With ‘Leslie’s Broken Guitar Strings’, Augusto Pinto carries Hema Naik’s world across languages without losing its edges
VINIKA VISWAMBHARAN | NT BUZZ
Augusto Pinto, a retired associate professor of English, satirist, literary critic, and essayist did not set out to translate ‘Bhogadand’ as a matter of routine. He chooses his projects carefully, drawn to work that feels “unique or challenging” and not easily carried across into English. Hema Naik’s Sahitya Akademi award-winning Konkani novel offered exactly that.
Set against the backdrop of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the story resonated with a moment of global unease that felt strikingly familiar. “It was a time somewhat like today when there was great tension world-wide,” says Pinto. For Goans, the anxiety ran deeper with many working in the Gulf. That context, layered with intimate storytelling, made the novel compelling.
At its centre is Gemma, a young woman navigating a life shaped by expectation and constraint. Pinto points to her as a key reason for taking on the translation. “The novel was centred around the character of an independent woman,”
he explains.
The translation itself began almost accidentally. After posting a synopsis on an online Goan book forum, Pinto caught the attention of editors from the International Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, who published an excerpt in 2018. When he approached Naik for permission, she posed a simple question. “She asked me why I didn’t translate the whole novel,” he recalls. “That’s what I went on to do.”
Bringing ‘Bhogadand’ into English as ‘Leslie’s Broken Guitar Strings’ was not, however, without its challenges. “There are some words for things in the Goan environment that don’t have simple English equivalents,” says Pinto, pointing to local flora, fish like ‘palou’ or ‘modso’, and terms such as ‘manos’. In such cases, he adds, “it doesn’t really matter if you just keep the original or use an English equivalent,” as long as the story remains intact. Where the real challenge lies, according to Pinto, is in structure rather than vocabulary. “A more serious issue is that of grammar and syntax,” he explains, as Konkani literary style often favours short, direct sentences. “If you translate this word for word into English the effect can be very jarring,” he admits. The task, then, is not literal transfer but careful reshaping. “One needs to vary sentences a lot more.”
The most complex decision was the title itself. The Konkani word ‘Bhogadand’ resists easy translation. “While ‘dand’ means punishment, ‘bhog’ is an ambiguous Konkani word,” explains Pinto. It can suggest desire, even lust, but also suffering. “Trying to encapsulate all these nuances in a title would make it sound vapid and a literal rendering risked misinterpretation.” With Naik’s consent, he chose a different route. “‘Leslie’s Broken Guitar Strings’ better encapsulates the mood of the book.”
The novel unfolds within a Goan Catholic milieu that Pinto knows intimately. That familiarity allowed him to retain the emotional core of the story, from Antonette’s resilience as a single mother to the tensions within Leslie and Gemma’s marriage.
For Pinto, the role of the translator is not to instruct but to carry the story across. “People don’t always pick up novels to learn lessons,” he says. “They want to read an interesting story and be entertained.” Yet he acknowledges the quieter impact literature can have. “Subconsciously there are several things which readers are bound to reflect upon regarding love, about their relationships, about migration.”
Naik, upon reflecting on the translation, expresses appreciation for the care and sensitivity with which the work was handled. “Translation can be a difficult task, especially when moving between languages without losing the subtext,” she notes, adding that she valued Pinto’s restraint. Rather than opting for overly ornate language, she says, “He has written it in a way that can be understood by many, preserving both the spirit of the original and its accessibility to a
wider readership.”
According to Pinto, the journey of translation continues beyond a single work, shaped as much by persistence as by craft. “There’s a lot of work that’s still on my laptop,” he says, as he works through manuscripts still awaiting publication, the larger task remains ongoing.
