A Serbian language teacher by profession, Ana Jovic loves to translate books. One of our language champions, Ana has played an important role in our #FreedomtoRead 2019 campaign and has just reached her goal of translating 50 stories into Serbian. In an email interview, she tells us how she hopes to build a repository of stories, by being a part of this campaign, for children from the Serbian diaspora and how much she enjoys the process of translation.

Tell us something about yourself and you connection with Serbian?

I am an English and Serbian teacher. Serbian is my native language. I studied the English language and literature, and teaching Serbian as a foreign language, so I hold two Master’s degrees. I’ve been teaching for 18 years now both online and in brick-and-mortar schools. Teaching is both my passion and profession. I love teaching and I hope to never stop doing it. I live in the countryside with one husband, two sons, four dogs and ten cats. In my free time, I enjoy a good book, a cup of black coffee, and furry company in the form of my cute cats in my lovely backyard.

What are the benefits of creating a hyperlocal library in your mother tongue?

As a Serbian teacher, I realised there are very few online books in Serbian for children. Besides, these resources don’t cater to different levels, ages or interests. Creating a hyperlocal library at Storyweaver will tremendously help children of Serbian diaspora to preserve Serbian as their heritage language. It would also help them develop their language skills and enjoy fiction in their mother tongue. This would enrich their personal experiences and allow for wider use in their heritage language schools. Such a library would also provide material for family reading time when parents and children share the language while reading and discussing stories.

You have now translated 50 stories to Serbian. How was the experience?

I loved it. I easily lose myself in translation, so the time stops for me then. I enjoyed each and every book both as a reader and translator.

Of the 50 stories that you translated, which story would be your favourite and why?

This is hard to answer. All of them are special. But if I had to choose one, let it be Counting Cats. It’s about a boy who rescues cats and brings them all home. He ends up with a bunch of cats. I can relate to this story since I’m like the boy – I have ten cats. I couldn’t resist their cuteness and helplessness so I rescued them all. Now, I have ten cats and still counting. Just like the boy from the story.

Did you face any challenges while translating a particular text and how did you overcome the same? 

I have to admit that translation is an enjoyable and easy process for me. However, I find it hard to translate rhymes. You have to find rhyming words in Serbian that can keep the meaning of the original rhyme. That’s the hardest part which takes most time and energy. The way to deal with it is to think hard, play with words and try as many combinations as possible to find the one that works. However, once I find a solution that sounds good and means the same as the original, I feel immense satisfaction. 

Do you plan to share the stories you have translated?

I would like to present the platform and the stories to a Serbian audience. I do hope that the stories will soon reach all children of the Serbian diaspora who would like to read but can’t get hold of books in Serbian easily. I hope that this Serbian library will become the families’ favorite resource of Serbian storybooks.

You can read the Serbian stories translated by Ana Jovic here. 

 

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This position has been filled! Do keep following us on Social Media for updates on other job openings. 

You’re reading about this position because you believe in the power of content - good content. Similarly, at Pratham Books, we believe in the power of stories – good stories. For well over a decade we have strived hard to reach children across India with a variety of award-winning stories across 18 Indian languages. With our digital crowd-sourcing platform – StoryWeaver we now share the power of stories with a global community of educators, parents, authors, illustrators and translators.

                     

About the role

Pratham Books is looking for a dynamic individual for the position of Content Manager (StoryWeaver). A self-motivated individual with experience and skills in curating content from multiple sources, forging strategic partnerships and anchoring the process of migrating content to the platform. The person will lead a team and be responsible for timely execution to expand the content available on the platform to serve the needs of children globally. The role will report to the Head of Digital Initiatives and will work closely with different internal and external stakeholders. This is a full time position based out of Bengaluru.

The individual will be responsible for all the following

Strategic Partnerships

1. Create partnership opportunities with other publishers to open license their content on the platform
2. Create partnership opportunities with Indian Universities and Language Institutes to increase the pool of good quality translations on the platfor
3. Identify and forge partnership opportunities with international organizations like Translator without Borders  to nurture translation partnerships in International language
4. Working closely with the content team for sourcing children's stories under open licences from across the globe

Programme Management & Design     

1. To build a strong cohesive programme operations team including setting up the Studio department and putting the processes and work-flows in place
2. To ensure that we meet our commitments to donors, delivering projects on time and on budget, and delivering the committed activities and project reports in compliance with the project design
3. To work closely with all stakeholders to ensure high quality standards are met for crowd-sourced content - including review processes and red flagging of inappropriate content
4. To take on other tasks or responsibilities, as required for the project  
5. Archiving and documentation

Content Migration

 

1. Prioritizing the pipeline of content from all sources for migration
2. Managing the studio teams for the timely delivery of large scale data migration
3. Working closely with the design teams to define new design templates 
4. Work with the technology partners to develop efficient processes for content migration

