Announcement Time!

Remember that oh-so-emotionally-challenging yet ultimately rewarding book I told you lovely readers about a while back? This one. The book that I refuse to call my "Holocaust book". The one about a German girl's exile to France, hiding in Italy, and then life in France after the war . . . the girl-turned-woman who I got to meet, Marianne Spier-Donati. One of the bravest and most wonderful women I've ever met.

(There seems to be a theme, here. The first book I translated was also about another great woman, author George Sand. Huh. Nice connection.)

Anyway, back to the point at hand. This is a publishing announcement!

Yes, that's right: my translation of Return to Erfurt, Story of a Shattered Childhood: 1935-1945, by Olga Tarcali, has officially been published by Centro Primo Levi Editions.

Isn't it pretty? It fits in really nicely with all the different series that CPL Editions has started publishing. All of the books are fantastic. (Check them out here.)

Things to note:

1. Yes, I will be doing a giveaway shortly. Stay tuned! More info TK.
2. If you find yourself in New York City next week, CPL Editions is reopening the SF Vanni bookshop in celebration of all their new publications. The party will be on Tuesday, February 17th, 6-9:00 p.m., at 30 West 12th St. Full announcement here.
3. Finally, and most importantly, you can purchase the book now! Paperbacks here, ebooks here, and more info from the publisher here.

Go forth and read! (I mean, it doesn't have to be this book; you should be reading excellent things, anyway.)

OFAC's Syria Sanctions

Some serious stuff today, everyone.

As a member of ALTA's Board, I've recently joined my fellow Directors in expressing our support of PEN and other leading authors' and publishers' organizations requesting that OFAC permit US publication of books and articles from Syria.

That's a lot of surprising words for someone unfamiliar with the situation. You can go read the full press release on PEN's website, but the short version is that the Office of Foreign Assets Control's new sanctions on Syria are:

dictating that American publishers may not enter into transactions for Syrian works not yet fully completed, may not provide “substantive or artistic alterations or enhancements” to Syrian works, and may not promote or market Syrian works.

Essentially, we can't publish anything from Syria.

This is already a dreadful thing, terrible policy, and oh, by the way, also a violation of First Amendment rights. But the worst part is, all this has happened before (and it will probably all happen again). The same coalition that's denouncing these sanctions today actually filed suit against the Treasury Department back in 2004 for similar sanctions against Cuba, Iran, and Sudan. The suit was dismissed when OFAC fixed those regulations and promised never to do it again. Funny story about that.

This goes against everything that we literary translators hold dear and work for every day. No introducing readers to new points of view. No depicting a strange and wonderful foreign culture. No exchanging of ideas from the other side of the world -- which should be so easy these days with the existence of the Internet. No way to understand our enemies, and no way to understand the people living under enemy governments who are probably our friends.

Esther Allen had a project that was directly impacted (read: "postponed") by the sanctions back in 2003/2004, and wrote a wonderfully sharp piece on it for Words Without Borders. Go read it, and be happy that the regulations got fixed once.

And then, realize that the same problems are going to happen again. Anyone who attended the ALTA conference in Milwaukee remembers Alice Guthrie's remarkable reading of her translations at the Fellows Reading. Really brilliant stuff, just like the rest of the Fellows. Only now, she'd be prohibited from publishing any of it, just because it happens to be from a country that our government isn't getting along with. ALTA's level-headed president, Russell Valentino, called the sanctions a "misguided policy". I think I have some stronger words for it.

At the very least, we can all rest assured that the coalition isn't afraid to bring a suit against the government. Hopefully, we won't have to go that far again.

The PEN Model Contract (a.k.a. ALTA Mini-Review #3)

Happy New Year! Bonne année et bonne santé !

And what better way to start out the new year by going back and . . . reviewing something that happened two months ago?

Bear with me. A new year means new organization, which means that I found a note to myself from last year with a helpful suggestion to set out a bit about the PEN Model Contract on this here blog. Very helpful, past me. I wish present me had found the note sooner, but hey, better late than never.

