18/11/2025
RKSMVV Girls' College is thrilled to announce the nomination of Dr Chaiti Mitra for a translation from the Bengali of Vidyadhari and the Vagrant Lakhindar by Abhijit Sen among the shortlisted translators and titles for PEN Presents x SALT award for sample translations on Thursday 13 November 2025.
Chaiti Mitra is an academic by profession and translator by passion. She has been teaching English literature at the undergraduate and post graduate levels for over three decades, and also moves fluidly between English and Bengali, translating in both directions. Among the few translators to take on two of contemporary Bengali literature’s most intricate voices, Shyamal Gangopadhyay and Tilottama Majumdar, she has rendered their complex and layered prose into English with nuance and empathy. Her recent translation, Chandaneswar Junction and Other Stories (The Antonym Collection), has been widely appreciated. She has also recently contributed to a forthcoming volume of Bengali rendering of Doris Lessing’s short fiction. Her Bengali translation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been running successfully with the Kolkata-based theatre group Swapnasandhani since 2022. Her research interests include women’s writings, and narratives of trauma and resistance. Her first critical work, Bo***ir to Bibighar: The Memsahib and the 1857 Mutiny Narratives, explores intersections of gender, empire, and representation. Beyond academia, she writes regularly on gender and travel for Bengali journals and newspapers. An avid traveler and a music and theatre enthusiast, she attempts to bridge languages, cultures, and creative forms through her work.