A Life in Translation

Language Politics, Education, and the Mother Tongue

Public lecture by Dr Mohini Gupta

Abstract

This talk reflects on my personal journey with literary translation and how it has shaped my academic trajectory over the years. I explore how my work as a translator – particularly my decision to translate young readers’ literature from English into Hindi – has shaped the kinds of pathways, questions, and opportunities available to me within the translation ecosystem. Working across literature, languages, and translation has also transformed my understanding of what I have long called my “mother tongue” – a term that carries shifting, layered, and often contradictory meanings in the South Asian context. I reflect on how translation has forced me to think more critically about linguistic hierarchies, postcolonial power relations, and the politics of education that continue to privilege certain languages while marginalising others. I also connect this with my ongoing academic research on language politics and education in India and Nepal. The talk also engages with the complications of decolonising language narratives within the nation, especially when ideas of authenticity, belonging, and linguistic pride sit uneasily alongside histories of exclusion and shame. Finally, I reflect on how my decisions in and about translation have changed over time, and what these shifts have taught me about translation not only as a professional practice, but as an intellectual and ethical way of relating to language.

Bio

Dr Mohini Gupta recently completed a D.Phil. from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, and is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Aarhus University, Denmark. Her academic work lies at the intersection of linguistics, education and anthropology in South Asia. She has been a Charles Wallace India Trust Translator-Writer Fellow hosted by Literature Across Frontiers in Wales, and a Translator-in-Residence at the Sangam House International Writers' Residency in Bangalore. Her writings and translations have been published by Routledge (UK), Honno Press (Wales), and Tulika Books (India). Most recently, her Hindi translation of Vikram Seth's poetry collection, Beastly Tales, has been published by Speaking Tiger. She is also on the Board of Trustees at the National Library of Wales, the Board of Management at the Vedica Scholars Programme for Women, and the Executive Committee of the Translators’ Association of India.