Preserving a Poet’s Power: Translating Sholpan Imanbayeva from Kazakh to English

Abstract

The case of Sholpan Imanbayeva remains unique in Kazakh literature and history, as she was the first female poet whose works were published in the Kazakh press, and spoke for women’s empowerment and freedom from their traditional roles in the pre-Soviet Central Asian society. However, her presence in Kazakh literature is scarcely known. In order to make the texts accessible for the readers worldwide today, my work focuses on Imanbayeva through translating her poetry from Kazakh to English. A theory, composed by Walter Benjamin, suggests that understanding the emotional register, historical context, and the role of the words used in the piece, secures the successful translation. The purpose of this project is, thus, to identify the distinct features of Imanbayeva’s style in order not to lose them in translation. Throughout the translation process, I have discovered that there are three distinct elements of Imanbayeva’s style: the traditional form of rhyme and meter, prominent in Kazakh oral literature, the frequent appearance of strong images, and the unequivocal message of the necessity of women’s empowerment, especially those of the working class. Therefore, preserving the stylistic elements of Imanbayeva's poetry required fidelity to some parts of the text and distance from the others. Balancing between replicating and altering would create a translation that is both fluent in another language and in possession of its uniqueness.