The translators of some the best books I have read. On this World Book Day, this a thank you note from me to them.This one is inspired after listening to brilliant podcast by @amitvarma with @arunava on the art of translation - https://seenunseen.in/episodes/2020/4/12/episode-168-the-art-of-translation/ # #books #translations

This not done in any particular order. Just whatever comes to my mind. Without them we would not be able to read so many books from so many different languages

1. Gregory Rabassa & Edith Grossman. They did some of the best books of Marquez. If not for them, we wouldn't have read it the way it is beautifully written. In fact entire Kerala is indebted to them, because I believe the Malayalam translations are done from the English ones

2. Margaret Jull Costa. She did Saramago's The Double & The Elephant's journey and a few others. She is also the translator of Javiar Marias' Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me

3. A. V. M. Narayanan. He translated Srikrishna Alanahalli's Kannada classic, Bhujangaya's Dashavathara into Malayalam. He did Alanahalli's other books too.

4. Hugh Aplin. Translated Bulgakov's masterpiece Master and Margarita. Brilliant.

5. Anne Born who translated this beautiful book called Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

6. Khalid Hasan who translated Toba Tek Singh by Manto

7. Natasha Wimmer & Chris Andrews. Natasha rranslated Bolano's Savage Detectives and 2666. Chris translaed these beautiful set of stories from Bolano. Last Evenings on Earth. It is a terrific one.

8. P. N Moodithaya & Gopakumar V. They translated Shivarama Karanth's Chomanadhudi.

9. M. K. N. Potti for translating one of the best that has come out of Bengali literature. Tarasankar Banerjee's Aarogyaniketan

10. Margaret Sayers Pedan. Translating Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo is no mean achievement. I have read the Malayalam translation by Vilasini as well. Hats off to both of them.

11. John Nathan. Translated Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.

12. Joachim Neugroschel. The translator of The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth. One of the best books I have read last year. The best political novel as described by Llosa.

13. That brings me to Llosa. Helen Lane & Edith Grossman did two of his best books; Aunt Julia & the scriptwriter, and The Feast of the Goat respectively.

14. James Naughton. Translated Hrabal's The little town where the time stood still in the most beautiful manner.

15. Srinath Perur translated Vivek Shanbag's brilliant Ghachar Ghochar to English from Kannada. That's a must read I would say. I feel the tension even now.

16. Mark Fried translated Galeano's Football in Sun and Shadow. What beautiful prose. Thank you.

17. Sudhakaran Ramanthali. He directly translated Kambar's Shikharasurya from Kannada to Malayalam. That's an achievement I would say.

18. Ross Mackenzie & Shika Mackenzie. They translated the Japanese thriller Tokyo Zodiac Murders.

19. Philip Gabriel & Jay Rubin translated Murakami's Kafka & Norwegian Wood. I love Norwegian Wood more than Kafka, so Rubin scores :)

20. Edward G. Seidensticker for translating Kawabata's Thousand Cranes.

21. N Kalyan Raman @kalyanasc for translating Ashokamitran's The Ghosts of Meenambakkam from Tamil.

22. P. A. Bien for translating Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation.

Man, indeed is a brute!

23. Alexandra Keeble. She did a translation of The Motorcycle Diaries by Che. And that is absolutely brilliant.

24. Anna Summers, who did Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In.

25. Wrapping this off with a masterpiece from a master. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for translating Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime & Punishment and Brother's Karamazov. Phew!