Founded in March 2020, Mother Tongue Twisters (MTT) is a comprehensive multilingual, digital platform with original and curated contemporary poetry for young readers in Indian languages. It aims to weave stories and sounds from the Indian collective conscience, drawing from the heterogeneity of the multi-layered ‘Indian experience’. Poems will be written and curated by poetry and language enthusiasts from across the country, in languages and dialects ranging from English, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali to Kumaoni, Santhali, Sylheti, Maithili and Marwari.

MTT also seeks to create conversations around Indian languages, poetry and translation through its regular digital initiatives such as #TranslationThursdays, which began in April 2020, as a direct result of the lockdown in India. These conversations bring the translator into focus and discuss the joys and challenges of the process of translation.

Mohini Gupta is a writer, translator and currently a DPhil (PhD) candidate in Oriental Studies at the University of Oxford. She has been the Charles Wallace India Trust Translator-Writer Fellow in 2017 for writing and translation, hosted by Literature Across Frontiers at Aberystwyth University. An alumna of SOAS University of London, Young India Fellowship (Ashoka University) and Lady Shri Ram College for Women, she has been a Research Fellow at Sarai, CSDS; and a Dhvani Fellow at the Sangam House international writers’ residency in Bangalore. She is also a trained hindustani vocalist and western classical pianist.

She has written for publications such as Huffington Post, The Caravan, TheWire.in, Scroll.in and the WorldKidLit Blog. Her English-Hindi translations for children have been published by Tulika Publishers. She now runs the digital multilingual Indian language poetry collective for young readers, Mother Tongue Twisters, and curates conversations on languages, literature and translation. Follow her at @mohinigupta28 and @mttandmore.

You can watch her speaking about her literary journey, especially in the world of Indian language poetry and translation, with Alexandra Büchler, Director of Literature Across Frontiers, here: