66
Chapter III - Children’s literature and the Translation of a work of
Auroville Children’s Literature into Italian
The third chapter aims to present a study of a work taken from Auroville children’s
literature for which I have provided a translation into Italian, and an analysis regarding
theories and deforming tendencies that occurred during the translation process. The work
I have analysed and translated is a short story titled “The bird and only the BIRD”, a book
written in English and Indian, which recalls Japan culture because of its origami form;
the writing of this work is characterized by the presence of cultural specific items and
proper names for which I have provided an analysis regarding translation theories.
Before discussing children’s literature in Auroville and the translation process of the text
I have chosen, I have analysed the birth and the development of world literature dedicated
to children, taking in consideration how it has developed in India.
Firstly, I take into account the major social and cultural contexts in which children’s
literature developed, from its origins to the nineteenth century, focusing then, on the
importance of India, as the cradle of Children’s literature thanks to its rich oral tradition
and the Panchatantra, the oldest transcription in Sanskrit of animal fables, in verse and
prose, which dates back the III century BC
186
, and which influenced the most known
European author of this genre, Jean De La Fontaine, who in the incipit of his collection
of fables wrote:
“This is the second book of fables that I presented to the public. I have to acknowledge
that the greatest part is inspired by Pilpay Vishnu Sharma
187
, an Indian sage”.
188
186
Hertel, Johannes, The Panchatantra, Cambridge Massachusetts, Harvard University, 1912
187
Pilpay Vishnu Sharma is the author of the Indian collection of fables “Panchatantra”, written around
the 200 B.C.
188
Carbonaro, Creazzo, Tornesello, Macrotesti fra Oriente e Occidente: IV colloquio internazionale, De
La Fontaine, Jean, Advertisement to the Second Compilation of Fables “Je dirai par reconnaissance que
j’en dois la plus grande partie à Pilpay Vishnu Sharma, sage indien”, (1678), Rubbettino Editore, 2003,
p.513
67
3.1. The beginnings of Children’s literature in the European and Indian
panorama
The first traces of children’s literature date back prior to the Middle Ages, through an oral
diffusion, by means of songs, oral poem, spoken stories, sacred texts such as the Vedas
and the Upanishad linked to the Indian oral tradition.
In Middle Ages, the narration of passages of the epic poems such as the Iliad and the
Odyssey has always been considered as a crucial resource in nurturing the child’s progress
from basic literacy to a level of critical and cultural literacy, in fact, the odes of Horace
represented a necessary mean to instruct and train children for adult life.
189
In the fifteenth century, a crucial role was played by William Caxton, who provided for
a printing press into England, guaranteeing the first English written translation of the
Fables of Aesop
190
, a collection of fables, which belonged until that moment to the oral
tradition. The 1484 edition was written for an adult audience but at the same time, it
attracted the children’s attention; the introduction of the printing press ensured also an
opportunity to learn for people and children who were not able to read.
191
It is important to highlight that before the eighteenth century there was not a specific
literature dedicated to children, in fact, they read religious texts or books written for adults
and the great part of literary works was only adapted for them. This lack of a specific
genre for children was linked to a low consideration towards them, who were not highly
valued, on the contrary, they were considered as ‘miniature women and men, inadequate
versions of adults’
192
from a sociological point of view; only in the seventeenth century,
the time of the Enlightenment, people started to give children the importance they deserve
from a psychological, social, cultural perspective. In this regard, an important role was
played by the English philosopher John Locke, who in his 1693 work, Some Thoughts
Concerning Education, introduced his consideration of the child as a ‘tabula rasa’, a mind
189
Hollindale, Peter, Children’s literature in an age of multiple literacies, 1995
190
VI century B.C.
191
A look at Children’s Literature, English Literature Essay,2018.
192
Berry Mayall, The sociology of childhood in relation to children’s rights, Institute of Education,
University of London, 2000, p.245
68
free of pre-established rules and knowledges, ready to the acquisition of new skills and
awareness, through the experience and the interaction with the environment:
“It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain
innate principles; some primary notions, as it were stamped upon the mind of man; which
the soul receives in its very first being and brings into the world with it. It would be
sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should
only show how men may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any
innate impressions; Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of
all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? To this I answer, in one
word, from experience.”
