Retranslation as Re-vision and Self-Reflective Criticism: A Comparative Analysis of two translations of Agnisakshi from Malayalam to English by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan

Agnisakshi by Lalithambika Antharjanam (1976), a significant work in the landscape of women’s writing and social novel in Malayalam, was translated into English by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan and published by Kerala Sahitya Akademi in 1980. In a rare instance of self-retranslation, with 35 years between them, Vasanti Sankaranarayanan rendered a fresh translation of the same novel in 2015. Retranslations, according to Lawrence Venuti, establish their differences from the previous versions and these are guided more by ideological premises than by literary or linguistic lack in the previous translations. In contrast to the uncritical, adulatory position assumed by the translator in the first translation of Agnisakshi, the second one points to a translator who acknowledges the politics of the text, critically approaches it and, in her own words, “adds new dimensions from a feminist perspective”. This paper, by closely examining the conscious interventions Sankaranarayanan makes as a feminist translator, attempts to conceptualize retranslation as an act of re-vision and self-reflective criticism, wherein the translator makes herself more visible through her translational interventions. The attempt here is to understand how the politics of the text is engaged with through retranslation by an ideologically empowered translator.