Anyway. The PEN Model Contract is here: http://www.pen.org/model-contract

Learn it. Use it. For translators, it's a document that works for and protects both you and the publisher. And although PEN does not currently have the ability to give legal advice, the contract has been vetted by their lawyers, so you can point hesitant publishers to the contract as proof of an industry standard. I've even sent the link to my non-translating author friends as an example of a legally sound contract.

"But Allison," you say, "I'm working with a publisher so big that they have a whole team of lawyers! They've got a standard contract they want me to use!"

Not a problem, my dear translator. Look: all contracts are negotiable. All of them. Period. This was a point that was brought up in the panel that was held to discuss the PEN Model Contract at last November's ALTA conference, and it's an important one. Since contracts are, by definition, an agreement between two parties, that agreement can be different for every set of two parties that comes along. But remember, too, that negotiations will mean compromise. The great thing about the PEN Model Contract is that it reminds you what the possibilities are to ask for in a contract, as well as how to word those requests in a professional way.

You can also adapt the PEN Model Contract to your own circumstances. A few examples that were brought up in the panel include:

• splitting up payment into three stages (upon signing, upon delivery, upon acceptance of final draft)
• payment due upon completed translation vs. accepted translation
• calling the initial fee a "payment" instead of an "advance", which clears the way for royalties to begin from the very first copy sold
• ensuring your name on the front cover, not just any ol' cover
• possibility of sub-rights for the translation (a possible wording could be "Translator holds the subsidiary rights for all formats, including, but not limited to, electronic book, audiobook, film and TV rights, and translation")

Another thing that was mentioned during the panel: be wary of payment that is contingent on the publisher receiving a grant. It's often helpful if the book is supported by a grant, but you can't have your payment being dependent on a grant coming through, especially if you'd still be expected to deliver the translation.

One final note: in Europe, translator copyright is considered a moral right. The PEN Model Contract could help Americans get there, too.

***Disclaimer: None of this constitutes legal advice. I'm not a lawyer. I'm a translator.

ALTA Mini-Review #2: French readings

Another thing I really enjoy about ALTA conferences is the Bilingual Readings, which have been organized for the last umpteen years by the vivacious Alexis Levitin. Although there were almost double the number of readers who signed up as compared to any other year, the schedule ran very smoothly, and there were constantly opportunities to slip into a room and hear translations being read from Farsi, Latin, German, Yiddish, Swedish, Chinese, Thai . . . really anything your little heart could desire.

Almost anything can happen in bilingual readings. People can read works-in-progress, trying them out in front of an audience for the first time. People can read straight from published works, celebrating their excellent translations--last year, Rita Nezami read a translation of hers that had just landed in The New Yorker. Sometimes, the original authors are present, which makes the reading even more linguistically rich. All of us in the audience who don't speak that language just get to sit back and bask in the sonorous rhythms of foreign poetry.

This year, I read from a short story by Hélèna Villovitch in a French session that included poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; writings from France, Belgium, Morocco, and China (!); and authors ranged from Baudelaire to the Oulipo group to contemporary journalists. Everything was wonderful, as usual, but two readings stood out.

Lara Vergnaud read an excerpt from an Ahmed Bouanani novel set in a prison. As you might expect, the prisoners had all given each other nicknames, which ranged from Fartface to (if memory serves) Windshield Wiper. The excerpt sounded like a hilarious misinterpretation of Orwell's Animal Farm with a heaping of poorly understood religion thrown in. At one point, there was a prayer that seemed to invoke everything under the sun, from random deities to food, all echoed with a chorus of "Amen! Amen!" that came from a willing helper in the audience, used to quite amusing effect.

Also, Chris Clarke read a story from Oulipo writer Olivier Salon that was a kind of reverse (or possibly additive?) lipogram: every line took out one more letter, starting from the end of the alphabet, until the last line was just a sustained "Aaaaaaaaaaa!" Our treat here was that Jean-Jacques Poucel also helped out by reading the original French. It was fascinating how Chris was able to maintain a similar sonority to the French under the same letter restrictions that sometimes make vastly different sounds than English letters.

Submissions for bilingual readings at the 2015 conference in Tuscon are already open! See here for more information if you're interested.

