'Timeless Tales from Bengal' brings well-known Bengali children's stories in translation to a wider audience

The book was unveiled at Kolkata's South City Mall outlet of popular lifestyle store Starmark, recently, in the presence of Bengali writer Bani Basu, actor Surangana Banerjee, former civil servant Prasad Ranjan Roy and others.

Dipankar Roy and Sourav Dasthakur, professors at the Department of English, Visva Bharati University, translated the stories from original works by leading Bengali authors.

Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, director of Niyogi Books, in his welcome address, said that this is the first time that Niyogi Books was working with Bengali literature.

He also stressed the importance of translating popular works to make them available to a wider audience.

Bengali literature is rich in content and translated works are an opportunity for non-Bengali readers to explore the writings of authors like Sukumar Ray, Manik Bandyopadhyay, Upendrakishore Ray, to name a few, he said.

Roy and Dasthakur shared their experience too. The idea occurred to them during a workshop in their university, they  said.

However, obtaining the copyrights of the stories from the legal heirs of the original authors was not always easy, they said.

Author Bani Basu pointed out that the book was an important step towards translating children’s books even though she felt that a few important ones have been left out.

Roy and Dasthakur too agreed that it was not an easy task selecting the stories for the anthology as there are so many stories for children and young adults in Bengali literature..

Sourav Dasthakur said he hoped that this book would encourage other authors and translators to take up more projects like this.

Trisha Dey Niyogi, marketing head Niyogi Books, during her vote of thanks, added that she hoped that even adults may find the book interesting because of the stories.

(Reporting by Tirna Chatterjee)