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Ketaki Kushari Dyson. trans., Selected Poems of Buddhadeva Bose,
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, Pages lxxxvi+206, Price Rs.550 (hb), ISBN 019-566335-7.

   Lately, a number of finely translated books have appeared done by practicing writers well versed with both their source and target languages. More often than not, Indian literature written in the bhasha languages translated into English by academics largely tend to be stilted and lack the sense of inherent cadence. “Literature is lost in translation” is an oft-used well-known phrase, but this and the two following books discussed here thankfully transcend that axiom adequately and convincingly.

   Selected Poems of Buddhadeva Bose is an outstanding collection. Rendered from Bengali into English by Ketaki Kusari Dyson, this book is not only an example of good translation but also of fine scholarship. Apart from the 150 pages of poetry itself, the book contains a hefty 140 pages of introduction, translator’s testament, notes and bibliography that are immensely valuable and well researched. Dyson has a very fine ear for Bangla language’s rhythm and texture, and she achieves in bringing that out in the English translation. Here are the last two lines of ‘Mimi, On Your Birthday’, delicately rendered from the Bangla original:

In these verses your red sari                     and purple slip you’ll find.
These verses be the dawn enchantment    of your shiuli-mind.

   There are wonderfully created phrase compressions of disparate images such as “dawn enchantment” and “shiuli-mind” set in elegantly rhymed couplets. This book is a must for lovers of modern Indian poetry, especially those interested in the post-Tagore generation of Bengali writers.