KOCHI: Literature Ireland, which promotes Irish literature, has awarded a grant of 4,000 euros (about Rs 3 lakh) to Abraham, the editor of Chalakuddy-based Megha Books, to translate James Joyce's Ulysses, considered the single most influential novel of the 20th century, into Malayalam.
The epoch-making work in literature, which employs the Stream of Consciousness technique-- a narrative device-- with telling effect, has been written in a wide variety of styles, chock full of encyclopedia worth of allusions, rife with enough puns and jokes to fill a comedian’s career. Ulysses narrates the happenings in the life of protoganist Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, June 16 1904. Joyce’s use of the Stream of Consciousness technique not only helps to trace the actions of the protagonist but also follow his thought process.In doing so the novel nearly breaks the back of realism.
“Ulysses is considered one of the most difficult books to be translated,” Abraham told Express. Literature Ireland commissions reader reports and it is on the basis of the report coupled with the contributions of the translator they award the grant. Abraham, a poet and translator, was the first one to get an Ireland grant from Kerala for translating James Joyces’A Portrait of the Artist.
(Correction: In an earlier version of this article, it was mentioned that the grant was given following the feedback that the existing translation was "not up to the mark". That line has since been removed as Abraham, who received the grant, has clarified that that was not the case. The error is regretted.)