Filipino version of ‘War and Peace’ to be released by Filipino language commission

The boxed set of War and Peace’s Filipino version. Photo: Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino’s Facebook page.
The boxed set of War and Peace’s Filipino version. Photo: Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino’s Facebook page.

The Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF), or the Commission on the Filipino Language, yesterday announced that they have translated Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace into Filipino.

The novel, titled in Filipino as Digmaan at Kapayapaan, will come in a box set and will be available sometime in September.

Translated by Lamberto E. Antonio, the books will be sold at the KWF’s office at the Malacañang Palace complex. The price of the books have yet to be decided by the KWF as of writing.

First published in 1865, War and Peace tells the story of five aristocratic Russian families who live during the French invasion of Russia. It focuses on three characters: the illegitimate Pierre Bezukhov, a man trying to take his inheritance; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war; and Natasha Rostov, a nobleman’s daughter.

Previously, the KWF has translated into Filipino the short stories of French fictionist Guy de Maupassant, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and William Shakespeare’s King Lear, among other works.

All of them were made available by the KWF’s publishing division, called Aklat ng Bayan (The nation’s book).

In a phone interview with Coconuts Manila, KWF’s senior language researcher RR Cagalingan said that offering translations is the government’s way of showing that the Filipino language has the ability to present some of the world’s greatest works of art.

He said in Filipino: “The Filipino language has the ability to dive into intellectual and creative pursuits. We are also doing what Germany has done. When they wanted to improve and promote German as a unifying language, they translated Shakespeare’s works.”

Germany consistently produces translations of Shakespeare’s works, thanks to the influence of the German Shakespeare Society, according to Deutsche Welle.

The books that Aklat ng Bayan publishes are translated by an in-house team as well as outsourced translators. Aside from translating from English to Filipino, they also translate from Spanish and regional languages such as Cebuano and Ilocano.

From Spanish, they have translated Antonio Luna’s Impresiones, Apolinario Mabini’s Republika, and Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Rizal’s novels were translated by KWF’s chairperson and national artist Virgilio Almario.

“Translating from Spanish is needed because it’s no longer being widely used [in the country],” said Cagalingan.

All of these books are being sold in the KWF’s office to make them cheaper. They can also be downloaded for free from KWF’s official website.

“If the books were in bookstores, they will be sold twice the original price. When we sell it here, it’s almost equal to the printing price,” said Cagalingan.



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