Found in Translation: JLF London at the British Library 2025
.
Its twelfth UK edition, and its ninth at the British Library, JLF London returned this June with a weekend of expansive and cross-cultural conversation. With nearly 40 talks across literature, art, gardening, food, music and film, the programme was diverse and incisive.
In his opening remarks, producer Sanjoy Roy spoke of the collaborative spirit that makes JLF London possible, and the privilege of once-again gathering at what he called the ‘crucible of knowledge and information’. He framed JLF London as both a celebration of cultural cooperation and a challenge to complacency. AI formed a part of his vision, too – as a tool, he insisted, not a threat: ‘It’s not the big frightening thing it’s made out to be.’
The Power of Words
Language sat at the centre of many sessions, but none more poignantly than The Power of Words, a discussion shifted from its original ‘wordplay’ focus in response to the recent Air India crash. In a packed theatre, Shashi Tharoor and Shrabani Basu explored the limits and reach of language in the face of tragedy, memory and literary expression.
Tharoor recalled the story of Wilfred Owen, who, upon his death in 1918, was found carrying verses from Tagore’s Gitanjali: ‘That what I have seen is unsurpassable.’ For Tharoor, this story was a rare and revealing instance of British-Indian literary exchange which was, in his eyes, often overlooked.
Prompted by Basu, he traced English’s complicated colonial journey through India, and the ways in which this journey is found in loan words like shampoo, verandah, jungle, thug and loot – on the latter, Tharoor noted somewhat wryly how the English ‘took the word into their dictionaries and habits’.
The opening talk took place only twenty-four hours after the Air India crash, and both speakers reflected on the difficulty of articulating this loss: ‘Language is very good at describing things that exist,’ Tharoor said, ‘but not so much voids.’ After a minute’s silence was held for the victims, he added, ‘the language of loss should be silence.’
Broadcasts from Kabul: Narratives of Hope
In Broadcasts from Kabul, panellists Saad Mohseni, Batool Hairdari (via interpreter Gulhan Durzai), Lucy Hannah and moderator Georgina Godwin considered what it means – and how it is possible – to write and speak under restriction.
Godwin started by asking the speakers to describe the atmosphere in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. ‘We thought it was the end,’ Mohseni recalled. Music was banned, soap operas were cancelled and any resisting staff lost their jobs. Still, he chose to remain. ‘A country of over 40 million needs information, education and entertainment,’ he said. His stance, identified by Godwin as ‘politically pragmatic’, was rooted in a belief that media could and should persist even in dark times: ‘It’s important not to abandon the country in this time of autocratic regime.’
Batool, on the other hand, described a starker reality; she spoke of a ‘gender apartheid in Afghanistan’ where ‘the biggest crime is just being a woman’. Her only lifeline, she asserted, was writing, which brought the conversation on to Lucy Hannah, Director of Untold Narratives, and My Dear Kabul, a collective diary formed from the Afghan Women Writers’ Collective’s WhatsApp group.
While Mohseni pushed for change from within Afghanistan, Hannah stressed the responsibility of the global community, and particularly the publishing industry, not to only amplify marginalised voices in moments of crisis, but at all times. Before August 2021, many publishers turned down her proposed anthology of pieces from Afghan women, My Pen is the Wing of a Bird; after the Taliban takeover, nine called back with sudden interest. Hannah hoped festivals like JLF London would help
readdress this unequal distribution of narratives.
Heart Lamp
One of the highlights of the festival was hearing from Kannada author and activist, Banu Mushtaq, and translator Deepa Bhasthi, joint winners of this year’s International Booker Prize for the short story collection, Heart Lamp. The conversation centred around the efficacy of fiction as a political act, and the responsibilities of translation.
‘I challenged the hegemony of class, caste and patriarchy in the 80s,’ Banu said, describing how activism has always informed her writing. A lawyer, mother and writer, she turned to short stories as a way to write within her time constraints, without belittling the strength of the form: ‘It requires a lot of courage and creativity to write short stories.’
Bhasthi, who selected and translated the collection, spoke of resisting the pull toward cultural flattening and equivalence. ‘We don’t speak perfect English – there is no perfect English,’ she said. Instead of substituting idioms or explaining references, she kept the language close to the original. ‘When I read English books, no one explained to me what a pizza or sandwich was. Why should I explain what an idli or dosa is?’ When asked what might have been ‘lost in translation’ in her process, Bhasthi replied that the better question is what is ‘found’. Of course, there’s no way to find an equivalent all the time, she said, but translation opens up a text far more than it narrows.
Though Banu resisted being cast as a source of instruction – ‘I’m not a preacher!’ – both she and Bhasthi acknowledged Heart Lamp’s social weight. Counselling centres are limited for women and girls living in the Muslim communities of Southern India, Banu said, and many women find themselves struggling in their matrimonial homes; she’d like to think of the book as ‘hope’ and ‘direction’ for them. Bhasthi added, ‘circumstances are not always escapable’, but the stories can offer relatability which in turn offers meaning and understanding, if not always concrete change.
Unearthed: the Power of Gardening
In the warmth of the Piazza Pavilion, what began as a gentle discussion about the soothing effects of gardening shifted into a sharp and necessary reflection on land, access and legacy. Unearthed featured Matt Reed, Antonia Moon, Sui Searle and host Datshiane Navanayagam.
Matt, Global Director of the Aga Khan Foundation, described how the Trust uses green spaces to create sustainable and healing community gardens around the world. Co-curator of Unearthed: the Power of Gardening and the Library’s Lead Curator of Post 1858 India Office Records, Antonia offered historical insight into changing attitudes to gardening and plants – particularly during and after lockdown.
But it was Sui Searle who gave the conversation its bite. ‘Access to gardens and nature isn’t equal,’ she said, citing data that half of land in England is owned by less than 1% of the population. Black communities, she reminded the audience, are four times less likely to have access to green space than white ones. For Sui, gardening is inseparable from politics, and is a site to explore colonial narratives as much as it is a site in which to be soothed.
Even the language used in gardening circles, she said, is framed as combative and separates humans from nature when they are, as she sees it, one and the same. ‘Pests’ and ‘weeds’ establish a hierarchy, and Sui prefers co-creation: ‘We’re not the only people in the space.’
Found in Translation
If there was a phrase that could hold the festival’s many strands, it might be that raised by Deepa Bhasthi: found in translation. Not just linguistic translation, but the translation of voice, place and meaning. From Kabul to Karnataka, from colonial grammar to community gardens, JLF London 2025 asked what stories survive across borders – and what gets made anew in the crossing.
To discover more content exclusive to our print and digital editions, subscribe here to receive a copy of The London Magazine to your door every two months, while also enjoying full access to our extensive digital archive of essays, literary journalism, fiction and poetry.