Tweets from Sri Lanka – Chamini Kulathunga

Published on the Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation blog.

April 25, 2019

By now, the devastating story of the multiple attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday is no news to the world. Let’s not speak of the lives lost and the damage caused in numbers and figures, for they are only that—numbers and figures. They cannot account for the loss of the victims for their families and fellow countrymen. Instead, here are their thoughts and prayers, in their own words, through translation.
Read the full article in Exchanges

Why Sri Lankan Literature Matters?

“Even within South Asia, Sri Lanka occupies a minority state in terms of both its geography and population. From a translator’s perspective, I couldn’t help but notice that the rate of Sri Lankan contemporary literature that is being circulated (in translation or in the original language/s) and read around the world is comparably lower than the national literatures of many other countries. It is also studied and anthologized much less often than other national literatures of the world. We talk about the infamous “3% factor” of annual literary translation publications in the US, but we’ve hardly ever seen or heard about a translation from the Sinhalese making it to the languages that contribute to that percentage, right”

-Interview with Project Plume