193
For the first time, children were described as having special distinguishing features, such
as innocence and sweetness, and the idea of childhood as an independent stage began to
develop. The creation of the notion of childhood by Locke was an essential precondition
to produce children’s books and determine the development of children’s literature.
194
In
fact, this new vision of the child promoted an increasing interest in the educational field
and a flourishing of children’s literature, thereby a separate genre of literature with its
own canon began to emerge.
A landmark regarding children’s literature is certainly represented by A little pretty
pocketbook, the true first book intended for the instruction and amusement of children’s
pleasure reading, published in 1744 by John Newbery
195
. The intent of the author was to
educate children through amusing lines, the book contains illustrations of several
activities for children, a description of them with rhymed stanzas and moral lessons. The
motto of Newbery was Delectando Monemus
196
, in fact, what made his work stand out is
how he addressed his readers: by combining instruction with delight, developing
entertaining ways of addressing children on scientific and moral matters, through rhymed
poems, images, and proverbs. The key feature of this trend was that the child was no
longer viewed as a ‘miniature adult’, but rather as an individual with interests and needs
which differed from the adults:
193
Locke, John, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1689, Kenneth P. Winkler, Indianapolis,
1996, p.87
194
Zohar Shavit, Poetics of Children’s Literature, University of Georgia, Press Athens and London,
2009
195
John Newbery, A Little Pretty Pocketbook, Dodo Press, 1744
196
Instruction with delight
69
“Medieval art until about the twelfth century did not know childhood or did not attempt
to portray it. It is hard to believe that this neglect was due to incompetence or incapacity;
it seems more probable that there was no place for childhood in the medieval world.
Children were simply reduced to a smaller scale than the adults, without any other
difference in expression or features.”
197
Newbery’s approach to children became a general trend that paved the way for the
Romantics’ idealization of childhood.
198
The Romantics viewed the child as a being purer than the adult, no yet corrupted by the
world illness; in English literature, this view is often illustrated by Blake’s celebration of
childhood in Songs of Innocence (1789) where he described the pureness of the child, his
relation with God and Nature and, in Songs of Experience (1794), which suggest that
experience of the world leads to suffering and loss.
199
Blake’s contemporary writer,
William Wordsworth, had a crucial role in the Romantic movement as well as in the
consideration and the new vision of childhood. In his poem My heart leaps up,
Wordsworth wrote ‘the child is the father of the man’, this line highlights the importance
embodied by the child, who innocent in his nature and full of life becomes a source of
learning for adults:
‘My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow, so was it when my life began; so is it now I
am a man; so be it when I shall grow old’
200
;
the author underlines the bond between the child and nature, considered the latter as a
source of pleasure, since the early years, hoping that this sense of astonishment and
wonder remains forever. Wordsworth wanted to suggest that childhood is the base of the
personality and character of men. Through his poetics, the author changed the vision men
had about childhood and children, considered now as part of the natural world, who have
access to a deeper perception and understanding of a divine and immortal world, then, as
children age and reach maturity, they lose this connection but gain the ability to feel
emotions.
201
197
Ariès, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood: a social history of family life, 1962, p.33
198
Adams, Hazard, William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems, University of Washington Press,
1963, p.54
199
Kokkola, Lydia, Instruction with delight: the narrator’s voice in John Newbery’s early English
children’s books’, 2009, p.336
200
Wordsworth, William, Ode: Intimations of Immortality, 1807.
201
Canton, Rebecca. ‘Wordsworth’s poetical works’, Jordan edition, 2007, p.73
70
A few years before, in 1762, the French writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
published his pedagogical work on education, Émile ou de l’éducation, where he admits:
‘We know nothing of childhood, the wisest writers devote themselves to what a man
ought to know, without asking what a child is capable of learning, always looking for the
man in the child, without considering what he is before he becomes a man’.
202
In his work, Rousseau recognized children as innocent, individual beings characterized
by their own sensitiveness, their subjective needs, and desires. Thanks to Rousseau and
Locke’s contribution to the children’s study from a social and psychological point of
view, the child is no more considered as a passive object to be shaped, but a human being
in his own right whose particularities and wishes are of the highest value.
This new way to consider the child contributes to the creation of a clear separation
between literature for adults and literature for children. In the nineteenth century,
childhood came to be more valued and the result was an expansion and increase of
publication of literary works dedicated to children in England as well as in Italy and
Germany. In 1865, the Reverend Charles Ludwig Dodgson, known as Lewis Carroll,
published Alice in wonderland, a novel written with the expressive purpose of
entertaining three young sisters.
