Feb 1st, 2010 | Conferences, Literary Translation, Reports, Translation | No Comments
Expectations were surpassed at the ALTA Conference in November. BY MARGARITA MILLAR
This was my first time at the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference, which took place in Pasadena in November of 2009. When I registered for the conference in July, I didn’t know what to expect. The program seemed really interesting and I could not make up my mind about the panels I wanted check out. The topics were diverse, ranging from song translating to finding ways to publish literary translation. The pre-conference reception was auspicious. Held on the outdoor patio of the Pacific Asia Museum, it was the stage for the presentation in song of Vietnamese poetry performed by Lê Phanm Lê, a poet and resident of Oakland, and her translator Nancy Arbuthnot. To be outdoors listening to poetry, with plenty of food and wine to go with it, was truly a magical moment. The festive evening set the mood for the rest of the conference for me. → continue reading
Dec 1st, 2009 | Literary Translation, NCTA Info, NCTA Meetings | No Comments
Association business, literary translation & business pointers are all covered at the September GM. BY NORMA KAMINSKY
Margarita Millar and Anne Appel on literary translation
The Fall NCTA General Meeting was held on September 12 at The Center. First on the agenda was the approval of an amendment to the NCTA By-laws, Article 11, covering Voting and Elections. The text in bold was added to the existing article: “Each member in good standing shall be entitled to one vote cast either at General Meetings of the Association, cast electronically or sent by surface mail in the pre-addressed envelope attached to the Notice of the Annual General Meeting. The Board shall decide which of these methods shall be used for voting. Proxies shall not be recognized in any voting.”
This change means that members will now be able to cast their votes electronically in NCTA elections. Fewer resources will be used and our voting system will be more environmentally friendly.
The proposed amendment was approved by a vote of 22 to 0 with 0 abstentions.
After the vote, we had interesting and varied feature presentations. In the first part, two translators shared some of their experience and insights into literary translation. → continue reading
Sep 1st, 2009 | Continuing Ed., Literary Translation | No Comments
A workshop directed by Karen Emmerich inspires translators to do what sometimes seems impossible: translate poetry. BY NORMA KAMINSKY AND OLIVIA SEARS
On the evening of Wednesday, May 13, several translators met at the Mechanics’ Institute to discuss an impossible thing: translating poetry. The Center for the Art of Translation (CAT) and the NCTA jointly hosted this workshop directed by Karen Emmerich, a translator of Greek poetry and prose. → continue reading
Dec 1st, 2008 | Literary Translation, Related organizations, Reports | No Comments
On October 7, the Center for the Art of Translation began its 2008-09 “Lit & Lunch” series with a reading by Katherine Silver. BY ANDREA BINDEREIF
Katherine Silver, a renowned translator of some of Latin America’s leading contemporary authors, read from her latest translation, Senselessness, a novel by Salvadoran writer Horacio Castellanos Moya. This is Moya’s first novel to appear in English. Silver received grants from the PEN translation fund and the National Endowment for the Arts to complete this translation and she has since been recognized with an NEA award for her outstanding work. → continue reading
Sep 1st, 2008 | Continuing Ed., Literary Translation, Reports | No Comments
On April 15, poet and translator W. S. Merwin was the featured speaker at the Center for the Art of Translation’s Lit & Lunch program. BY ANNE MILANO APPEL
In its announcement, CAT described W.S. Merwin as follows: “One of the most influential poets of the late-twentieth century, W. S. Merwin has won innumerable honors including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Well-known for his poetry since the 1960’s, he is also one of America’s most recognizable translators, working with Spanish, Latin, and French poetry [and I would add, Italian]. An environmental activist in Hawaii, where he lives, his recent work has been influenced by themes of environmental preservation and deep ecology.” → continue reading
Sep 1st, 2008 | Continuing Ed., Literary Translation, Reports | No Comments
Translators and poets met at our latest workshop in May to explore the topic of poetry translation and, perhaps, to dispute Robert Frost’s dictum that “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” BY NORMA KAMINSKY
Sidney Wade, professor of translation and creative writing at the University of Florida in Gainesville, a poet and translator of Turkish poetry, was the presenter at this workshop held at the Mechanics Institute. Under her guidance participants actively and enthusiastically explored a number of issues relevant to the art of translating poetry. Professor Wade began her presentation with the assertion that there is a great need, as well as an excellent reception, of poetry in translation. → continue reading
May 1st, 2008 | Essays, Literary Translation | No Comments
It is one of the oldest dilemmas in literary translation: if it is the translator’s mission to remain invisible, how does one recognize—and value—the translator’s work?
