TRANSLATION, at its deepest, is more than carrying words across borders. It is the layering of voices, memories and silences upon the fragile surface of language. To translate is to inscribe something new without erasing the presence of the original, like the indelible text of a palimpsest. A palimpsest is an ancient manuscript that has been written, scraped clean and written upon again, yet the traces of earlier inscriptions persist, ghostly and insistent. It is a page that holds time and memory.
In our country, where languages overlap and histories converge, the image of a palimpsest feels especially resonant. Translation here is not only a literary endeavour, but an act of listening to multiplicity and learning to live among echoes. My own journey as a translator has unfolded within this layered terrain. Each book I take on adds its own inscription to the palimpsest of Malaysian literature in English, yet never effaces what lies beneath. The Malay and indigenous text remains insistent, resonant and alive under the surface.
