Reading Byomkesh in Translation: Pather Kanta to "The Gramophone Pin Mystery"

Translation of any Indian detective fiction into English started primarily with the detective character growing in popularity through adaptations in various media. Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi stories similarly started to be translated by Srijata Guha for Penguin Publishing House after the character gained popularity throughout the country on being adapted as a TV show in the late 1990s. On being translated from Bengali to English, the stories, though, remained constant in matters of plot and form, but were influenced by the shift in spatiality and temporality. This article aims to study the loss of literary elements in the process of the translation of Bandyopadhyay’s “পথের কাঁটা” (Pather Kanta), as “The Gramophone Pin Mystery”, in the context of translation studies.