Journey of Gujarati Women Writers: from Regionalism to Globalism

Book excerpt: For my research I have conducted a comparative study of the select fiction by Gujarati women writers in its original Gujarati and in English translation. The primary texts considered for the same consists of some of the famous fiction by well-know Gujarati authors - Saat Pagla Akashma by Kundanika Kapadia, Vaad by Ila Arab Mehta, Andhari Galima Safed Tapka by Himanshi Shelat and two anthologies of Gujarati short-stories translated in English – Speech and Silence by Rita Kothari and New Horizons of Women’s Writing by Amina Amin and Manju Verma. For this comparative study I have applied Andre Lefevere’s (1945-1996) conceptual framework of ‘Translation as a Rewriting of the Original’ and his concepts of four constraints namely – Ideology, Poetics, Patronage and Universe of Discourse. Apart from this, another important aim of my research was to examine the representation of female gender and scrutinize any instance of manipulation to create a different and more acceptable image of the women of Gujarat. Often it has been observed that the translator’s personal prejudices and cultural background affect the meaning of the original text as well as the character portrayal to suit the convenience of the target language-culture readers. The book also involved a study of the literature of Gujarat with particular focus on the arrival and contributions of women writers to the Gujarati literary spectrum; a comparative analysis of the representation of women in fiction by male and female writers of the state, Along with mainstream literature, folk and tribal literatures too have been considered, especially the gender images they portrait. I have scrutinised select excerpts from both the original fiction and their translations of the primary texts to examine any instances of misrepresentation or ambiguity at socio-cultural-linguistic front as well as in the representation of female self with a theoretical background of general translation theory and Lefevere’s theory in particular with fascinating findings at the end of the research endeavour. In recent years translation studies has emerged as a major academic discipline along with the rise of translation industry with the availability of multiple foreign language texts available in English as well as Indian languages and vice versa. This booming industry also promised ample opportunities to translators assuring not only prestige but also financial security. However, the point under scrutiny is that does the commercialization of the translation industry promote quality translations? In such circumstances, it is essential to conduct a survey to analyse the quality of translations produced and to provide a better guideline to the aspiring translators to make them better equipped with translation technique and theory to help them produce good quality translations while overcoming various hurdles at linguistic, cultural and stylistic levels which are capable to represent the region, culture, society, writer and literature of the original language. This research focuses on this relatively new and less paved area and it is a humble initiative in this direction with an aim to spread awareness towards this much neglected aspect of translation activity.