Devil's Advocate

Here's a not-so-popular idea: translators should have the visibility of editors, not authors.

There was a whole uproar on a literary translators forum a while back about an article in the NYTimes, where David Gordon, an mid-range American author wrote about his strange and unexpected success in Japan. Translators were getting their panties all in a twist because said author never once mentioned his translator, who was probably single-handedly responsible for said Japanese success. Some even took him to task on his own blog for it, where he responded quite gracefully:

My translator's name is Aoki Chizuru and I certainly have thanked her, in person, in print and in public, in English and in Japanese, and have also expressed gratitude when receiving the awards for those who even made it possible for me to read the books I loved from Japan and elsewhere. She translated my second book as well and is working on the third. So don't worry!

Either way, it sparked a couple of comments from translators lamenting about the fact that authors and reviewers not only didn't mention their translators in print, but editors were also left out.

Editors are pretty much universally left out. As are publishing houses. And agents. And publicists. And foreign rights directors. All the damn time.

Far from being something to moan and whine about, this is instead just the normal course of business. There are always the players in the limelight, and the dozens of other people behind each one of them that makes everything happen. And it's not just in the book industry, either. How many producers do you know in the music industry, besides Brian Eno and Timbaland? How often are screenwriters publicly thanked and acknowledged for their work, besides the credits at the end of a movie and the Academy Awards (and even then, those awards might not be shown in the main broadcast)? How many times have you wandered through an old European city without knowing the names of any of the artists who sculpted the half-naked marble beauties in the park?

I'm not arguing that translators do unimportant work. Far from it. Translation is some of the most important artistic work out there, if such things can even be ranked on some sort of scale. But how do you compare a translator's importance and artistic merit with the original author? Or with an editor's influence?

And what if, as was mentioned in one of my classes recently, a book reviewer is working with an extremely limited word count -- 500 words, maybe even 300, a mere blurb. Feel free to take such reviewers to task if the translator's name is not mentioned in the metadata listing of the book, but if the translator gets glossed over in such a bite-sized review, it's not such a crime, really.

Related to that, there was a time when PEN's Translation Committee sent strongly-worded letters condemning a reviewer if they neglected to mention the translator in their review. Far from bringing about the expected change, many reviewers bristled quite a bit at such an attack. Their reasoning was that at least they were reviewing any translations in the first place. Which is a fair point.

There's a time and a place to thank everyone involved in a bringing a book to life, and hopefully, everyone all gets their proper due. But normally, the spotlight is fixed entirely on the author and his or her words, no matter how much revising or rewriting or writing their editor actually did throughout the whole process. Why should translators be treated any differently?

Whew. End thought experiment. For now.

(Disclaimer: as you can probably figure out by the title, I'm playing devil's advocate here. I'm not at all convinced by my own argument, but it's an interesting idea.)

(Also, there are plenty of articles out there playing rebuttal to this. See Words Without Borders and Asymptote's blog to start.)

Next Idea in Reviewing Translations

How in the world does one actually review translations?

I think the better question is, why is this such a hard question?

I propose a new way of reviewing translations, by considering two questions:

FIRST: Is the book a good book, in a vacuum?
Does it weather the normal storm of questions asked when reviewing a "normal" book, the questions of style, pleasure of reading, intriguing ideas, and the like?
The trick when answering this question is to credit both the author and translator with any successes and pitfalls. Although the translator has less influence over certain aspects (like plot and general structure), both writers are still responsible for the book in the translated form you are reviewing. Credit them both.

SECOND: How important is this text, in the context of the target language's literature, the source language's literature, and literature as a whole?
Again, this is a similar question to what is asked of "normal" books. How does it fit into the grand literary tradition? Does it introduce something new, is it heavily influenced by other works, is it a breath of fresh air or a clever reinterpretation of something else?
Granted, the middle part of this question may be difficult for some reviewers to answer regarding some books. I myself have no idea what the state of literature is in Kazakhstan, but I also have the ability to use Google, and might be able to figure it out in less than five minutes.

