RIP André Schiffrin

André Schiffrin, a pioneer of independent publishing, has passed away.

There's a NYTimes obit, but I like this one from Melville House better.

This man left a profound imprint on the entire world of publishing, in more ways than I could possibly list. But most importantly for this translator's story, he founded The New Press with Diane Wachtell (now its executive director). The two of them decided that it was important to publish good books as an independent press, but they also decided that it was important to help young people get into the publishing industry. Hundreds of people have gone through their internship program, starting with the woman who first got me interested in translation, Emmanuelle Ertel.

I got my turn from Nov. 2011 to Mar. 2012, and it's the reason I know anything at all about how publishing works. It's why I had the opportunity to receive guidance while writing my first reader's report. It's how I found the contacts to get my foot in the door at a rich handful of other publishing houses and agencies. It's how I've gotten jobs, and learned how to act as a writer and translator so that your editor (and managing editor and accountant and production head and everyone else) doesn't hate you.

I also was privileged enough to work a couple of TNP shindigs that André and his wife hosted at their apartment in New York City. Even if I hadn't known the man, his penthouse apartment would have been legacy enough. There were no walls. Well, no bare walls. Every single wall -- including part of the kitchen, and except for the formal salon -- was made of bookshelves. Sagging bookshelves, crammed with everything he ever wrote or edited or studied or published or enjoyed, in several languages. My then-fiancé was so impressed that it's become a permanent part of our dream house.

So, André, although I knew you for a very brief time, and although you probably didn't remember my name (but you would have remembered that I spoke French), and although we weren't close colleagues or good friends or even from the same era, you have my deepest gratitude and utmost appreciation for everything you did for me and for all of us in translation and publishing. Thank you. Rest in peace.

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.

Not here today.

But on Tuesday, I was writing over on Three Percent about a particularly wonderful panel during last month's ALTA conference. It's all about awesome Japanese sound poetry. Go check it out!

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! 

I made this for you.

Much more hands-on than my normal work.

I learned MIG welding on Saturday at the Rochester Arc and Flame Center . And what did I do with my new-found skills?

Nothing so practical as a table.

Nothing so cute as a wire garden bug.

No, I thought of you, dear readers, and made us all a sign. Just in case you get lost while you're here. 

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.