203
His illustrated novel changed the writing style for
children, moving towards an imaginative and empathetic one, with an unconventional
plot structure that aims to amuse and enjoy children through the use of linguistic devices,
such as puns, proverbs, and nursery rhyme. Moreover, Carroll introduces Alice not as a
stagnant character, but as a multifaceted child, with her physical, psychological and
emotional involvement; throughout her bizarre journey in Wonderland, the author shows
his readers his heroine’s earnest attempts to understand, trying to “make sense” of what
she discovers about herself and her relationship to time, space, reality, mortality, and
identity;
204
for example, Alice asks herself many questions and makes numerous
conjectures as she is falling and when she begins to wander about her new surroundings,
in fact, there are expression such as, “Alice thought to herself, I wonder if, I wonder how
many, I think, I shall have to ask, I should think”. Carrol introduced the inner working of
202
Foxley, Barbara, Emile or Education, London & Toronto, 2019, p.2
203
Lewis, Carroll, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, Chicago, Illinois edition, 2000.
204
Mattson, Christina, Phillips, Children’s literature grows up, Harvard University Library, 2015, p.67
71
Alice’s mind, rather than portraying Alice as a passive character at the mercy of
circumstance, simply fearful and not thoughtful about what is happening to her.
205
The Italian literary panorama began to consider children’s literature as a specific literary
genre only in the second half of the eighteenth century, following the way of the French
Enlightenment which established a new consideration of children, with their own
spirituality and needs. According to Gino Capponi, an Italian politician and writer of the
18
th
century, Italian children’s literature born as a mean of education, with a strong
pedagogical value, and the aim to impart moral integrity, duty, amor di patria
206
and
respect towards institutions such as family and religion;
207
in this regard, a concrete
example is given by Il Giannetto, published for the first time in 1837, by Luigi Alessandro
Parravicini. This novel combines the adventure of the main character, a model child and
the importance of instruction; in fact, it contains educational notions about history,
geography, science. The book aims to show children the metaphor of how a poor child,
through education and continuous engagement can learn a job and become a wealthy
man.
208
This new sensibility towards childhood education has led to a new literature adapted to
children in content and language. In this regard, a crucial role is played by Pietro Verri,
exponent of the Italian Enlightenment, the first who wrote a manuscript entirely dedicated
to her young daughter Teresa.
209
The main aspect of this work is that it is characterized
by a rational and scientific approach through references to numbers, habits, and customs
of the time, and, at the same time it is full of sentimentalism, touching subjects such as
the ideal husband, the relationship between father and daughter, the love of a little girl
towards her mother; from his work a new approach towards children emerged,
considering them as sensitive creatures needed of particular attention. The real first
example of Italian literature dedicated to children is surely represented by Le avventure
di Pinocchio, written by Carlo Lorenzini, better known as Carlo Collodi; his canonical
novel for children, published in 1883, had a great impact on world culture, hiding
important moral lessons, such as disobedience does not pay, to respect parents is always
205
Mattson, Christina, Phillips, Children’s literature grows up, Harvard University Library, 2015, p.66
206
A typical Italian expression used to define a pride sense of belonging to Italian nation.
207
Capponi, Gino, Sull’educazione, frammento, 1894, editore Roberto Ridolfi, 1976.
208
Ascenzi, Anna, Letteratura per l’infanzia, Università di Macerata, 2014, p.10.
209
Verri, Pietro, Manoscritto per Teresa, Serra e Riva editori, 1983
72
rewarded and to tell lies has always consequences.
210
The novel Pinocchio reflects a
difficult process of internal growth and change thanks to which the puppet, that embodies
a lively lazy child, learns from his mistakes, becoming in this way human and conquering
his personal freedom.
211
Another milestone regarding children’s literature in Italy, which
influenced also the International panorama
212
, is represented by the children’s novel
Cuore, published by the Italian author Edmondo De Amicis in 1886. This work is set
during the Italian unification (1861) and in fact, it includes social problems of the second
half of the nineteenth century, expressing the necessity to operate also an ideological
unification of the Italian state at that time. This novel is written in a diary form by the
main character, Enrico Bottini, an 11-year-old primary school student in Turin with an
upper-class background; it is a valid representation of moral values, such as love and
respect for family and friends, and patriotism, dignity, and honour.