By Anne Milano Appel
“Good humor is a paradox,” writes humor aficionado Mel Helitzer. “The unexpected juxtaposition of the reasonable next to the unreasonable.” The literary translator must indeed be equipped with good humor to be able to hover in that paradoxical and perpetual state between visibility and invisibility. If I needed yet another reminder of this chronic condition (which I don’t!), it came in the form of a recent article by Umberto Eco in the Italian weekly L’espresso (“Cappelli alti di forma”, Sept. 28, 2007)i. In it the well-known semiotician, philosopher, medievalist, and writer (perhaps best known for his ambitious novel The Name of the Rose) makes a statement whose obviousness on the surface may seem equivalent to “aria fritta” (fried air), as the Italians say when they mean “so what else is new?” Something that is “fritta e rifritta” (fried and refried) is an old story, old news. As Eco puts it (I’m translating of course):
“The translator’s job is therefore difficult and paradoxical, since he should do all he can to make himself invisible, … and yet he would (justly) like this invisibility to be rewarded with a certain visibility. Yet the translator’s success lies precisely in achieving invisibility… ii”
Now I have two reactions to this statement. The first is the duh-uh factor: so the translator’s job is difficult and paradoxical. Tell me about it. The second, and more serious, issue has to do with the use of the word “rewarded” (premiati). As I see it, the “certain visibility” sought by the translator should not be considered a “reward,” but something he rightfully deserves for his success at being “invisible.” Eco himself uses the word “justly” in describing the translator’s desire for visibility. Indeed, it seems to me that a distinction should be maintained between the invisibility of the translator’s hand in the work he produces – something that is decidedly desirable – and the fair, just and merited attribution of the work that is rightly due him. There is a vast difference between striving for invisibility in the act of translation (not letting your hand show through) and being treated as invisible when it comes to having your name identified with the work you’ve produced. Unfortunately, the “invisibility” that is most associated with the translator is all too often not his skill in hiding his hand, but rather the lack of attribution. For example, some publications, here and abroad, regularly neglect to include the translator’s name when referring to a book, and many publishing houses refuse to put the translator’s name on the cover. As a colleague recently put it: this type of recognition should not be considered a “reward” but, given the circumstances, it often ends up being regarded as such. And therein lies the intriguing paradox: if the translator is invisible (“good,” in Eco’s world), who then is able to notice him, and presumably accord him some form of visibility?
Erasing the tracks
Invisibility in the text is certainly something to strive for. One way to see if a translator has “erased” his own tracks is to check his body of works. If the translations are of works by different authors yet they all display (betray? traduttore, traditore…) the same hand, chances are the “voice” you’re hearing is the translator’s and not the author’s. This cookie cutter approach lies at the far end of the spectrum from invisibility and transparency. Malcolm Jones, writing about two new English translations of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, mentions Constance Garnett’s approach as what may be considered an example of cookie cutting:
“Garnett was a woman in a hurry—she translated some 70 Russian books into English—but what she gained in speed, she lost in subtlety. Her version of “War and Peace” isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly Tolstoy either. It has a sort of one-size-fits-all quality”. (Malcolm Jones, “Lost in Translations”, Newsweek, Oct. 15, 2007)iii
Invisibility in rendering the author’s text is prized and justly so. Wyatt Mason, for example, reviewing Margaret Jull Costa’s translation of Javier Marías’ Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream, notes that Marías’ style is “faithfully rendered by Margaret Jull Costa, his principal English translator, who achieves a rare feat: presence and near invisibility.” (Wyatt Mason, “Interpreter of Malefactors”, The New York Times, August 27, 2006)iv More recently, Kathryn Harrison’s review of a new work by Mario Vargas Llosa praised translator Edith Grossman as having produced “the fluid artistry readers have come to expect from her renditions of Latin American fiction.” (Kathryn Harrison, “Dangerous Obsession,” The New York Times Book Review, October 14, 2007)v The reviewer goes on to speak of “a remaking rather than a recycling”, and though she is referring to Vargas Llosa’s recreation of Emma Bovary’s story, the words could readily be applied to the translator’s craft as well:
“The genius of ‘Madame Bovary,’ as Vargas Llosa describes it in ‘The Perpetual Orgy,’ is the ‘descriptive frenzy … the narrator uses to destroy reality and recreate it as a different reality.’ In other words, Flaubert was a master of realism not because he reproduced the world around him, but because he used language to create an alternate existence, a distillate whose emotional gravity transcends that of life itself.”vi
The writer creates an alternate existence, much like that created by the literary translator. Just as A is to B (the real world is to the author), so C is to D (the author’s text is to the translator). By engaging in a form of rewriting or re-creation of the original text (while remaining invisible) the translator gives the writer a voice in another language. It has been said that the act of translation allows the translator to have a love affair with the author’s words. Indeed, there is a sensual component to the process, since words appeal to the senses and have a voluptuous quality. On one level it is all about seduction and attraction. It is paradoxical then that the translator should vanish after weeks and months of living in close, intimate contact with the author, attempting to render the subtle meanderings of his mind… after the “I” has become “we” and distinctions have blurred.
