Five Questions with Chaitali Sengupta

Today we are honoured to have Chaitali Sengupta with us answering just Five Questions. A published writer, poet, translator, reviewer, and journalist based in the Netherlands, “Cross Stitched words”, is her debut collection of prose poems, published in the USA by SETU Publications, which won an Honorable Mention award at the New England Book Festival 2021. Her latest work of translation, Timeless tales in Translation is a collection of 12 short stories written by famous Hindi and Bengali authors. Other than that, she has also translated two other Bengali works into English- “Quiet whispers of our heart” & “A thousand words of heart”. 

Santosh: A hearty welcome to you and congratulations on your debut book winning great laurels. Chaitali, how will you describe yourself in one sentence?

Chaitali:  I am at my best when I’m either reading or writing.

Santosh: That is indeed wonderful. 
Let me tell you, I also had a great time reading Cross-Stitched Words, your debut collection of prose poems, published in the USA by SETU Publications which also won an Honorable Mention award at the New England Book Festival 2021. I have read this beautifully crafted, impeccably edited, and wonderfully published book by SETU. Could you reproduce a short poem from it?

Chaitali: Cross-Stitched Words is my debut collection of prose poems published in the year 2021 by SETU publications. I was extremely surprised when I learned that it received an Honorable Mention award at the New England Book Festival; it was not something I was expecting. In this collection, I have tried to address themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, human frailties, sorrow, in short- life in its varied existential struggle. In these verses, I have relied on vignettes, a series of images, and these inspire us to contemplate upon life’s deeper meanings. Although these verses have been written during various phases of my life, I worked upon these in the year 2020, in the pandemic-ridden days of loneliness and uncertainty. It was n amazing experience. For one, it brought me closer to Nature. In my opinion, Covid was a big pause button pressed by Nature for mankind. For me, it was a time for deep introspection. One thought which came to me in those days and has stayed with me is that the external world is always changing, is always on the move, is too noisy, and never quiet. The quietness and the balance must come from within. I do not wish to preach, but this looking inside has helped me a lot to grow as a person while writing this book.

One of the poems from this book which many have liked is a poem called Words.

It goes something like this-

“Words are boundaries, / an edge, a sound. / Silence, a deep space/ between the

words. / A pause, that holds the chaos, / awkward, clumsy, wordless, / unspoken,

like Nature’s cosmic narration, / at the beginning of space and time. For it was/ in

the womb of silence unblemished/ that feelings rippled, / in measured pulse/ and

words were born.”

Santosh: That is indeed a very powerful poem. I also loved it a lot. Yes, a rippling of words. Sounds, silence, and the sounds of silence.
Tell me, Chaitali,  how easily does translation come to you? It seems pretty daunting to me. 

Chaitali: Yes. Translation is a daunting task. It is, in my opinion, more complex than writing one’s own thoughts. In a literary translation, language is not everything. People have this notion that if you know two languages well, you can be a translator. Nothing is far from the truth. Translation involves far more than only exchanging words from one language to another. Keeping the cultural nuances intact is an integral part of a good translation. It is an uphill task to translate the figurative speeches from one culture to the other. I’ve always enjoyed reading translated works after I have finished reading the originals. It might surprise many, but I do find sometimes the translated texts are clearer, more appealing than the original.

When I translate, I first read the original text, not once, but more than once. I mark out specific passages which require some research. I also jot down a lot in my notebook, words that come to my mind when I read the text. I’ve come to realize that a broad-minded approach is needed to overcome many ‘linguistic difficulties. Translation doesn’t come easily to me, but I try to bring fluidity to my translations as I go about it.

Santosh: We would also like to hear something about your other two translated Bengali works into English.

Chaitali: These are “Quiet whispers of our heart” & “A thousand words of heart”. My recent work of translation is a collection of 12 short stories by Indian authors, both Hindi and Bengali. It is called Timeless Tales in Translation. But before this, I translated two Bengali works by the prolific Bengali writer Susmita Saha. Both are bilingual works. I translated the poems first for the National poetry month for a literary forum. Later, the readers proposed a compilation of the poems for a bilingual book “Quiet Whispers of our heart” at The Kolkata book fair in the year 2020.

This book is now present at the Library of Eindhoven, honoring both the poet and the translator. After the warm success of this bilingual book, the publishers approached us to do a book together once more. That is how the sequel “A thousand words of heart” happened. It is a collection of very short stories [flash fiction) and some poetic expressions in free verse. Translating these crisp tales needed a different kind of ‘elasticity’ in approach. I needed to retain both the density of her thoughts and the brevity of her expressions in my translation, and yet not compromise with the maximum emotional impact. The compression of time also posed a challenge. Preserving all these nuances was my topmost priority as a translator. I enjoyed doing that!

Santosh: At present, you are working on a translation work featuring the Dutch author, Louis Couperus. Please enlighten us about that venture of yours.

Chaitali: Yes, it is a work very near to my heart. Louis Couperus was a Dutch novelist and poet and is considered one of the greatest figures in Dutch literature. Although he has written on a wide variety of genres- novellas, short stories, lyrical poetry, historical novels, I developed an intellectual curiosity over his book ‘Over lichtende drempels’ (Across the luminous threshold). He wrote the book in the year 1902. It is a collection of four fables or fairy tales and an added novella. The four fables deal with the awareness of our mortality, with the fragility of human life and Couperus contrast it with eternal time and he conveys these themes in a unique way,  alternating between reality and fantasy. I’ve just started with the work, translated one of the four tales, it was published by Borderless Journal. It was much appreciated, which motivated me to go ahead with the rest. But the challenges are huge: it is written in old Dutch, I do not understand many words, the sentences are structured in a complex way, and expressions are condensed. I’m doing my best, and hope to finish it by this year. Hope to find a publisher who would be interested in publishing it.

Santosh: This sounds pretty intriguing. Hope you find a good publisher soon. All the best.
It was great interacting with you. Keep writing, and stay safe.

Chaitali Sengupta also received an award of recognition from the Foundation Literary International Holanda-Cuba for her works and poems. Her poetry ‘She Walks over the Flood’ is a part of a literary project done in collaboration with the Environmental Humanities Center, Amsterdam. She has contributed to esteemed anthologies and well-known online/print journals, like Café Dissensus, Borderless Journal, Muse India, Contemporary Literary review India, among others. Presently, she is working on a translation work featuring the Dutch author, Louis Couperus.