“I have no family. You may take the place of my family. I had a mother last year, but she
is dead. I have no one else in the world now but you. You must be my sons, I love you,
you must love me. Show me that you are boys with good hearts, and our school will be a
family and you will be my consolation and my pride.”
213
“..three passengers were talking about their travels and they began to discuss Italy, one
commenced to complain about the hotels, another about the railroads, they all began to
abuse everything “One would prefer to travel in Lapland”, said one, “had found in Italy
none but swindlers and brigands”. The third added that Italian officials did not know how
to read. “An ignorant people”, repeated the first. “A filthy people" quoted the second. A
tempest of soldi and half-lire fell upon their heads and shoulders and leaped upon the
table and floor, making a great noise. All three arose at once, looking up, and received
another handful of coin upon their faces. “Take back your soldi”, said the boy
disdainfully, “I do not accept alms from those who insult my country.”
214
Going beyond out the boundaries of the European context regarding children’s literature,
I want to retrace the origins of children’s literature in India, considered as the cradle of
this genre because of its rich oral tradition that begins in the III century before Christ,
with the Panchatantra, the ancient collection of fables for children, written in Sanskrit,
210
Clancy, Martin, What the Original ‘Pinocchio’ really says about lying’, The New Yorker, 2015.
211
Storia e Critica pedagogica, letteratura per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza, Università di Messina.
212
There were a lot of translations, in English, Spanish, German, French, the story was adapted by
Nippon Animation, and broadcast in Iran.
213
Mantellini, Gaetano, The heart of a Boy (Cuore) A story of Edmondo De Amicis, Laid & Lee
publishers, Chicago, 2016, p.12
214
From “The Little Patriot of Padua” Mantellini, Gaetano, The heart of a Boy (Cuore) A story of Edmondo
De Amicis, Laid & Lee publishers, Chicago, 2016, p.23
73
attributed to Vishnu Sharma.
215
The name Panchatantra derives from the Sanskrit pancha,
five, and tantra, treatises, which refer to the five books, Loss of friends, The winning of
friends, Of crows and Owl, Loss of gains and Imprudence, each book contains more than
twenty fables.
216
The author deployed metaphors of anthropomorphized animals with
human virtues and vices in order to instruct his three young princes
217
about diplomacy,
politics, administration, promoting a wise conduct of life, emphasizing the importance of
friendship, teamwork, and alliance, showing how “weak animals (a slow turtle, a tiny
mouse) different in skills, can work together, in order to accomplish a goal”.
218
This huge
work was considered, and it still is, a traditional vehicle for instruction and moral
education, meant to inculcate ethical behaviour
219
, being also a source of inspiration for
the world’s fable literature, such as Aesop’s Fables, La Fontaine’s works
220
.
Another pillar of the Indian children’s literature is represented by the Jataka Tales, a
collection of 550 anecdotes and fables, dated 300 before Christ, about Buddha, which is
represented in both human and animal form, he may appear like an elephant, a king, or a
god, as the bringer of peace and moral teachings.
221
Other examples of Indian literature not strictly related to children are represented by holy
Hindu texts, such as Vedas and Upanishads, ancient Sanskrit collections of religious texts
of spiritual teaching and ideas of Hinduism, written probably between 800 Before Christ
and 500 Before Christ. Although Indian children’s literature had remote origins and it
acted as a true inspiration for many western writers, exercising a literary influence on the
West, it can be observed later, a veritable inversion due to the colonial intervention. The
case of the Panchatantra and the Jakata Tales, with the Mahabharata one of the two
major important Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana, which
narrate the life of Indian legendary princes, their travels across Indian forests and their
fights against evil forces, remained solitary examples of pre-colonial influence of Sanskrit
215
Sheoran, Kamal, Contemporary Children’s Literature in India, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975,
p.137
216
Ryder, Arthur, William, The Panchatantra- translation, University of Chicago Press, 1925.
217
A king, worried that his three sons are without the wisdom to live in a world of guile, asks a learned man
called Vishnu Sharman to teach them the ways of the world. The Great Panchatantra Tales, English version,
Wordpress
218
Patrick Olivelle, Panchatantra: the Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, Oxford University Press, 2009, p.9
219
Ryder, Arthur, William, The Panchatantra- translation, University of Chicago Press, 1925.
