“We are offering a Hindi-to-English workshop for the very first time and are proud that renowned translator Mohini Gupta will be teaching it,” says Bristol Translates co-director Holly Langstaff. “We know that it is difficult for translation enthusiasts and even professionals in India to afford a course fee of the kind that we have to charge to run in the UK. The Charles Wallace India Trust thus provides something that is invaluable to a group of people we value and want to serve.”
In a statement, the Trust says, “We are very pleased to partner with Bristol Translates and to offer new opportunities for translators to develop and hone their skills. In an era when Climate Change is a serious concern, the Charles Wallace India Trust is looking for new ways of international working and an online initiative that brings together literary professionals from across India and the UK, seemed to be an excellent idea.”
Bristol Translates decided to match the Trust’s grant which provides for two bursaries. As a result, four translators based in India will be able to attend this year’s summer school free of charge. They are Padmaja Anant, Kanupriya Dhingra, Juhi Mendiratta and V Aarti.
The Charles Wallace India Trust gives grants to Indians in the early or middle stages of their careers who are living in India and working or studying in the arts, heritage conservation or the humanities. The Trust was established in 1981 with funds bequeathed by Charles Wallace, a British businessman and entrepreneur who had worked in what was then British India. In his Will, he directed that “All possessions great and small being acquired through the people, as mine were, should return to the people”. Trusts were set up in the United Kingdom for each of the four countries of former British India with the purpose of assisting the nationals of those countries to obtain education and professional development in the UK.
Bristol Translates is the UK’s largest literary translation summer school, aimed at both practising translators at any stage of their career and language enthusiasts who want to explore the world of literary translation. An online event, Bristol Translates offers the opportunity to work with leading professional translators to translate texts across the literary genres into English and explore literary translation as a thriving professional community with considerable social and cultural impact.