Lucia de Vries of Sunbird Publishers, which brought out the translation, says that they had hoped Harry Potter would become hype here, too, so they could earn enough to produce more fun books. The sales of the Nepali version has been slow but steady.[break]
Sunbird Publishers is a non-profit company set up by five women of different Nepali and foreign origins: Helen Sherpa, Lucia de Vries, Bhubaneswari Sachal, Shanta Shrestha, and Yashoda Shrestha.
The lack of recreational books for Nepali children prompted the establishment of Sunbird, says Vries.
The first book they published was Don’t Do As I Do, a fun book for very young readers that teach children about road safety by using a stray cow.
They began with two main divisions in their publishing: the Ramailo Kitaab aimed at children aged three to 12, and the Yuwa Pustak, aimed at teenagers.
Around fifteen have been published in the Ramailo Kitaab Series and four teen novels under Yuwa Pustak. Sunbird has published 19 books so far, of which three (Harry Potter, Aama Do You Love Me?, and Andho Manchhe Ra Hatti) are collected stories or translations.
Why did Sunbird decide to translate and publish Harry Potter? Those of you who have read the Potter series, or are Potterheads, must realize the daunting task of taking Rowling’s masterpiece, which includes the translation from English (read Muggle) into Nepali, but also from Magic (oft-borrowed from Latin), such as casting spells and Parseltongue.
The publishers read a letter in The Kathmandu Post from a boy in a remote district who said: “I hear so much about this Harry Potter but I am unable to read it because I don’t read English,” and that made them decide that Nepali children ought to have access to the Potter phenomenon in their own language.
They sent a letter to JK Rowling in December 2004 stating: “We are writing to you from Nepal, a troubled kingdom not entirely unlike Hogwarts. We are sad to tell you that Nepal is one of the few countries that have not been put on the Potter map.”
It was a year before Rowling replied, offering the copyrights of the first book for a symbolic amount of five Euros. Her agents, Christopher Little Literary Agency, followed through but it was February 2008 before the contracts were signed.
The challenge was to produce the book within a year of the contract’s signing. Interested translators were asked to translate a sample chapter and young readers were asked to pick.
Shlesha Thapaliya’s and Bijaya Adhikari’s translation were selected. Thapaliya, a graduate from Swarthmore College in the US, was working as a translator and editor at the United Nations Mission in Nepal. Bijaya Adhikari, veteran translator, helped her work on the book with the support of editor Kedar Sharma.
Bijaya Adhikari, creative coordinator and copywriter, at Prisma Advertising also translated many chapters of the Harry Potter book. With the help of Kedar Sharma and his daughter Aditi, the book was revised three times and edited.
“Harry Potter is extremely English and the setting is also very particular to an English boarding school. There are references to foods, which don’t even exist in our culture.
Replacing the food items with something more Nepali would not have worked as it would mean changing the entire setting of the book, which is not even an option. So we had to come up with ways to describe the food as best as possible,” says Thapaliya, currently working as a research analyst at an investment company in Singapore.
Rowling’s invented words, names, and ideas made the translation even more of a challenge. However hard was the task, Thapaliya says, “The idea of translating Harry Potter into Nepali was born out of the Sunbird’s desire to take the book, a global sensation, to rural children in Nepal who can better understand Nepali.
If children all over the world have enjoyed it, in English or other translated versions, then Nepali children should have the opportunity to experience it.”
According to research, reading to children and encouraging them to pursue and explore the habit independently helps build relationships, encourages their listening and language skills, broadens their ability to think beyond set boundaries and develops their imagination.
Literature challenges thoughts, ideas, and provokes action. Literacy rate inevitably affects the development of a country. With the increase in independent presses and literary events, it is important to also produce fun books for children and let them explore the world of ideas through the written word.
Sunbird is not planning on translating the Harry Potter series further yet but they hold workshops for teachers and potential writers in order to encourage and produce more recreational books aimed at children.
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