When I was asked to review this translation of a Mughal memoir, my reasons, at least I believe, were very different from that of the translator of the volume. The memoir is a narrative of the events of a part of the eighteenth century and translated from ‘Original’ French to English. But G.S. Cheema’s reasons for why he decided to translate this memoir are whimsical. The opening sentence of the ‘Translator’s Prologue’ begins with a warning to the readers in case the readers are under the illusion of going through a valuable memoir. To quote Cheema, ‘Jean Law is not one of history’s famous names’ and if remembered at all ‘he is apt to be confused with his much more famous uncle’ or his brother Jacques Francois; and that the manuscript copies of his Memoire languished unpublished in libraries and archives for more than a hundred years until Alfred Martineau chose to publish it in 1913. Just a few sentences and you probably want to abandon the task of reading and more importantly reviewing. But like any reader afflicted by curiosity, as one prods on, and discovers the peculiar reasons that inspired Cheema to undertake the translation of the memoir. He found some of Lauriston’s observations ‘so interesting’ that they could have ‘sparked off a lively debate’ ‘but no, far from a bang, there was not even a whimper’.
October 2014, volume 38, No 10