02/08/2018
Anjum is born to Shia Muslim parents in Old Delhi, in the years soon after Independence. Her father, Mulaqat Ali, who traces his family’s lineage directly back to the Mongol Emperor Changez Khan, is a hakim, a doctor of herbal medicine who works for the family that makes the legendary sherbet Rooh Afza, which is Persian for “elixir of the soul.” Her mother, Jahanara Begum, supplements the family income by stitching white Gandhi caps that she supplies to Hindu traders in Chandni Chowk. She is already the mother of three girls when Anjum is born. In the second chapter, “Khwabgah,” we witness Anjum’s birth. In addition to her mother and the midwife, her mother tongue, too, is present. And found wanting:
https://lithub.com/what-is-the-morally-appropriate-language-in-which-to-think-and-write/?single=true
The following is Arundhati Roy’s W. G. Sebald Lecture on Literary Translation, commissioned by the British Centre for Literary Translation and the National Centre for Writing. It was delivere…