Part accomplice
The invisibility of the translator in the text stands in distinct contrast to the invisibility that is all too often represented by the denial of due recognition for the work he has produced – a recognition that is not only fair but merited. In his article in L’espresso Eco also writes: “For years one of the battles translators have waged has been that of having their name on the title page (not as co-author but at least as an essential intermediary)…”vii This “not as co-author” is interesting and telling. Certainly many authors (and many translators) would agree with Eco. Others, on the other hand, are more generous and more acknowledging. For Claudio Magris, for example, the translator is a co-author. In Ilide Carmignani’s interview of Magris which I translated for Absinthe: New European Writing (March 2007), the writer states: “unquestionably, both when one translates and when one is translated, there is a strong sense that the translator is truly a co-author, part accomplice, part rival, part lover…”.viii
Accomplice, rival, lover… heady stuff. Definitely at the other extreme from the prosaic intermediary, middleman or go-between. There is perhaps a second paradox to be noted here. Without the translator, the author would be invisible! José Saramago, the Portuguese novelist and winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature, once stated that writers create national literatures with their language, but world literature is written by translators.ix French filmmaker Robert Bresson,x whose films were characterized by a profound intensity, wrote that his aim was to “Make visible what … might perhaps never have been seen.” And Swiss artist Paul Klee: “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible [sic]”.xi The translator too “makes visible” the author. Another way to think about how the translator brings visibility to the author while remaining in the shadows is to imagine the act of translation as a mask. The mask as an age-old form of disguise and masquerade is worn over the face to conceal an individual’s identity and, by its own features, create a new persona. In this metaphor, when the wearer (translator) is attired in the mask (engaged in the act of translation), there is a loss of his previous identity and the birthing of a new one (the author’s new voice). And so we have the Masquerade of Translation.
If there is indeed a second paradox to be found in the literary translator’s craft, the words of physicist Edward Teller come to mind: “Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.” Solutions, anyone?
i. Umberto Eco, “Cappelli alti di forma”, in the column La Bustina di Minerva, L’espresso, Sept. 28, 2007, online at http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/Cappelli-alti-di-forma/1796108).
ii. Ibid.: “Dura e paradossale fatica è dunque quella del traduttore, il quale dovrebbe fare il massimo per rendersi invisibile… eppure vorrebbe (giustamente) che questa invisibilità fosse premiata con una certa visibilità. Eppure il successo del traduttore è proprio il raggiungimento dell’invisibilità…”
iii. Malcolm Jones, “Lost in Translations”, Newsweek, Oct. 15, 2007.
iv. “Interpreter of Malefactors”, Review by Wyatt Mason, The New York Times, August 27, 2006.
v. “Dangerous Obsession”, The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa, Review by Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review, October 14, 2007.
vi. Ibid.
vii. Eco, op. cit.: “Una delle battaglie dei traduttori è stata da anni quella per avere il nome sul frontespizio (non come co-autore ma almeno come mediatore fondamentale)…”
viii. “Part Accomplice, Part Rival: the Translator is a True Co-Author: An interview with Claudio Magris”, Anne Milano Appel, translator. Absinthe: New European Writing, Dwayne Hayes, ed., March 2007. (Translation of an interview by Ilide Carmignani that originally appeared in Comunicare. Letterature .Lingue, Il Mulino, Bologna, n. 6, 2006, pp. 221-226.)
ix. Saramago reportedly made the statement in May 2003 during a speech to attendees at the Fourth Latin American Conference on Translation and Interpretation in Buenos Aires.
x. Bresson felt a deep feeling of responsibility to his audience, and thought that it was not the aim of his filmmaking to impress the viewers with his brilliance or the brilliance of his performers, but to make them share something of his own vision. Cited at: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:VsZLusd8erkJ:www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jan2000/bres-j20.shtml+Robert+Bresson+make+visible&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
xi. “L’art ne reproduit pas le visible ; il rend visible…
May 1st, 2008 | Literary Translation, Related organizations, Reports | No Comments
In a sparkling presentation, the distinguished literary translator Edith Grossman shared her insights at CAT’s “Lit & Lunch” series in San Francisco.
