A reader may travel across several languages before meeting a book's author on a festival stage. The translator who made that encounter possible can still be missing from the conversation. South Asian literary events should treat translation as part of the writing being discussed, with translators invited to explain the decisions through which readers encounter the work.

The 2025 International Booker Prize offered a prominent example of shared recognition. Heart Lamp, written by Banu Mushtaq in Kannada and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, won the prize. That year's £50,000 award was divided equally between author and translator. The arrangement made the translator's contribution visible in the announcement and the material reward. A festival need not have a comparable prize fund to learn from that clarity.

Importance of Translator

The point is not that an author and translator perform identical tasks. The distinction between them is precisely what makes a joint conversation valuable. An author can discuss the composition and history of a work; a translator can explain what happened as its voice, references and rhythms entered another language. A reader gains something by hearing both accounts and understanding where their judgments met or diverged.

The Booker Prize Foundation's account of Heart Lamp gives a concrete example. It describes Bhasthi's attention to the multilingual character of the stories and the retention of Urdu and Arabic words within the English translation. That is a decision a reader can examine. The question is no longer simply whether the translated page is smooth. It includes what smoothness might remove, which differences remain audible, and what a reader needs in order to follow them.

This also helps correct an unduly mechanical picture of translation. In its 2023 Manifesto on Literary Translation, the writers' organization PEN America presents translation as a creative form of writing and calls attention to the conditions under which translators work. That perspective provides useful questions for event organizers. Who is credited in the program? Who is paid to prepare? Who is asked to explain the language choices that readers will actually encounter?

A practical change could begin with the session description. If the discussion concerns a translated book, name the translator alongside the author and identify the languages involved. Where both can participate, give them substantive questions rather than inviting the translator merely to introduce the author. Where one cannot attend, explain whose work is being discussed and consider an agreed contribution in another form. Recognition should survive a scheduling difficulty.

The preparation needs to be real. A moderator could select a short passage in consultation with the participants and ask about a particular choice. Was a repeated word preserved? Did a term need explanation? How did a change in sentence structure affect the reader's pace? A precise example makes the work accessible to an audience that may not know both languages. It also gives the translator room to discuss a decision rather than offer a general defense of the profession.

The exchange should avoid becoming a public examination in which the author is invited to certify each word as correct. Translation involves interpretation, constraints and more than one possible solution. The most interesting discussion may concern the alternatives and their consequences. An author and translator can disagree productively without the moderator turning that disagreement into evidence that one participant has failed. 

Budget a Translator's Participation

South Asia's literary life makes the question especially useful because English is only one possible destination. A program could also consider translations between the region's other languages, and the institutions that allow those books to reach readers. The proposal is to make room for those routes, not to claim that an adequately funded network already exists everywhere. Organizers can begin with the actual books, translators and audiences available to them.

There is an obvious resource objection. A festival may be unable to bring every contributor to the venue. That makes early planning more important. Budget a translator's participation when the session is conceived, agree what is expected and consider a supported remote contribution where appropriate. An improvised invitation at the end of the process can reproduce the very hierarchy the event claims to question.

Credit should continue beyond the stage. Recorded sessions, publicity extracts and reading lists can retain the translator's name and the relevant edition. A striking line circulated without that information may make the author more visible while making the writing the audience encountered harder to identify. The practical correction is small: preserve the credit as the passage travels into another format.

Schools and universities attending literary events can use the same approach. Students could compare a brief passage with a translator's explanation of one choice, then discuss what the explanation changes in their reading. They do not need to pretend fluency in a language they have just encountered. They need enough context to recognize that the English page was made through decisions, and that those decisions can be examined thoughtfully.

A literary festival succeeds when readers leave with better questions about a book. Giving translators a substantive place in the program would add questions about language, interpretation and the work of bringing one readership into contact with another. South Asia's literary stages can acknowledge that work by giving its practitioners a name, a fee and a conversation worth joining.

(The writer is an undergraduate student at St. Xavier's College, Tribhuvan University, an independent writer and English-language educator based in Kathmandu, Nepal. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at nasilo.mahat@gmail.com.)