The then Soviet Union funded a publishing house, the Taraqqi Urdu Bureau in Delhi, to translate Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace, Maxim Gorky’s autobiography and a legion of other Russian-language writings. The ship of Urdu translations truly set sail with the inception of the Taraqqi Pasand Tehreek, or the Progressive Writers’ Movement, in 1935. Lucknowi translated Hamlet into Khoon-i-Khaak, Romeo and Juliet into Gulnar Feroz and The Merchant of Venice into Dilfarosh. Later, Mehdi Hasan Lucknowi hopped on the bandwagon to produce a much simpler, colloquial and correct version of William Shakespeare’s plays. The early 19th century saw the first Shakespearean plays being translated into Urdu by Naushirwanji Mehrwanji, known by his pen name ‘Araam’, who rendered The Merchant of Venice as Jawaan Bakht. Kiernan claimed that “Urdu might almost be made up by poets for their own benefit.” An exchange of international prose and poetry soon ensued. The assortment of metaphorical and symbolic expressions in Urdu poetry and the intricacy of the language was confirmed through the words of British historian Victor Kiernan, who was also one of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s earliest translators. Who, then, are the passionate eccentrics who do it? Translating world literature into Urdu, despite its social benefits, is often a thankless job. For the rest of the world, the language was a subject to marvel at. The process began when Urdu began to be acknowledged and celebrated through poetry. These publishers say it is because of a result of lack of diversity in local Urdu literature.Ī global trend already, translations in Urdu have become the saving grace for Urdu reading. In 2021, six big private publishing houses in Pakistan - Sang-i-Meel, Book Corner, Aks Publishers, Maktaba-i-Danyal, Atlantis Publications and Rang-i-Adab - still have Urdu translations of fiction and non-fiction as top-trending sections in their catalogues. While it is common to take pride in the shining stars of the Urdu literati who receive national awards year after year (mostly after their demise), we have also been witness to appalling scenes of dusty books toppling out of bookshelves in libraries, and street vendors calling out to sell inexpensive Urdu cookbooks. However, counting all the years that have passed, third and fourth generations post-Partition have a hard time perceiving whether Pakistan has advanced to the latter period. This is a famous quote by Urdu’s seminal literary critic and translator of several literary pieces, Muhammad Hassan Askari. 'In a successful nation, the period of translation would precede its period of literature.”

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