Prizes are wonderful, but I wish we had more grants to encourage all kinds of writing and translation. What would some of your suggestions be to other literary prizes when it comes to translations (and other forms of writing that they may be neglecting)? I think most of us who work with words are so steeled for rejection and killing your darlings that it feels bizarre to win something! It’s also a win for translation in general and that makes me hopeful as a translator and excited as a reader of translations. Jasmine Days is about a young woman who writes a book without knowing that she is writing a book and I feel a bit like she must have when she realised how much her words resonated with people outside her life.īut…there’s also this feeling of strangeness. And I feel especially happy for Benyamin, who deserves this recognition so much.

So, to state the obvious, I am super thrilled. What does Jasmine Days winning the JCB Prize mean to you? She spoke to Scroll.in thereafter in two instalments – before and after winning the JCB Prize – about what drew her to the novel, her procrastinating habits, the differences between Malayalam and English, the migrations that aren’t covered enough, the fears of a first-time translator, and the Agatha Christie-inspired novel she’s currently writing. Habib wrote recently about the experience of being a first-time literary translator for a novelist whose previous work is highly respected – Benyamin’s Goat Days, for instance, shot to fame in 2012 – and about being a woman in what is still a male-dominated literary culture. Habib, who has also translated Al-Arabian Novel Factory ,the companion piece to Jasmine Days, has picked up Rs 5 lakh for the winning translation. Her debut translation, of Benyamin’s Jasmine Days, has won the Rs 25-lakh JCB Prize for Literature in its inaugural year. Shahnaz Habib has hit the proverbial jackpot at the very beginning of her career as a literary translator. KERALA / Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A : Before and after: What translating Benyamin’s ‘Jasmine Days’ involved, and what it means after winning the prize

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