An Afternoon of Translation & Transcreation

Join us for a translation-filled afternoon as we hear from two creators working in two different genres: Zulfadli Rashid, a playwright known for his transcreations of plays such as Haresh Sharma's Hope and Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma, translator of Tamil and Spanish, whose notable translations include The Kural: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural and Give, Eat, and Live: Poems of Avvaiyar. Find out how through their translations and transcreations, they allow their choice work to be more accessible to current-day audiences.

Transcreation 

Marrying the words “translation” and “creation”, transcreation—also known as creative translation—is the act of adapting work from one language to another while keeping in mind the style, intent, tone and context of both languages. In this segment, Zulfadli Rashid will share more about his transcreation journey, which startedin 2015 when he adapted Haresh Sharma's Hope into the Malay language play entitled Harap. Since then, he has translated and adapted Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange into Orang, as well as Chong Tze Chien's Poop into Berak. Both plays went through the process of transcreation into the Malay universe—not necessarily just for the Malay-speaking audience, but rather for a more contemporary theatre audience, regardless of their background.

Zulfadli will shed light on his creative process with Mari Kita Main Wayang by Felix Chia, where he approached transcreation with added complexity, particularly focusing on language intricacies and modernising the thematic elements from the original script, while still ensuring that the form, traditional structure and cultural nuances that define a Peranakan play remain intact.

Translation

In this segment, Thomas will take us "behind the scenes" of his translations from Tamil and from Spanish and share how each one of them ultimately demanded its own poetics and approach. He'll explore the challenges involved in rendering in English the compact verse form of the The Kural: Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural, in conveying the imagery and phrasing of Avvaiyar's poems in Give, Eat, and Live, and in being true to the rhythms and to the silence that make Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo the masterpiece in Spanish that it is.

He will also explore the questions of serendipity and synergy that have been key to his journeys between and across worlds.

This Singapore Book Council programme is held in conjunction with Esplanade's Mari Kita Main Wayang.