I guess what it boils down to is that I am very confused as to why translations have to be treated differently than a country's own fiction. Why does the exoticism of translated literature scare people away, when we have writers like Zoë Wicomb, Kiran Desai, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing IN ENGLISH about their "exotic" experiences from South Africa, India, and Nigeria, respectively, including italicized foreign words in their manuscripts that readers do actually learn to understand, and garnering both critical and popular acclaim?

Look. Translated books are just like regular books, except they have two (or more) writers to thank for either their brilliance or their failures.

Or is this overly simple, too simple? Is there more to it than just this?

Feeling Dumb

Recently, there was a forum conversation on the precise meaning of "Tu parles!" as an exclamation. This is something I heard quite often the last time I was in France, being around two adolescent boys (or rather, being around the mother of two adolescent boys), so I know what it means.

"Dude, you're gonna ace that test!" "Oh, tu parles! My science teacher gives the hardest tests, this is gonna be rough."

"Mom, I'm going outside!" "Tu parles! Not without your coat, you're not!"

I know how to use this phrase. So does almost everyone else who speaks French on that forum.

But then, as we started talking about it, we came up with about two dozen different translations for it. High register, low register, sarcastic, joking, ironic, disbelieving, scoffing, wishful... By the end, we all ended up more discouraged than anything else. I kept reading through everyone's responses again and again, thinking, do I really know how to speak French at all??

That's how translation works, though. You read a word that you know, you know what it means...just not in that particular context. You find a word that you could use everyday in any foreign conversation, but you have no idea how to express the same thought in English. Or you drag out your thesaurus to read through all the synonyms of "indolent," only to decide that the best word for the circumstance is "lazy." Nothing fancier.

Do really know how to speak English?

The debate rages on.

Not here today, either.

Guys, grad school is tough. End-of-semester is starting to kick my little patootie.

Anyway. ELTNA is still going strong, and word is spreading! I guest-posted on Lisa Carter's fabulous Intralingo recently about how it all got started and what we're hoping to do.

And why don't you check out some of her other posts while you're there? This one and this one are some of my personal favorites.

See you on the flipside.

I never knew.

I loved them all so well. Moon Child, the gem, the dragon, the musty bookshop, the fire dashing from the sphinx's eyes, and the letters, the wordplay, the child of three B's, the old man of three C's, each chapter begun with the elaborately-drawn next letter in the alphabet...

"The Neverending Story" was one of my favorite books as a child. I crawled under my desk on the second reading to be like Bastian, curled up in the gym mats in the school attic. I made lists of character names for every letter in the alphabet. I tried to craft my own world for a neverending story. I cried. So many times.

It was probably the first exposure I had (or consciously remembered having) to meta-literature, reading about reading, being stuck in an endless loop of recording and reciting with the Old Man of Wandering Mountain.

But in all the dozens of times that I read and loved this (by now very well-worn) book, I never knew.

Guys...

Friends, Romans, countrymen...

Dear readers...

This book is a translation.

Yes. A translation. From German into English, by a man named Ralph Manheim.

This is why translations are important. Because a little girl who reads voraciously will fall in love with one of the greatest stories ever written, and will love the characters and the magical places, and will notice the language--the way the story is told--for the first time. And it will be the beginning of her wish to avoid movies based on books, because she'll realize that she can't bear to see someone else's imagination take the place of her own. And she'll learn how to notice more things, after it takes her at least five readings to see the two snakes from the cover of The Neverending Story on the cover of her own copy of "The Neverending Story."

And through all of that, she'll never notice it was a translation. Never stop to consider that it might be bad, or lesser, because it wasn't originally written in English. Because the mastery of the translator and the mastery of the author combine forces to make a brilliant book. And even though she's shocked, frankly rattled to the core fifteen years later when she discovers that this book has been all along what she now practices, that her eyes as a child must have skipped over the translator's name on the cover (ON THE COVER! of a Penguin book!) in favor of Bastian on the dragon in Fantastica, it only makes her more pleased. Here, finally, is the proof that translations can and do sell. Publishers will understand that, right?

Right?

