Category: Recommendations

‘This International Translation Day, we bring you the best of Southeast Asian literature and a word from their translators. Find out what goes on behind the scenes while translating a novel, and how the essence of the story is retained while adapting the book to make it ready for new readers.’

Jennifer Lindsay, the translator of REJECTION – A SUMATRAN ODYSSEY talks about keeping it real and true when translating the novel from Bahasa Indonesia to English:

‘Translating is a mixture of slog and inspiration. It is an intense engagement with the language of the writer. To me, the creative part is in choosing words and phrases to reflect that language. After all, it can be done in many different ways. But, like Goldilocks, there comes to be one choice (on that particular day) that feels ‘just right’. That is the ‘aha’ moment, even though later you might change it when you edit. It is a deeply personal choice. I always pay great attention to the sound and rhythm of the original text. Sometimes I say it aloud as I work. How is the writer using the language, exploiting its possibilities? How can I reflect that? 

When translating Rejection, I was very aware of the balance of Ashadi’s sentences, the poetry of his prose, and in the latter part of the book which has a different tone, the dialogue. In Rejection, Ashadi stretches the poetic narrative potential of Indonesian in a storytelling way. I learnt a lot about the Indonesian language from that. That is what translation is: learning.’

 Watch Jennifer Lindsay talk about her journey while translating REJECTION here. 

Click here to watch a special message from Ashadi Siregar for the new readers of his novel. 

Danton Remoto, the translator of Filipino Classic novel BANAAG AT SIKAT (Radiance and Sunrise), shares how translations of classics can open it up to a whole new readership.

‘I translated a novel that was written in florid Tagalog and published in 1906. I kept in mind that I was translating an English version for the 21st century reader. Thus, I used brisk, Anglo-Saxon words in my translation to make the novel read faster. I also edited repetitive words, phrases and scenes in the novel to make the pages turn. Moreover, I translated the dialogues to make it appear as if the characters are speaking originally in English and not in the florid Tagalog of the early 20th century. I also used the English equivalents of words (java plum for duhat) because I did not want to have a glossary at the back of the novel that would make the reader flip from the novel to the glossary with every new Tagalog word he or she would encounter. I also did not want a translation of the meaning put as a footnote, since this would be distracting on the page. I aimed at giving a 21st-century rendering of an early 20th-century novel. I hope I have succeeded in doing so.’

Explore some more translated books from our list: 

The Sea Speaks His Name 

Genealogy of Kings 

Prisna Volume 1

Prisna Volume 2

The Great Flowing River 

Chronicles of A Village

After Time 

Migrantik 

Keep an eye out for the following works of translation coming soon to bookstores near you:

The Preying Birds  

The Fabulist by Uthis Haemamool, translated by Palin Ansusinha

Table for One (Mesa Para Una) by Caro Saracho, translated by Sharmila Bhushan.

Add these translated books to your shelf today and explore diverse voices from Southeast Asia and beyond.

Happy reading! 

By Garima Bhatt, Senior Executive – Marketing & Digital, Penguin Random House SEA.

By Rupal Vyas, Assistant Editor, Penguin Random House SEA

With freedom in the air and celebrations all around, we come together to celebrate the 57^th National Day with our fellow readers. Seeing the nation grow from strength to strength has only brought in more compassion and hope; and has kept the spirit alive to move ahead #StrongerTogether. Bringing to you from our beloved shelves some exciting reads:

The Votive Pen: Writings on Edwin Thumboo

A rivetting look at the fiercely original, intellectually brilliant mind of Singapore’s unofficial Poet-Laureate, Edwin Thumboo. Born of Tamil and Teochew parents, he embraced the Protestant faith late in his life. He has a self-confessed fetish for Yeats and Pound and yet completed his doctoral thesis on post-colonial African poetry. He taught himself the Ramayana and I-Ching but found traces of the Odysseus in the shadows of the Merlion. He is brusquely vocal about poetry with a purpose and yet appears a hopeless romantic in his poems about his wife. What happens when a mind which is such a melting pot of brilliant ideas and contrary emotions tries to unscramble the identity of a country like Singapore which is complex, multiracial, has known a fierce economic growth that has often elbowed aside everything else?

The Votive Pen sets out to see Edwin Thumboo’s poetry – steadily and see it whole – without the intervening static of earlier critical writing and with an intense alertness to the text.

Beyond Storms and Stars – A Memoir

How did a young girl who rose from underprivileged circumstances in post-war Singapore become a trailblazer of women’s global leadership at the United Nations? Noeleen Heyzer was the first woman from outside North America to be appointed as Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the first woman Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). In these memoirs, Noeleen Heyzer reflects on her remarkable journey – from the challenges of her childhood and youth, her intellectual development at the University of Singapore and the University of Cambridge, to her groundbreaking work on women’s empowerment and her meteoric rise to the position of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. It is a book that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the courage of individuals, communities, and societies to transform structures of discrimination and injustice.

Softer Voices

Philip Montfort is a man of contradictions. He is an Anglo-Indian born in British India and torn between his Part-Caucasian heritage and his Indian identity. Born into a vanishing aristocratic family with fading fortunes, his life is a struggle to reconcile his circumstances with his desires and to render a true account of himself. He is irreligious but a seeker of truth and authenticity. After studying law at Cambridge, and being denied a place in both England and India, he seeks instead to make life anew in the Colonies – specifically in the bustling, ecstatic British outpost of Singapore.

There, he is drawn into the orbit of young, privileged intellectuals like himself who seek truth just as he does, while gorging and stupefying themselves with layers of luxury. They call themselves the Asiatic Club and commission themselves to doing civic works in the lead up to the War. More secretive however are their preparations to form a stay-behind auxiliary in the event that Singapore is occupied.

When War reaches Singapore in the early forties, the excess is stripped away and each member of this exclusive coterie is forced to confront their true selves as they make sacrifices and compromises of character. While fighting as a reserve officer in the British Indian Army’s III Corps, Philip is captured as a prisoner-of-war. Thereafter, he is convinced to join the Axis-collaborationist Indian National Army under its mercurial but brilliant leader, Subhas Chandra Bose.

Raffles Readers: A Century of Adventures

Raffles Hotel is the best known, oldest and most elegant hotel in Singapore. When it was first built in 1887, it stood on Beach Road, opposite the sea. Nowadays, Beach Road is in the middle of a thriving, modern city. There are many tales of weird and wonderful events at this beautiful hotel. And hundreds of famous people have stayed there. Here, in the Raffles Readers, you will meet some characters who maybe, just maybe, could have stayed in the hotel. Who knows?

Stories spanning from the 1920s to 2000s, these imaginative tales draw in the young readers to the wonderous world inside the iconic Raffles hotel and the adventures of its eclectic guest list.

Celebrate the spirit of inclusivity, strength and hope with us as we grow #StrongerTogether and commemorate the 57^th National Day of Singapore. Add these exciting reads from our bag of books to your #TBR today!