Thursday, April 24, 2014

Comic #112 - The Devil's Island by Mayukh Chowdhury[Translated]

                                            বঙ্গদেশে জন্মে তুমি দেখিয়েছ যে রঙ্গ,
                                          প্রাচ্য থেকে প্রাশ্চাত্য পেয়েছে সমান সঙ্গ।
                                              তোঁমার রচনায় তাই দেখি তাই 
                                               জাতি-দেশ ভুলে এসেছে সবাই,
                                                  দেয়নি কেউ রণে-ভঙ্গ ! 
                                                                        (a few lines by me as a tribute to Mayukh Chawdhury)

During a  recent discussion on a topic on Mayukh Chowdhury - the renowned Bengali artist and story-teller - at Facebook, a fan commented what would happened if MC was born outside of Bengal/India where his work would had been not restricted in the regional language(i.e. Bengali) but in English and would been read by millions!! And that's so true because his works were mostly free of the regional/national boundary, be it wild-life based comics,or Robinhood comics or those alien tales - all these stories deserve a much wider range of readers because of the contents!
 But what a pity that,even after 52 years of his first published work and 18 years after his demise, there is no single translated job done on his work,at least I never seen/heard about any!!(While Narayan Debnath and Satyajit Ray's some works have been already translated,it's baffling why MC was omitted till date!)

 That particular discussion promoted me to do the job. And so as a very small tribute to this legendary artist, I have translated one of the Mayukh's earlier work - a fascinating thriller based on the Californian coast - ''শয়তানের দ্বীপ(Saytaner Dweep)" i.e. The Devil's Island!

 I have tried every possible way to retain the original feel,starting from the way MC narrated the dramatic events happened there to the font/text color and font size! Hopefully it will show to many,specially those who can't read Bengali,that what a great artist-come-narrator he was!
 And then, this is a just very small piece of his numerous work!

 Cheers!!
  • Original Story Title : শয়তানের দ্বীপ(Saytaner Dweep)
  • First Publication Year : 1965
  • Original Version : Bengali
  • Creator : Mayukh Chowdhury (1926-1996)
  • Translator : HojO

PS - This blog has completed it's 7th anniversary on the 6th of this month!So you can also consider this post as a belated anniversary post! :o)