BY ALISON ANDERSON
In her introduction, Olivia Sears, president of the Center for the Art of Translation (CAT), told us that Ms. Grossman had not set out to become a literary translator; her dreams were more along the lines of “a sculptor, or (the blues singer) Bessie Smith.” But in recent years she has been aptly referred to as the “Glenn Gould of translation”—a reference to the famed Canadian virtuoso pianist. Earlier this year she was invited to give a series of lectures at Yale on the art, entitled, “Why Translation Matters.” A longtime resident of New York, Ms. Grossman told us she had been a student at Berkeley and was glad to be back in the Bay Area, although she missed her 24-hour jazz station.
The first part of the literary lunch was devoted to readings from books Edith Grossman has recently translated. The first, from Manuscript of Ashes, was by Spanish author Alberto Muñoz Molina, to be published by Harcourt this summer. Very evocative and atmospheric, set in part during the Spanish Civil War, it was a perfect introduction to Ms. Grossman’s skill as a translator. She then read a more humorous excerpt from Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Bad Girl, published recently by Farrar Straus and Giroux, and this in turn showed her wonderful versatility and ability to take on different styles.
Formalities
For translators, perhaps the most enthralling part of the presentation was the Q&A. Ms. Grossman displayed a wry, self-deprecating humor as she elaborated on a number of issues familiar to literary translators. Asked first about her relationship with publishers—and the certain clout which she can command as the translator of Cervantes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Carlos Fuentes, to name but a few—she pointed to the Vargas Llosa book and said that the publishers had agreed to display her name in large type and provide a short bio on the back flap. But when the book was published, her name was “too small, and there was no bio. The publishers apologized deeply,” she sighed, mock-wistfully. Does she have a lawyer for the negotiation of contracts? At the beginning of her translating career she had “made the mistake of swimming in shark-infested waters” and quickly learned her lesson: she now has an attorney to guide her through the “make-believe language” of publishers’ contracts.
Could she recommend a particular title to help novice translators in their career? “Guide for the Perplexed?” she quipped, and went on to elaborate that she is not an adherent of translation theory, nor does she feel that any one book can provide the guidelines better offered by the “school of servitude.” By servitude she means constant revision and editing, reading out loud, checking for accuracy—and then more revision. And, if at all possible, a cooling-off period for the manuscript to settle, before more revision.
Authors and poets
How does she pick her titles? She does not pick, but is contacted by publishers directly. In earlier years she tried recommending authors she had discovered and loved, but this, she lamented, seems to be the “kiss of death.” Now she never mentions an author to her publishers if she hopes to see him or her in English some day.
On the subject of collaboration with authors, Ms. Grossman said she finds them to be extraordinarily generous. She does not contact them until the final revision, to iron out the “ten or fifteen knotty places” remaining in the manuscript. Had it not been problematic then, translating Cervantes, since she could not question him? She laughed and said she once told García Márquez that it is easier translating Cervantes than a living author, because there is such a wealth of academic and scholarly work to refer to. But regardless of the “bodily state of the author,” she feels a huge responsibility to the writer to get it right; it is less an issue of translating actual words than of translating the author’s intention.
She does not believe you can be taught to be a translator, any more than you can learn to be a poet. The craft can be taught, she said, echoing Gregory Rabassa’s words, but to become a translator or a poet you either “have the impulse or you don’t.” Asked if she misses the sound of the language when working into English, she insisted on the necessity of putting the Spanish to one side after the second draft, to work solely on the English text; only when doing a final accuracy check does she return to the Spanish. She believes in maintaining the foreignness of proper names and place names, but does not subscribe to the position that a translation should “feel” foreign. “It should read like a domestic text” and provide the English-language reader with the same impact experienced by the Spanish language reader. If the text is in any way strange or eccentric, she tries to convey that oddness, too—but it must always read as smoothly as if it had been conceived in English.
Meanings
“The author and the translator are saying the same thing in two different languages,” Ms. Grossman explained. While she hears the Spanish in her mind, it comes out in English. “It’s a mistake to think you can match words.” She illustrated her point by describing a cartoon she once saw in The New Yorker: a translator sitting across from the irate author says, “Do you not be happy of me as the translator of books of you?”
In Edith Grossman’s case, there is no counting how many happy authors— and readers—she has shared her talents with.