220
La Fontaine admits in the introduction of his Second Fables: "Je dirai par reconnaissance que j’en dois
la plus grande partie à Vishnu Sharma sage indien’’, Les Fables de Jean de La Fontaine, Agence du Livre,
Montréal, Québec.
221
O’Brien, Barbara, The Jataka Tales, Stories of the Lives of Buddha, 2019.
74
texts in Europe, being sources of much European folklore.
222
In fact, in the fifteenth
century, the colonialism began with the Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama, the first
European, after Romans, who re-established direct trade links with India. The early
seventeenth century is characterized by the struggle for dominance between France,
Denmark, and England; in the later eighteenth century, the British won against France, in
this way, they consolidated their colonial power, gaining direct and indirect control over
almost all of India;
223
in this historical and political context, the regard towards oriental
texts and culture began to decline, in fact, the British started to impose to Indians the
learning of English and the discovery of Western literature. This imposition led to
contamination of Indian literature, which acquired western features in style, language,
and genre such as tragedy, essays and novels, and also, to a lack of attention towards
children’s literature written in Indian language.
The scholar Radhika Menon, in her article ‘An overview of Indian children’s literature in
English’ affirms:
“Whether in English or in other Indian languages, the actual attitude of writers, editors,
and teachers is that children’s books are necessary for acquiring reading and writing skills
and no more, and the status of children’s literature in India is to be judged by the amount
of critical scholarship on it, it is very clear that the status is very low indeed. There is
neither debate nor discussion nor even critical evaluation of Indian children's books, be it
in English or in Indian languages.”
224
Also, the Indian scholar Sheoran Kamal argues:
“India is the country of many contradiction and children’s literature is one of them. It is
the unpalatable truth that in a country where thousands of children are doomed to
illiteracy, the urgent need is to provide textbooks and other basic needs for rudimentary
education. At this point, to speak of children's literature as a specialized field is far-
fetched and fanciful. This fact is accompanied by an unusual phenomenon. India has the
greatest living oral narrative tradition in the world which feeds the needs of every young
and growing child, it exists as a separate entity on the accepted scale of written literature,
and in this context children’s literature in India remains perhaps the greatest paradox of
all. Moreover, because of its oral nature, children’s literature in India cannot be put into
a neat compact section, sealed and stamped. The subject remains as vast and varied as the
subcontinent itself, and as old. It becomes difficult to corral it under one heading. The
only way is to divide it into levels, on one level we have the traditional children’s
222
M. Galik, Comparative Literature: Theory and Practice East–West interliterariness: a theoretical
sketch and a historical overview, A. Dev & S. K., 1989, p. 120.
223
Riddick, John, The History of British India, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.
224
Menon, Radhika, An overview of Indian children’s literature in English, Managing Editor, 2000.
75
literature, which for the most part, is oral narrative, on the other hand, there is the modern,
printed children’s literature dealing with present-day styles and subjects. It is a more
didactic form, less creative and still slow in development, irrespective of language. On
another level, there is the language. Literature for children in English forms a separate
section and remains quite different both in form and content from its counterparts, Hindi
and the regional languages. Children's literature in English displays marked "Western"
characteristics in style, subject, and treatment. Hindi and other regional languages are
more insular, more "relevant" in content. The regional languages have access even to
remote corners of the country and, although different from each other in treatment,
nevertheless draw their themes from traditional folklore, which is rich and imaginative
and remains the most interesting source for children’s literature.”
225
The Indian subcontinent faced of millennia of wisdom and knowledge threatened by
megacity monocultures and globalized capitalism. Indian customs, literature, wisdom,
languages in small villages are also changing very quickly. Indian folklore, much of
which has yet to be printed, remains an essential source for children’s literature also for
a small part of the modern Indian literature developed in the last years in Auroville.
