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Found in Translation - an Evening with Jerry Pinto

Jerry Pinto

Found in Translation - an Evening with Jerry Pinto

2 September 2016 5 PM

Godrej India Culture Lab was proud to present Jerry Pinto, the Windham-Campbell Prize winningpoet, writer, editor and translator. At our event he spoke about translation. He wants you to know that he knows translation is a doomed enterprise. He knows that you can’t get the local flavours across, not the music of the language, nor the peculiar idioms, but he also wants you to know that he is committed to trying. 

His first translation was Sachin Kundalkar’s eponymous debut novel Cobalt Blue (Penguin India,  2013) which the author described as poetry. He then translated what is arguably the first dalit autobiography in Marathi, Baluta (Speaking Tiger, 2015). The Hindu said: “Jerry Pinto’s translation makes the wait worthwhile.”  Then he translated Vandana Mishra’s I, The Salt Doll, a book that takes in the life of an actress in the Bhangwadi theatre. 

The event was held before he makes his way to Yale to receive the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize.

About Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto lives and works in Mumbai. He has translated Cobalt Blue, Sachin Kundalkar's eponymous debut novel (which was shortlisted for the Crossword Award for Translation), Baluta by Daya Pawar and I, the Salt Doll by Vandana Mishra. Coming up soon: I Want to Destroy Myself by Mallika Amar Sheikh, the powerful autobiography of the Marathi poet and the story of her stormy relationship with Namdeo Dhasal. Jerry Pinto is also the author of Em and the Big Hoom, a novel that won him The Hindu Lit for Life award, the Crossword Award for Fiction and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. He teaches journalism at the Sophia Polytechnic's post-graduate media course, Social Communications Media; is on the board of MelJol, an NGO that works in the child rights' space; acts as advisor to the Jehangir Sabavala Foundation and is a trustee of the People's Free Reading Room & Library.