Dec 1st, 2007 | Literary Translation, NCTA Members | No Comments
By Steve Goldstein
members in the news
Children of Magic Moon, Volume Two of the Magic Moon trilogy being translated by Stafford Hemmer and Barbara Guggemos, was published on October 9th. Congratulations are in order for this dynamic translating duo!
May 1st, 2006 | Dutch, Essays, Literary Translation, Translation | No Comments
By Jeannette Ringold
During the February 14, 2006 NPR broadcast of “All Things Considered,” host Michele Norris interviewed the Dutch novelist Artur Japin about his latest book Een Schitterend Gebrek, which had just been translated into English as In Lucia’s Eyes. In an otherwise interesting interview that explored the difficulties of translating the title, no mention was made of the translator. We try here to fill in some of the holes.
Artur Japin found the story as a brief anecdote in the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova. It mentions Casanova’s first love, Lucia, who disappeared without warning. Mr. Japin became fascinated by the elusive Lucia, and in his novel he imagines what may have happened. Young Casanova was very hurt and wondered why he was abandoned. It turns out that Lucia was horribly disfigured by smallpox, resolved that she did not want Casanova’s pity, and decided to flee. In the novel Casanova finds her again many years later when she is a successful prostitute in Amsterdam. She always wears a veil which makes her mysterious and attractive to her customers and also hides her disfigured face.
Why the English title, In Lucia’s Eyes? Although the NPR interview made no pretense to be primarily about linguistic matters, it was nonetheless disappointing that neither the interviewer nor the author mentioned the translator, or otherwise asked how this book was “magically” transformed from Dutch into English. This is doubly regrettable since Mr. Japin was fortunate to have David Colmer, an excellent Dutch-English translator who is an author in his own right, do the translation. David Colmer’s preference for the title was A Great Imperfection.
The following excerpt from the dialogue between Ms. Norris and the author points out some problems in finding a good title in another language and culture:
Norris: I understand that the translation was particularly challenging because there is a Dutch word for deformity.*
Japin: Yes.
Norris: That lends a certain weight and surprise to Lucia’s character, but I understood there is no equivalent for that.
Japin: No, we couldn’t find, it mainly has to do with the title. I would have wanted it to be in the title.
Norris: What was the Dutch title?
Japin: Oh well … it sounds horrible. In Dutch it is Schitterend gebrek, which is like “a beautiful defect,” almost.
To illustrate the difficulty of translating this title, it is instructive to look at the various meanings of the noun “gebrek.” The standard Van Dale dictionary gives five different meanings of the word, including lack, want, shortage; hardship, deprivation; ailment, infirmity; and shortcoming, weakness.
The adjective “schitterend: brilliant, splendid, magnificent” is more straightforward, and “great” is an excellent translation.
In an email to me, David Colmer detailed some of the problems he encountered in finding a suitable title for the book. His experience is not unusual, as finding a title for a book can often be an excruciating experience. One difficulty was that numerous people were involved. In promotional material the book was first called A Splendid Flaw. The translator thought that was terrible, and fortunately everyone else thought so too. His suggestion of A Great Imperfection is what the section of the book called “Een schitterend gebrek” is still called in the translation. But the publishers rejected that for the title. David Colmer then offered “suggestion after suggestion” until they finally liked one: In Lucia’s Eyes. He regrets not keeping his list of suggestions!
My own experience in translating the Dutch novel Twee koffers vol by Carl Friedman is somewhat parallel to David Colmer’s. “Twee koffers vol” translates literally as “Two suitcases full”—too much like “two bags full” from the children’s rhyme. And the word “suitcase” is not appealing in a title. The suitcases in the novel were filled with precious belongings and were hidden from the Nazis during World War II, and one of the main characters is trying to find them again after the war. That’s why I felt that the title of the movie that was made of the book—Left Luggage—was also inappropriate, since luggage suggests travel. The author and the publisher agreed with me, and we all started compiling lists of titles; a few memorable ones were First Love and Einstein and Moles in the Violin. In the end it was the author who came up with the suggestion that pleased everyone, The Shovel and the Loom, where the shovel represents digging for the past and the loom represents the attempt to cover the past and go on with life.
Obviously, there are other considerations besides linguistic ones when seeking the appropriate title for a book. Publishers are concerned with titles that will sell, living authors have their preferences, editors have their concerns, and the translator has his or her own ideas and is often asked to translate and evaluate the various possibilities. At least there’s that!
* Editor’s note: In the original transcript, the word “no” was not included in this sentence. The author believes this to be in error.