3.2. Children’s literature in Auroville
The mission of Auroville, with its multicultural environment, is to be a bridge between
the past and the future, helping children and youth to become a part of the future world
without losing and forgetting their heritage and the richness of Indian culture. Nowadays,
a small part of the Indian literary scenario is represented by the children’s literature
developed in Auroville which aims to spread themes such as the respect towards tradition,
nature, and family, through the development of a particular literature made of brief
dialogues, amusing rhyme, and unique images. The city has given wide space to the
creation of a lot of literary genres, such as poetry, novels, short stories, written in English,
with the aim to promote a rediscovery of the Indian culture. For example, the Auroville
Press Institution published, in 2000, Shakuntala, or the Ring of Remembrance, a moving
and a poetic love story seen from the inner perspective of the protagonists themselves,
inspired to the masterpiece by Kalidasa, an Indian poet and dramatist in Sanskrit
language, of the 4
th
century CE, who wrote plays and poetry following the examples of
225
Sheoran, Kamal, Contemporary Children’s Literature in India, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975,
p.127
76
the Vedas and the Mahabharata, Sanskrit epics. Or even, the aurovillian author Yatra
Srinivassan worked on a collection of short stories, called Yatra Sirukadhaigal
226
inspired
by the stories of the villages around Auroville, in order to discover and make know the
essence of people of the nearby villages, through slang of the Tamil language, describing
also the changes over the years in lifestyle and the socio-economic impact from the eyes
of locals. It is the same for The Legend of the Descent of the Ganges, a collection of tales
and legends of the India culture, written by Valmike and published in 1999, this work
describe an ancient Indian myth, the story of how Ganga, Daughter of the Snows,
descended on Earth to purify mankind. The aurovillian writers give a lot of importance
to the project of preservation of Sanskrit and Tamil heritage and culture, recalling through
their publications ancient and sacred parable, such as in So small that you cannot see it, a
short book published in Auroville, inspired by a parable of the Upanishads, an ancient
collection of religious and philosophical texts, written in Sanskrit, which dates back the
IX-VIII century BCE, it recalls a sacred teaching, that is ‘Tat tvam Asi’, in English ‘You
are That’, it refers to the oneness of men, but also their smallness compared to the whole
universe.
In addition to the attention towards the recovery of Indian traditions, languages, myths,
and legend, Auroville children’s literature deals also with important topics such as
environment and sustainable development, by means of colourful and illustrated books,
such as The Smile of Acacia or How to become a Work Tree, a book for children, inspired
by a real story which happened to Auroville when cyclone Thane destroyed large part of
the forest in 2011, the story narrates about the resilience and beauty of nature. This kind
of children’s literature aims to invite them to discover the language of nature, trees,
flowers, and animals and to respect and protect them. Another particular feature of
children’s literature in Auroville is represented by the presence of handmade illustrations
which play an important role helping children in the comprehension of the text, in fact,
according to the scholar Gabriele Thomson-Wohlgemuth:
“In literature, the visual element can be more effective than the verbal one, helping the
development of children’s imagination, envisaging characters and scenery, creating in
their mind a cognitive link between the word, sound, writing, image, and memory”
227
226
Which means Yatra Short Stories in Sanskrit
227
Thomson- Wohlgemuth, Gabriele, Children’s literature and its translation. An overview. University of
Surrey, 1998, p.11.
77
228
The handmade sketches are an essential feature of children’s literature published in
Auroville, they always accompany the writing, recalling what is happening throughout
the narration in order to help the child to follow the story also just listening and watching.
According to me, illustrations are closely linked to, and indeed form part of, a translation.
That’s why in my translation I take into consideration the images, reproducing them in
the target text, in order to respect the author’s intentions in creating a continuum between
words and images. Through pictures, children learn about their surroundings and the
world. When they are reading, pictures help them to imagine the individual characters,
the scenery. Through pictures, they learn about contexts in the text when reading on their
own, their imagination develops, and they receive an incentive to continue with their
reading. Optimally, author/ translator and artist complement each other, and the style of
the text corresponds with the style of the illustration in a book. This means that, in
translating a book, translators must take into consideration the illustrator’s interpretation,
avoiding any inconsistencies between their text and the pictures.
229
A unique feature of Auroville publications is represented also by the use of recycled paper
and paper with vegetal fibre such as banana, lotus and bamboo leaves and cotton in
conformity with the principle of environmental sustainability embraced by the city and
its inhabitants.
228
a volunteer who colours “Once upon a tree”, a book about flora and fauna in Auroville
229
Thomson- Wohlgemuth, Gabriele, Children’s literature and its translation. An overview. University of
Surrey, 1998, p.73
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