TRANSLATION STRATEGIES AND READER RESPONSE OF PARTITION TRAUMA IN SELECTED AFSANAS OF SAADAT HASAN MANTO

Abstract

This paper examines how different translation strategies affect a reader's understanding of Partition trauma in Manto's Afsanas, Thanda Gosht, Khol Do, and Toba Tek Singh. In his original Urdu narratives, Manto uses stark realism, narrative restraint, and so-called 'the silence' of partition, all of which communicate the psychological violence of the partition. In translation, Manto's effects are changed due to the translator's linguistic and cultural choices, which affect the reader's engagement with the trauma. Steering a path of intersection between translation studies and reader response theory, this paper is positioned within the framework of domestication, foreignization, explication, and omission concerning the source and target texts. The study shows that although some strategies enhance readership in the target texts, they also paradoxically diminish Manto's shock value, cultural ambiguity, and moral perplexity. The study argues that for Manto, the act of translation is beyond a mere transfer of meaning; it is a process of re-visioning which alters, in a significant way, the reader's ethical and emotive engagement with the trauma.