Translation and the Transcreated Nation: The Case of Quratulain Hyder 

Sadia's talk is a reading of Qurutulain Hyder’s engagement with Neoclassicism, colonial and nationalist archaeology in her two Urdu novels Akhir-i-Shab ke Humsafar and Ag ka Darya. Hyder substantially rewrote these novels in her own English translations Fireflies in the Mist and River of Fire, framed through a discussion of translation and the term she uses to describe River of Fire: transcreation. The author explicitly connects Indian colonialism with the American situation through an engagement with Neoclassical architecture connecting plantation slavery to colonial extraction.  She also connects Orientalist philology and archaeology and their effect on the divisions of the Partition of India and post-Partition ethnonationalism.  

Sadia Abbas is associate professor of postcolonial studies at Rutgers University-Newark and director of the Center for European Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick. She is the author of At Freedom’s Limit: Islam and the Postcolonial Predicament, winner of the MLA first book award, and the novel The Empty Room, shortlisted for the DSC prize for South Asian Literature, and co-editor of Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities, which was listed as one the best art books of 2021 by the New York Times.  She is co-founder and co-editor of Ideas and Futures, a multi-media, interdisciplinary e-journal of culture and politics and Executive Director of Ideas and Futures:  A Collaborative for Just and Vibrant Societies.