After over 20 years of painstaking work, a retired history professor of Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar has translated all the plays of William Shakespeare into Punjabi language.
Professor Sujit Hans said that he began work on the project in 1993 after retirement by translating Othello.
He said as a student in 1953 he loved Shakespeare plays and later translated Macbeth.
"I translated and staged Macbeth in Punjabi. This Macbeth translation inspired me to press ahead with all Shakespeare's plays after my retirement from GNDU in 1993. It took me 20 years to complete the translation work," Hans said at a function held to honour him at Kurukshetra, Haryana, today.
Vice Chancellor of the Kurukshetra University, Lt Gen (retd) D D S Sandhu, honoured Hans, for his extraordinary achievement of translating all the 38 plays of the bard into Punjabi.
The Shakespeare Association of India, a body which carries out literary activities of interpreting, translating and performing Shakespeare's work, had organised the function to honour Hans.
Speaking at the occasion, Sandhu said, "Professor Hans has not only helped Punjabis all over the globe in understanding the works of Shakespeare by these translations, he has also helped Punjabi language by enriching it through his intervention in folk traditions and local dialect for search of right words."
Earlier, Hans gave a performance of his work by reading important sections from some plays of Shakespeare translated by him.
