The power of language and literature knows no bounds. It transcends borders, cultures, and time. Recently, Andrew Staniland, a talented English poet based in London, visited the Daryo virtual studio to discuss his translations of selected poems by two prominent Uzbek poetesses from the 19th century - Nodira and Uvaysiy. His previous translations of works by Alisher Navoiy and Abdulhamid Cho'lpon were equally impressive. Andrew Staniland, aided by the likes of Nazeela Elmi and Aidakhon Bumatova, continues to bring the beauty of Uzbek literature to a broader audience and bridge cultural gaps through their work.
Dear Andrew Staniland, you studied politics as a university student. How did you get into poetry?
Yes, I studied politics at University, which was a long, long time ago; that was just the subject to study. It wasn't something I wanted to do. Even at that time, even before that, I was writing bits and pieces very naively, but I was still writing. And the other thing was I started a meditation practice very soon after I started at University. So those two things, writing and meditating, were there right from the beginning. And those are the things that I have continued with, but up until now, throughout all my life, writing and meditating. I studied politics. I never studied literature academically. So, my poetry has been based on, and it's still based on, isn't the academic study of poetry, but it's that transcendental experience of poetry. So that's kind of the basis for what I do.
What made you translate the selected poems of Nodira and Uvaysiy?
There isn't much great 19th-century poetry by women in English. English women in that period tended to write novels rather than poetry. There are a few poets, but not many. So translating them, I felt, would add something to the literature. So that was the first thing, and hearing the voices of 19th-century Central Asian women seemed like something worth doing, worth listening to, and something you don't get to hear very often. So those were those are the two natural attractions.
What were the main challenges in translating their poetry?
The most challenging part was the thing that shouldn't have been a challenge at all. And that was getting the poems translated. This is just an introductory selection for English-speaking readers to introduce English communities, including me, to these poets. It should have been easy; we should have just picked a modern Selected Poems of Uvaysiy, contemporary Selected Poems of Nodira. But no, we had to search all over the place for poems, and, I mean, as demand for this is just quite shocking, to be honest, from my point of view that these two great poets who were acknowledged in their lifetime, their complete poems are have not been published. There are lots of poems that are still just stuck in manuscript books. So, there are about 600 of Nodira's poems that have survived. I wanted to show Persian poetry and Chagatay poetry and find the Persian poems in the Persian script.
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