Asian Librarians and Advisers Group

Cityread 2013 featuring Sebastian Faulks’ A Week In December received a wonderful boost when the well established Gujarati and Tamil Reading Groups hosted events using the ALAG translated synopsis of the book.

Sarah Parker from Stellar Libraries (organisers of Cityread) attended the Gujarati reading and discussion and this is what she had to say about it:
“I managed to follow the discussion despite the synopsis being in Gujarati – facilitators Bhadra and Vipool communicated the story in such an animated way that I could easily follow which characters and events were being narrated. The discussion was moving – the attendees were encouraged to connect the novel’s themes of loneliness, alienation, interconnectedness and fate with their own experiences. Many of them spoke about their experiences of first coming to England, not knowing anyone and perhaps not speaking the language.

We compared the characters of Hassan and Finbar as parallel products of modern life, trying to escape through different methods (e.g. drugs, joining terrorist groups). We also talked about how Veals’s actions can be compared to Hassan’s potential terrorism, as they are utterly destructive in their own way.

Attending the event really underlined for me the importance of translating Cityread texts, so that the widest possible amount of people can understand and interact with them. These kinds of activities are the whole point of Cityread – they connect as many people as possible via one particular London novel”

On the 20^th of April Sebastian Faulk’s –A week in December’s Tamil translation was read by the person who kindly translated it on behalf  of ALAG – Rani Srinivasan.

Rani reads the translated synopsis in Tamil

Tamil Reading Group discuss A Week In December

Yamuna Tharmendiran who heads the group said: “the group enjoyed it very much and I personally felt that this encourages  members to expand their reading passion“