Editor Victoria

In 2025, Deepa Bhasthi became the first translator of colour to win the Booker Prize, marking this moment as historic in the field of world literature. Bhasthi has since then spoken and written about translating with an accent and approaching language and translations with a sense of play and rebellion. In an article for PEN, Bhasthi extended her understanding of translation to her readers: “instead of trying to contort the source language to fit the English idiom, look for ways to stretch English so that it too can speak somewhat with the accent of the original language.”

In this session, Deepa Bhasthi, in conversation with Thirangie Jayatilake, will talk about the act of translation, of being a writer and a writer–translator, of translating a work that is in itself embedded with multiple languages and social nuances, of untranslatability and what writers of translation and non-standard Englishes would like editors to know about the process of translation.