Translating the Ashes: Researching ‘Burning Memories’

by Vasantha Wakkumbura

There is a profound difference between translating a historical text and translating the deliberate erasure of history itself.

In 1981, the Jaffna Public Library was set ablaze. It was not just a building that burned; it was an intellectual heritage. Over 97,000 books, ancient palm-leaf manuscripts, and irreplaceable historical documents were reduced to ashes in a single night—a massive psychological blow to the Tamil community and a dark stain on our national consciousness.

Working as a Researcher and Translator for S. Someetharan’s documentary Burning Memories was one of the most sobering projects I have ever undertaken. The documentary meticulously pieces together the political climate of the time, the testimonies of those who witnessed the fire, and the deeply controversial efforts in later years to “rebuild” the library over the physical and psychological scars of the past.

When you are researching and translating the accounts of people who watched their cultural memory go up in flames, you are no longer just dealing with language. You are handling raw trauma. Translating these interviews and historical records for a wider audience requires an immense level of empathy and precision. You cannot sanitize the grief, nor can you soften the injustice.
A physical archive can be destroyed, but documentary filmmaking and translation serve as a secondary archive—a way to ensure that the ashes still speak, and that the wider public is forced to confront the uncomfortable truths of our shared past.

To my network of researchers, historians, and storytellers: how do we meaningfully preserve the memory of a lost cultural heritage when the physical evidence has been violently erased?