ALTA 2014 Mini-review #1: Women Taking Initiative

One of the best parts of my year is the annual ALTA conference, which took place last week in Milwaukee. And one of the best parts of this particular year's conference was the chance to moderate my first roundtable, which had a very fun name, if I do say so myself: "Taking the Initiative: How to Get Involved, Get Results, and Make Friends Along the Way." I gathered a group of translators I admire who have all started very interesting things, and I asked them to describe the process:

• what they saw lacking in our industry
• how they decided to fill the gap
• what made them decide to take action, instead of waiting for someone else to do it
• what problems they encountered along the way, and how they overcame them

We got some fascinating stories and practical advice out of it.

• Lisa Carter talked about developing her own freelancing into Intralingo, her small business with courses for literary translators
• Esther Allen talked about lots of translation initiatives within PEN America, including Michael Henry Heim's amazing donation to fund the PEN/Heim translation grants
• Olivia Sears talked about how the Center for the Art of Translation was started over twenty years ago, and how the translation landscape has changed in the meantime
• Erica Mena talked about starting the Anomalous Journal (and eventually Press) out of her own apartment, and the challenges and freedoms of not being a non-profit organization
• Susan Bernofsky talked about how her incredibly useful blog Translationista was started, as well as some other advocacy work she does to fill the voids
• I also talked a little about how ELTNA was started, and is continuing to evolve (on the anniversary of its creation)

Notice anything about that list? It's all women.

Now, I didn't plan the panel this way. Initially, I thought about people who had dreamed up some really cool stuff, and asked them if they'd like to come talk about it. And there was one male on my list, but he wasn't able to attend the conference this year. At any rate, about a month out from the conference, I suddenly realized that the people on my roundtable email list were all women.

Erica noticed it, too, and commented on both the panel's makeup and the fact that about 3/4 of our audience interested in hearing these stories were also women. She posited that maybe women start these things--especially if the things involved volunteering or working for free--because women are generally more giving and maternal. (Yes, we're going to be dealing with major stereotypes here. Roll with it for now.) But ALTA was founded by men, and men currently occupy the president, vice president, and past president positions on the board. That's a lot of volunteer work.

Maybe it's just that there are more women translators than men, or at least more who attend the ALTA conference and could thus be said to be involved somehow. (A quick count of participant bios show that approximately 155 women presented or read at this conference, out of approximately 252 total participants--that's over 60% women.) Or perhaps it's that I'm female, and so I'm more naturally drawn toward working or talking with other women.

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that men operate more within the existing parameters of leadership to take charge, whereas women find typical leadership roles harder to access, so they just make their own. (This is a hypothesis. I told you there'd be some grossly overgeneralizing stereotypes.) (Also, to clarify, this doesn't actually hold water with ALTA: although the "top three" board positions are held by men, there's actually a female majority on the board, plus our female managing director.)

Basically, what I think I'm trying to say is, there are a lot of possible correlations here, and even more possible causes behind it. And we're getting into slippery statistical territory. Correlation does not imply causation.

Anyway.

To get back to the original topic, the roundtable was fascinating, even for those involved. Every last one of us has our notepads out and were scribbling furiously. We talked a lot about connections and reactions, how one essay can spark someone else to get in touch and do something, how the question to ask is "why not?" instead of listing all possible excuses for getting something done, and how sometimes you just have JDIs: Just Do Its. (I did apologize for the acronym-speak, but my husband's an engineer.) There was also a fascinating discussion of how more established organizations actually find it harder to drum up interest in their programs and new initiatives--CAT and ALTA being two examples--because people think they already know what the organizations are.

And on that note, if you'd like to get involved with an existing thing or have a brilliant idea for something new, come talk to me. Or talk to the appropriate person. Someone. Anyone. Literary translation, much like life, depends on fun new things being formed and developed all the time.

Want to learn more?

Literary translation is a funny industry. On the one hand, it's extremely academic, with many literary translators doing their translation on the side as they hold down day jobs as professors of language, writing, or maybe possibly (and more often, these days, thankfully) translation. On the other hand, you don't actually need any credentials to get your first job--you just need to know the right people and be able to write well. Higher education is certainly not a requirement for the field.

