Jeremy Munday in Introducing Translation Studies (2008) writes that translation has hitherto played a crucial role in “interhuman communication” (p. 5). From Constance Garnett’s English translations of Dostoevsky to Munsi Premchand’s Hindi translations of John Galsworthy, the history of translation shows how this need to ‘communicate’ through translation acts as a driving force behind every sensible translated work. Over the years, many scholarly transcreations and translations have opened new avenues in the domain of language and cultural studies. Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s Bengali adaptation of William Shakeaspeare’s Comedy of Errors (1592?), Professor Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak’s English translation of Derrida’s De la grammatologie (1967), H.M. Parshley’s English translation of Simon de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe (1949) are instances of astute pedagogical interventions. However, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the very idea of interhuman communication is undergoing a series of metamorphoses. The Centre for Translation and Foreign Language Studies, established in 2025, stands at a crossroads when global academia is perhaps carefully witnessing rapid transformations in the various modes of human connection and contemplating the need to reimagine the possibilities that Translation Studies may open up.

The Centre aims to bridge the gulf between the local and the global through the translation of works that have left an indelible mark on the annals of literary and cultural history and that also hold the potential to contribute to contemporary discourses in Translation Studies. We began our journey with the multilingual translation of Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s prose work Shakuntala. In his immensely popular transcreation, Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar reimagines the representation of women characters in Kalidasa’s celebrated Sanskrit play Abhijñānaśākuntalam (4th Century CE) in a distinctive literary style characteristic to the master himself. In the multilingual translation of Shakuntala, we have tried to preserve this distinctive flavour for our contemporary readers.

As part of the University’s foreign language learning programme, the Centre has introduced certificate courses in Spanish and French. The Centre’s collaboration with the School of Languages, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark, has already enabled students and scholars from various departments of the University to successfully complete the Certificate Course in Communicative Spanish. We believe that this initiative will help students from the southwestern region of West Bengal to dream big and even explore international opportunities.