07 February 2013
I step off a plane at Kolkata airport. It is morning, and it is hot, and the weather comes as a delightful shock; in London snow was still on the ground. I’m here to participate in ten days of bridge translation, culminating in a group performance at Kolkata Lit Meet, a young but – I’ve been told – vibrant festival. I have to join my colleagues – Doris Kareva, Sampurna Chattarji, Mamta Sagar, Nilanjan Banerjee and Binayak Bandyopadhyay, together with workshop leader Akshay Pathak – at Howrah Station to take a train to Santiniketan, once home to Tagore and a rural haven for creatives. We’ll stay there, in the peace of the West Bengal countryside, to write, rehearse and discover, as it turns out, that we all have a great deal in common. Read the full story here
Kathryn Gray was invited by Wales Literature Exchange to participate in a literary translation workshop in Santiniketan and Kolkata, West Bengal in January 2013. The project was organised by Literature Across Frontiers in partnership with Kolkata Literary Meet.