ATTENTION GUEST TRANSLATORS

Dear guest translators,

This blog is open to guest translators who wish to publish/post their translations. Interested readers can send their translations (Only English Translations). Re-translation of stories/fictions already translated may be avoided. You may consider re-translation if there is a strong justification. Kindly stick to ethical values of plagiarism. Please obtain permission from the copy right holders in applicable cases. (Not applicable to public domain/ nationalised body of literary works). You may send your translations, if interested, to solitaryindian78@gmail.com. While sending the translations, please ensure that original Tamil story is also attached for cross reference. If the original story is available online, you may send the link.  

At present, this blog is primarily meant for posting English translation of Tamil short stories and poems. Do not send full length novels. If you want send any full length novel of any size, you may send it in serialised form at regular intervals. 

Though I won't scrutinize your translations word by word, I personally request you to kindly take note of the following. 

1. This is my personal blog. The contributions in this blog are purely voluntary. The guest translators won’t be paid any honorarium for their contributions. The translators don't have to pay anything to get their works posted in this blog. 

2. Grammar rules are respected here. But I don't expect your language to be high school English with "Wren and Martin" rules. Chaste English is fine but not a preferred bride here. Anyone reading your piece must be able to understand that the translator is not new to the nuances of English language.  

3.  Please keep it readable. The translation should be readable if not commanding the required literary merit. 

4. Please avoid verbosity unless it is seriously required. If you feel that the word ‘suffocation’ is sufficient, stick to it instead of using ‘asphyxiation’ unless you feel that the previous one is insufficient in some aspects.

3. Please ensure that a reader should be able to understand what you convey through your language without overtly digressing from the original text. You may be very good at language but it does not give you liberty to reproduce the original disregarding ethics of translation. You are communicating with the readers through your translations and remember some of them are pretty well versed in English language and translation works (Though they don't translate). 

4.  Before sending, kindly go through your translation at least twice to avoid spelling errors. 

5. Please respect punctuation.   

6. I will be happy to publish your photograph along with original author. Send your photograph and very brief introduction about yourself, if you like. People love to know about translators. 

7. Last but not least, don't rely on Google translator or any such AI tools for translation. If you rely on these tools for literary translation, it will produce nonsense. Mere two lines of literary translation done with the help of these tools will prove it for sure. 

Simple tip for a good translation: (I hope I am not presumptuous. It is only for the beginners) Read as many English novels as possible written after 1950s and novels written in English about Indian society/ contexts. Books by R. K Narayan, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Manohar Malgonkar, Shoba Dey, Chethan Bhagat (though I don't recommend the last two),  would be of great help. Pay attention to actions/situations and emotions described.  

Saravanan Karmegam.