But if you're like me, you do want go back for that master's degree, learn more, talk to more people, gain more experience. And there's a fantastic program specifically for French to English translators that just opened up applications for the 2015-2016 academic year.

NYU's MA Program in Literary Translation
http://french.as.nyu.edu/object/french.1315.grad.progreq.ma.translation

This is the program I would have done if I hadn't left NYC right when I started looking for master's programs. Run by the indomitable Emmanuelle Ertel, it's a year-long program based in New York City and Paris, two of the greatest cities for publishing. Knowing the right people can be all about location, location, and who you know already. Emmanuelle knows many people.

Plus, there are the courses themselves. I did my undergrad in French at NYU and can vouch for the amazing courses offered.

If you're interested in the program, there's even more info out there! The students of the last few years have created a blog of their studies:  http://frenchandthecitynyu.wordpress.com/ Plus, there's a Facebook page, which lists a lot of events that the students are involved with in NYC.

Go check them out. I promise it'll be worth your while.

Wine and Books

They go really well together.

Kidding. Well, not actually kidding at all. But that's not what this is about.

So, more specifically: book reviews and wine descriptions. They're starting to get scarily similar.

No, I haven't started reading about "hints of oak" or "overtones of caramel" in book reviews. But you know the thing about wine descriptions: there are a select few people in this world whose palates are trained enough to be able to pick out those notes of plum or dark chocolate without being prompted. For the rest of the world, there's just a simple difference between good wines and bad wines. And for the most part, it's all completely subjective. Your own tastes determine whether a wine is good or bad to you, whether you'll enjoy it or not. There are a few wines that pretty much everyone agrees are universally good, but even there, everyone may have a different reason for drinking it.

The more book reviews I read, the more I think that books are just the same as wine. There are lots of good books out there, and lots of not-so-good ones. But move beyond that almost-universal dichotomy, even ever so slightly, and it suddenly becomes a matter of personal taste. I think Perec and the Oulipo crowd are fascinating; other people can't get over the craziness. On the flip side, I really appreciate the widely-acclaimed Maidenhair, but I still haven't managed to finish it.

I read a book for a class last spring that I thought was . . . fine.* I thought the book had some pretty ambitious and admirable goals, but that it didn't really achieve many of them. But there are other reviews out there, other readers who think the book was amazing. They've used words like "vibrancy" and "liveliness" to describe the author's writing. They speak of an "authenticity" in the retelling that I didn't see. They describe the "impassioned" and "arresting" story, which are very present emotions that I didn't feel.

I know book reviews can be extremely subjective, but there's also a rather large element of authority that we ascribe to many book reviewers. It's the same kind of trust we place in sommeliers and winegrowers, the ones who know the terroir, who know the kind of volcanic soil in Sicily that give this particular wine its peat-moss quality, the lack of rain in the third week of August in 2003 that causes the elevated sweetness of that particular Riesling, the bourbon barrels that age one of California's Cab Sauvs in a specific way. They know things, so we trust them.

But if you can't taste the peach, does that mean you're a bad wine drinker? If you don't feel "arrested" by the story, does that make you a bad reader?

No. Of course not. The beauty of humankind's variety, all our wide-ranging tastes, and all that. Personal preference will always have some sort of effect on our judgment of subjective artistic endeavors, whether experienced over our palate or through our brain. As long as you can explain why something didn't mesh with your tastes--in an intelligent fashion, without making personal attacks--your opinion is just as valid as any reviewer's.

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*This has no bearing on the author, whom I met--I think this person is pretty fabulous and a great speaker. I'm also purposefully not giving enough information to identify either the work or the author, since this is not about my personal experience with the book, but rather just looking at the general subjectivity of literary enjoyment.

Babelcube: How About Them Apples?

Emma, this one's for you. I started responding to your comment on the last post, but it spiraled into much grander (and longer) territory.

I've heard quite a bit of chatter about Babelcube, a service that lets authors hire translators directly, over the past several months, so it's high time that I went to check it all out for myself. My findings are as follows.

Babelcube is like a worm-eaten apple: glistening, healthy skin on the outside, with one little hole that leads to a rotten core.

