TO acknowledge the role of translations and translators in connecting the people of different nations, International Translation Day is celebrated on Sept 30 every year.

But this year, the day was barely noticeable in Pakistan. Unlike past, when some individuals and organisations used to hold gatherings to mark it, little interest was shown this year. But some translators had been doing their work and that must be celebrated. So here we mention a couple of works rendered recently into Urdu from other languages. Though several others merit a mention, for want of space only two can be discussed here.

The first one is a collection of poems by Sohrab Sepheri (1928-1980), the modern Persian poet, translator and painter. Selected and translated into Urdu by Moeen Nizami, it is titled Aaeenon Ki Jheel (Lake of Mirrors). In his erudite foreword, Nizami has succinctly introduced the background of the poems and the poet.

As put by Nizami, classical Persian poetry has had much influence over classical Urdu poetry, which has permeated the modern Urdu poetry, too. But this influence on modern Urdu poetry is not as deep and as widespread. And the reason is about a hundred years ago French literature had influenced modern Persian poetry and, on the other hand, modern Urdu poetry was more impacted by English literature. These two western poetic streams began to change the course of two eastern literatures separately, but almost at the same time, that is, in early 1930s, says Nizami.

But fortunately in more recent times a tradition of translations from modern Persian poetry into Urdu has flourished and among those who contributed towards enriching Urdu literature through translations from modern Persian was also N. M. Rashid, an inspiring modern Urdu poet himself.

Rashid’s translations of modern Persian poetry into Urdu were first published in June 1969 issue of Naya Daur, Karachi. But the complete text of the book that included 19 modern Persian poets’ translations was first published by Lahore’s Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab in 1987.

Others who have been rendering modern Persian verse into Urdu are, from India, Muneeb ur Rahman, and from Pakistan Sho’aib Ahmed, Uzma Aziz Khan and Moeen Nizami. In addition, a large number of Urdu translations from modern Persian have been appearing in Urdu periodicals, but, adds Nizami, only those who have a command over both the languages as well as an eye on their literary traditions can effectively translate the poetry. That is why N. M. Rashid has been the most successful in translating poetry.

Introducing Sohrab Sepheri, Nizami says Sepheri is considered one of the few most important modern Persian poets and, since he was a painter, too, he created imaginative paintings that had the effects of poetry and wrote poems that evoked the imagery like paintings. His poetry expresses eastern philosophic motifs, introspection and depicts the external world in spiritual perspective. Sepheri despises materialism, consumerism and estrangement, seeing the world and human relationship from a Sufi’s point of view. Nasir Abbas Nayyar in his intro to the book has rightly pointed out that Nizami, being a poet himself and having a command over both languages, has successfully transferred the aura and the poetic touch of the original work into Urdu. Moeen Nizami is an academic, poet and translator. Gurmani Centre for Language and Literature, Lahore University of Management Sciences, has not only produced the book elegantly but has done a favour to the readers by reproducing the original Persian text on the page facing each translation.

Reading the original enhances the understanding and gives the readers a chance to compare it with the translation, but the other collection of poems — translated from English and recently published by Karachi’s Maktab-i-Danyial — lacks the original texts of the poems. Titled Tamannaon Ke Diyar Se (From the Land of Aspirations), and rendered into Urdu by Zeenat Hisam, it is an anthology of poems by North American women poets. The poems represent the modern sensitivity and cultural and ethnic diversity of North America.

Zeenat Hisam is a veteran writer and translator and has translated into Urdu Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Hundred Years of Solitude, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and short fiction by Yusuf Idris, A. B. Yehoshua, Quim Monzo, Donald Barthelme and Daniel Alarcon. These days she is busy translating Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend into Urdu.

The book includes poems by 19 women poets and every poet has been introduced briefly. Proofreading deserved some more attention. But, perhaps, some of the typos are in fact orthographic oddities, as is common in Urdu.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2025