In southern India, the yali, a hybrid creature made up of the body parts of several animals, is a guardian deity found at the entrance to temples and palaces. Taking inspiration from this seamless combination of multiple elements and qualities, the Yali Project at Sangam House nurtures and mentors translators and translations into and out of Indian languages. Yali commissions newer translators to work with experienced translation mentors and brings them together for an intensive workshop to create a final draft of the work.
Through its network of editors and publishers, Yali strives to ensure that these translations are appropriately published and widely disseminated. In doing so, it actively supports and nurtures literary ecosystems in Indian languages.
Yali seeks to build a community of translators, foreground translations lists at publishing houses and increase the awareness and appreciation of works from Indian languages both at home and abroad.
Since 2017, Yali translations and supported publications include
*A selection of Marathi short stories by Hamid Dalwai were translated into English by Manav Kambli (with Arshia Sattar), into Bangla by Sheema Mookherjee (with V Ramaswamy), and into Telugu by Volga, published by Elami as Laat.
* A selection of Hari Krishna Kaul’s Kashmiri stories were translated into English by Tanveer Ajsi, Gowhar Fazili, Kalpana Raina and Gowhar Yaqoob (with Arshia Sattar and Rahul Soni). Published as For Now, It Is Night: Stories by Harper-Collins (India) and Archipelago Books (New York).
*Jayant Kaikini’s Kannada short story collection Toofan Mail was translated into Telugu, by Ranganatha Rao (with Volga) and published by Analpa as Toofan Mail.
* Lady Driver was translated from English to Tamil by Suresh (with N. Sukumaran) and published by Kalachuvadu as Lady Driver.
*Benyamin’s Malayalam novel Al Arabian Novel Factory was translated into English by Shahnaz Habib (with N. Sukumaran) and published by Juggernaut as Al Arabian Novel Factory.
*Amitabha Bagchi’s English novel Half the Night is Gone was translated into Hindi by Prabhat Ranjan (with Neeta Gupta and Rahul Soni) and published by Rajkamal Prakashan as ho gayi adhi raat.
Logo designed by Rahul Soni.
Yali is supported by The Raina Family Foundation.
*Abdullah Khan’s English novel Patna Blues was translated by himself into Hindi (with Rahul Soni and Neeta Gupta) and published by Manjul Prakashan as Patna Blues.
*Folk tales from Kumaon were collected and retold by Noor Zaheer with (Poorna Swami and Arshia Sattar) and published at www.wordswithoutborders.org
*Selected poems by Kashmiri women poets Lal Ded, Rupa Bhawani, Arnimal and Habba Khatoon were translated from into English by Neerja Mattoo (with Arshia Sattar, Rahul Soni and Poorna Swami) and published by Zubaan Books as The Mystic and the Lyric.
*Short story collections in Kannada by Jayant Kaikini and S. Diwakar were translated into Tamil by K. Nallathambi (with Pavannan) and published by Kalachuvadu.
*M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Malayalam novel Manju was translated into Tamil by R. Shalini (with N. Sukumaran) and published by Kalachuvadu.
*Vivek Shanbhag’s Kannada novel Ghachar Ghochar was translated with the same name into Hindi by Ajai Kumar Singh (with Rahul Soni) published by Vani Prakashan, into Konkani by Ramesh Lad (with Damodar Mauzo) published by Sanjana Publications and into Tamil by K. Nallathambi published by Kalachuvadu.