Liaison with co-collaborators & internal stakeholders:

 

1. Creating a database of content creators, authors, illustrators, translators, etc on the platform to enhance engagements
2. Work closely with the marketing team to come up with interesting promotions to promote use of content
3. Work closely with the content, research and marketing teams to deliver the project goals

Required Skills

1. Post graduate in Literature / Communication / Journalism with 7-10 years of experience in related fields. Experience with a publishing house is favourable.     
2. The candidate must have experience working in an editorial position in a publishing house and should have hands-on experience in review, proofreading and production related processes.
3. Exceptional communication skills     
4. Highly organized and detail oriented
5. A proven track record to manage, lead and deliver large-scale operations
6. Proven ability to build consensus and work effectively within a cross-departmental team     
7. Self-starter, team player, strategic thinker and all around book nerd
8. Passion, integrity and energy!     

Nice to have but not mandatory

1. Experience working with non-profits.     
2. 1-2 years working in a partner facing role     
3. Indic language and digital publishing experience

Location: Position is based out of Bangalore and is full-time.

Salary: Will be commensurate with experience. We are looking for a passionate individual who wants to be part of a team that is creating a new model in multilingual publishing to address the scarcity of books for children in need.

Interested candidates can email their resume to [email protected]

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Anurima Chanda is a PhD research scholar working on Indian English Children's Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Recently, one of her papers on Nonsense Superheroes was  chosen as course curriculum at the Berklee College of Music. She loves translating to and from Bengali, her native language. She loves writing and illustrating for children.   

I am doing my PhD from the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. I am at the last stage as I submit in July this year. My topic (and this you would be glad to know) is on Twenty First Century Indian English Children's Literature and how it has been challenging previously held taboos within this area. So I look at texts that are not afraid to talk about caste, class, crime, violence, death, disease, disability, broken families, alternate sexualities, so on and so forth. The Pratham Books title ‘Chuskit Goes to School’ is one of the many stories that I am looking at - and I should inform you that I absolutely loved the story. I remember that I was looking for the English version of the story at the Delhi Book Fair this year, but they had already been sold out. That is when I started searching for it online and was glad to see that it was made freely available online on StoryWeaver.

I discovered StoryWeaver when the Pratham Books page on Facebook advertised about the Retell, Remix and Rejoice Contest 2017. When I went through the site, I realised how easy it was to upload one’s stories through the platform. That is what got me so excited! But I saved all my excitement for later, as at that moment my prime target was to send a story for the contest. I got to know really late as it was already 27th or 28th of April and the last date for submission was 30th. I knew I had a story but I did not have enough time to weave it properly. When I saw the subheadings under which I could write, I knew I wanted to write about "Body Parts" but with a slight twist. I wanted to tie it up with disability, so that we bring a break in the way body parts are taught at schools. Children are made aware that there are people for whom eyes and ears function differently. The motive behind it was not just spreading awareness but also to find a way against bullying that disabled children face at school.

StoryWeaver has given me that confidence to tell my story, even if it is not polished. Plus, it is an added advantage, that you guys are so open to new ideas. Unlike most other publishing houses, who still have concerns about the suitability of sharing stories around certain topics with young children, Pratham Books has always been a forerunner in breaking that pattern and showing the way ahead. So thank you, thank you for changing the scene of children's writing in India and for giving us - people who are so passionate about this field, an opportunity to experiment.   

By that time the story bug had hit me hard. I started with simple translations. Then I thought of writing my own story, and the easiest was telling my own story - yes, Mohar is my nickname and that story had really happened. I wrote in Bengali, because although I am an English student, I still 'think' my stories in Bengali - even today. About the illustrations, one of the biggest grouse against Indian children's literature has been that it uses western pattern of illustrations. Even though there have been experiments with indigenous art-forms, it has shot up the prices of the books, making it out of reach for majority of the children in India. So, I knew that whenever I tell my own story, I will experiment with indigenous art-form. That was the reason that I used the Warli art-form for the book. And, in the future too, I intend on using similar art-forms - be it Poto-chitro, Madhubani, Gond or the others.

 

You can read Mohar in English, here.

There were so many people who complimented me on Mohar, that now I know that I am doing something right. I always knew that in the future I wanted to write for children. But this one, just made me more confident. Now I know for certain that I can do it. And thanks to you guys for making it so simple! So, my major aim is to get through complex ideas to children in the most easy way possible. To tell stories about children who do not fit into the mainstream idea of childhood in India. Then, to have my friends translate these stories into as many languages as possible to spread them far and wide. And yes, to experiment with folk art. I also want to help open libraries for children in the country - starting with my hometown Siliguri. At present I do not have the money, but once I submit my PhD and have a job, I would love to initiate that project. It is all a dream!

 

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