, I first googled it, and later consulted the author who emailed me a short note on it. Most daunting of all was translating dialogues. I often felt consumed by doubt and uncertainty about the idiomaticity and colloquiality of the exchanges between the characters. Apart from using the online resources, I counted on the author and the editor for the further refinement of the dialogues in English translation. 

In your view, how does the story of Anushka and Mrs. Sharma resonate with global audiences, and did you adapt any elements to make it more accessible? 

I strongly believe that the story of these two female protagonists strikes chords with the global audience. Their predicament and struggle for emancipation from oppressive patriarchal expectations transcend any cultural or national boundaries. Moreover, both women find themselves in a fluid transcultural/transnational space where miscommunication,  misunderstanding and clashes of norms and expectations are everyday phenomena. Their story is the fate of the majority of the people living in the diaspora. More importantly, Anushka’s self-discovery of her asexual identity conveys a deep message that coming to terms with one’s true identity is both liberating and transformative. I think this message has a global appeal. 

No. I did not adapt or alter anything noticeable in the English version as such. However, certain sentences obviously underwent creative adjustment that involved syntactic modification, for example,  merging simple sentences and splitting complex ones to enhance clarity and coherence. Likewise, contextual information was added where necessary.  Consequently, the English version appears more explicit and linguistically and contextually less ambiguous than the source text.      

What were some of the most significant cultural references or idioms in Prahelika that required careful consideration to convey effectively in English? 

Translation of cultural and linguistic specificities is highly elusive and seemingly impossible, as searching for their equivalents often becomes a wild goose chase for the translator. I had to navigate through several cultural references and idioms that at times left me with a sense of inadequacy or failure. Such items included names of food (e.g. masala kalo chiya, chicken thukpa), greetings and terms of address (e.g. dhog garey Didi), idioms (e.g. nidra udnu,  man-ma chiso pasnu), and interjections (e.g. arrey!) . Taking care of their nature and the textual contexts where they appeared, I handled creatively such specificities ingrained in Nepali culture. They required me to navigate between preserving source cultural meanings and ensuring their accessibility to English-speaking readers.

Certain Nepali cultural terms or expressions were transferred to the English text, yielding such hybrid forms as a masala black tea, No way Arrey! and Namaste Didi! Such transplantation of Nepali terms into the English text was strategically motivated to retain something of the local color and flavor. Efforts were made to translate Nepali idioms by replacing them with functionally equivalent English idioms to ensure the idiomaticity of the English text. 

How does the translation process impact your relationship with the text? Do you feel as though you become a co-creator in bringing this story to new audiences? 

As a translator, I find my relationship with the source text ambivalent. Initially, I enter the text as an outsider, full of doubt, uncertainty, expectations, excitement, and predictions. As my interaction with the text deepens, I begin to take possession of other’s text. Intimately, not coercively. I cannot proceed ahead without the intimate possession of the source text.

During translation,  I gradually take up the writerly position i.e. as if I am writing my own text using someone else’s material.  I feel that I’m co-authoring the text. In this co-authorship, the author is the possessor of the content, context, and style of the text, whereas the translator owns the process and the medium (i.e. language) of re-creation. When you’re reading this English translation, you’re reading my language, not the author’s. My author reaches a different audience through my language. In essence, a translated text is collaboratively owned by the author and the translator.  

What role do you think literature plays in addressing topics like asexuality and gender discrimination, and how does ‘Her Innocence Discovered’ contribute to these conversations? 

Her Innocence Discovered boldly takes up the subjects of asexuality, intimate partner violence and the ensuing identity crisis that the protagonists undergo. Issues like racism, adultery, asexuality, and intimate partner violence are largely considered taboos and do not often become the topics of public discourse.  Such culturally perceived discomfort issues are often excluded from the mainstream institutionalized discourse. Historically, literature provides the best avenue for exploring such socially and emotionally complex issues. In my reading, this novel joins the ongoing global discourse about the sexual minority’s recognition and women’s right to their bodies. Moreover, it has an emancipatory agenda for women, challenging the hierarchical and binary gender division imagined and imposed by patriarchy.     

Now that the book has been published and is reaching a global audience, what impact do you hope Her Innocence Discovered will have on readers, both within and outside the Nepali community?

The book has just come out. The initial responses from the readers and the reviewers are positive and encouraging. However, I am not in a position to say anything about its impact on the readers now. Let’s see what the future holds for the book and by extension for its author and the translator.