ALTA 2013 Review - The Little Things

And for more specifics, here follows a link-list of things I heard about (for the first or umpteenth time) at this year's ALTA conference: 

 Residencies, Fellowships, and Scholarships

Free Word Centre (UK) 
Banff International Literary Translation Centre (Canada)
HALMA Network (Europe)
RECIT Network (Europe)
Fulbright program
more exhaustive list on the ALTA website

 Translation-specific Journals, Magazines, and Presses

Words Without Borders 
Asymptote
A Public Space
Two Lines
World Literature Today
InTranslation (Brooklyn Rail)
Autumn Hill Books

Other Translation-friendly Journals and Magazines 

Anomalous Press
LA Review of Books: Quarterly Journal
Tupelo Quarterly
Michigan Quarterly Review
Massachusetts Review
Indiana Review
FIELD (Oberlin)
Subtropics (Florida)
Notre Dame Review
Cincinnati Review

 Support/Advocacy for Translators/Translations

PEN Translation Committee 
Authors and Translators blog
Three Percent blog

Miscellaneous Stuff 

Another awesome conference: ACLA 2014 
My new favorite poem: "Twigs"

ALTA 2013 Review - The Big Things

ALTA members, it's official. Because of this month's conference, I have fallen madly and thoroughly in love with each and every one of you.  Let me count the ways in which we are awesome together:

• We like comics. Graphic novels. BDs. There's a small niche group of us who are doggedly pushing this wonderful form of storytelling in front of mainstream American readers. And it's all beautiful.
• We are poets. Even those of us who don't think so. We care about semantics, how words sound, how they look on the page, how they feel in our mouth, what they mean and how they mean it. I always say that I envy poets, but in reality, I am one. Just like the rest of you. 
• We give each other leads. There's none of the backstabbing that tends to plague so many creative and competitive professions. Instead, we share information about residencies and programs, about grants and awards, about other conferences, about publishers and magazines, about what works and what doesn't. 
• We laugh together about the strangest things. E.g. Cole Swensen: "I don't have a solution for that. Well, that's not true, I do have a solution, but it's not nearly as interesting as the problem, so we'll skip over it."
• We have big ideas. "Translation is writing, not decoding." "Exaggerate the quirks of your characters." "Focus on how you can help." "These are my words, but not my thoughts." 
• We have an idea, then we git 'er done. ELTNA didn't exist at 8am on Friday the 18th. By 5pm, it was officially founded, and launched eleven days later.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can't wait to be an ALTAn (Altinian? Altese? Altite?) for many years to come.

You're not alone!

Ever get that sinking feeling that you're the only one out there with your problems? Sitting in your tiny apartment, staring at your laptop screen for hours on end, struggling with dictionaries and magazine submissions and not knowing a single soul who's been through what you're trying to do.

Yes, you. All you beginning and emerging translators out there.  Anyone who's tried to mine the depths of the Internet for anything that might help you find someone, read a contract, find reputable magazines to submit to, even figure out if graduate degrees or certification is necessary to start working freelance in this country, this network is for you.

It's here: ELTNA.org. 

And we're waiting for you. 

Something's coming...

Something good! 

Something very good, as a matter of fact. 

Something that will help emerging translators in the US find their bearings, and find fellow compatriots.  

Something that will organize resources for beginning literary translators all in one place. 

Something that will lead to webinars, events, and even mentorships.  

It's called the Emerging Literary Translators' Network in America, and it's coming soon.  

Next week, in fact. 

Watch this space for more information! 

Greeks in France

Ancient Greeks, that is.  In French.

France loves its classics, its Antiquity, its Greek and Roman history.  Latin and Greek are still part of the basic curriculum in many high schools. But this isn't a recent love affair. Turns out, it's been going on for so long that it's affected the very language they speak.

I've talked about méduser before (here). Medusa was a Gorgon, a monster in Greek mythology whose gaze turns people to stone. Pretty badass, if you ask me. But the French word isn't even a direct reference to her anymore--it just means "to astound, astonish, or stupefy."

The verb s'adoniser  is similar. Look who's in there: Adonis, the Greek god of beauty and desire. He's considered an archetype of young, handsome men. But the French don't say that a guy is "making himself as beautiful as Adonis." They say il s'adonise : primping. "Preparing himself with almost too much attention," according to Littré.

The French don't mess around with their mythology. No one's going to "Medusa-ize" their enemy or "make like Adonis and beautify themselves." They're too refined for that.

I'm starting to feel pretty vulgar and base in comparison. Time to make like a tree and get out of here.