This grant supports a fiction writer to translate six of his short stories from Gujarati into English in collaboration with a screenplay writer and a writer and producer of radio programmes on the arts. These translations will constitute an independent publishable outcome of the project and also form the basis for radio scripts and screenplays.

Gujarati writer Harish Nagrecha’s short stories have been published in several well-known Gujarati publications as well as in book form. He has for long not just wanted his stories to be translated into English and gain a wider audience but also be carried over into other media. This project combines these two goals effectively. Collaborating with him are Jasleen Vohra, a media presenter, and a writer and producer who works extensively in both radio and television, and Mariam Jetpurwalla, a screenplay writer and producer and director of dramatic fiction for television. The collaboration will result in translations of six of Harish’s short stories into English, six scripts for half-hour radio-plays in Hindi and six screenplays in Gujarati for half-hour tele-films.

Mariam will translate a selection of Harish’s stories into English, which will be published independently. These translations will also form the basis for the radio scripts that Jasleen will write, while Harish will produce screenplays in Gujarati of the same six stories. The collaboration is also expected to generate insights into the challenges of adapting fiction across media and the craft of translating fiction.

Over a ten-month period, the collaborators will systematically exchange notes on writing in their different mediums, select stories for translation and adaptation, discuss these stories and identify the broad parameters within which they will be translated and adapted, work on drafts for each, and critically evaluate these drafts before finalising them. There will also be a mid-stage review of the project ‘to provide an opportunity for each collaborator to comment on the difficulties or challenges of the stories worked on for cross-media or cross-language adaptations.’

December 2000