Problem #1: Authors pay nothing for the translation of their book. That's great for the authors, but pretty bad for the rest of the world, considering translation is a service that demands appropriate payment.

This means that there is no upfront payment for translators. In fact, no payment is guaranteed at all. The entire work is done on spec. I have a colleague who explained to me his opinion that spec work should always be done for works from classic, well-known authors. As he says, "At least one of you should have a recognizable name."

Problem #2: Translators don't even get to read the whole book before bidding for it. They just get a sample, on the basis of which they might get selected and sign a contract. That's slightly terrifying.

Problem #3: Payment is based on royalties. Now, on the surface, this is actually a fine idea: why not let translators be held somewhat accountable for the sales of their book, similar to the way authors are? Now, this only works, of course, if the translator gets paid a fair wage for their work in advance, but let's set that aside for the moment.

The division of royalties is actually pretty okay -- at least at the beginning. It starts at a lovely 55% for the translator for the first $2,000 of net sales revenue, but then drops pretty sharply from there. So total, for the first $8,000 of net sales, the translator gets $2,900 (Babelcube has this figure right on their revenue share page). And while that's a fine number, let's assume that the book was a pretty slim novel at 50,000 words. That's a whopping 5.8 cents per word. Ouch. And after that, it gets even harder for translators to earn any money -- only 10% of net sales after the first $8K.

I don't want to completely rag on Babelcube, because they are ostensibly doing the world a service by getting more literature out there in more languages. And honestly, this type of setup is extremely attractive for self-published authors. The author has to be the rights holder, which usually only happens for self-published works. (Tangential hilarity: there's a clause in the contract which states that the rights holder must affirm that "the Book is currently sold by Amazon." Hahahahahaha.) But if we are in the realm of self-publishing, then the book is probably going to be priced much lower than traditionally published books: $4.99, $1.99, or even 99 cents. How many copies would have to sell for translators to even dream of that first $2,900 in payment?

BUT! But but but. Here's the biggest Problem of them all: a lack of accountability, a lack of ability to really know what's going on with your work. Now, authors are rarely able to read their own book in translation. One Greek author recently marveled to me how she wasn't even able to recognize her own name on the cover of a Russian translation, which is a fair point (and also highly amusing). But there's usually a more-or-less official set of checks and balances built into the translation process. Specifically, for example, when an English book gets picked up for translation into German, there's a German publisher at the other end who engages the translator and edits the translation. They make sure that the work is polished and presentable in German, even though the original English author speaks not a lick of German. At Babelcube, though, the authors themselves are asked to sign off on the first ten pages of the translation, and then again to accept the final finished copy. How in all the nine hells are they supposed to do that with any sort of reliability? Babelcube actually suggests the following to authors: "if you don't speak the destination language, you may have a friend who can help." Gee, thanks.

And for translators, the guidelines for the authors to accept the translation are a bit murky, as well. Babelcube offers themselves as an arbitrator if necessary, but it would still be pretty easy for the author to give the translator the runaround. Even if the translation was forced to be accepted, the author could "decline" to promote the new translation at all. If no one can find it, no one can buy it, and the translator doesn't get paid. (Not to mention that the translator could screw the author over in a very similar way. The difference is that the author doesn't have any money or unpaid time at stake.) Besides, this is one of those awful "work-for-hire" situations. Sure, you're paid royalties on this one, but that doesn't outweigh the fact that you don't hold any rights to your own work. Sigh.

Realistically speaking, the risk is very high for everyone. I would say that it's too high. And granted, for the translator, this seems like one of those opportunities that gets you experience and exposure early on in your career, as well as that all-important line on your CV. For some people, this is exactly what they need. Heaven knows I had my own terrible experience at the beginning of my career. I regret the outcome (and the payment, egads), but I can't regret the experience it gave me, and what it taught me NOT to do.

All I'm saying is that Babelcube looks like a very easy way to get a translated book under your belt, which could be really great. Just don't spend all of your time there.

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Emma, I'd be extremely interested to hear what you think, as someone who's working with Babelcube. Are you happy with how you're getting paid? Did you have a good experience with your author? Any logistical snafus with the site itself?

If you found this post helpful, you can buy me a tea (although it might say “coffee”).

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?