A Collection of Pseudotranslations

During my last holiday (a busman’s holiday, but never mind), I read The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel. It’s a collection of short stories with an interesting premise.

His preface talks about how he was in touch with the Chinese poet Helan Xiao and then lost touch. But then she contacted him “to assist with the translation of her acclaimed collection of stories set in contemporary Beijing…Helan has contributed a foreword to this edition, and I have taken the liberty of adding a concluding chapter, narrating certain episodes in her life. For any misrepresentations, and for any errors that may have crept into my adaptation of her work, I alone, of course, am wholly responsible.” Helan’s foreword is a short two-page introduction to Beijing.

Yet, surprisingly, only Tel’s name appears on the book. If it is a true translation, shouldn’t Helan Xiao’s name also be there? So is this translation or adaptation? Well, in fact, it is even more complicated than that. The Beijing of Possibilities is not a translation or an adaptation; it is a pseudotranslation. This is to say that there is no Helan Xiao and Tel had no contact with such a Chinese poet. He is the sole writer.

Such a framework could make a collection of stories a lot of fun – reviewers have compared Tel to Calvino or Sebald, though I personally didn’t see such connections. My final opinion was that not enough was done to play with the idea of translation and adaptation and cultural exchange. People often discuss whether someone from outside a given country have the ability or the right to write about that country and culture, and this book could have been a good intersection point for such a conversation, if only the quality were higher.

Fun Vocabulary Words

The Wonder of Whiffling is an enjoyable website on unusual vocabulary words.

Right Words

You may be interested in Right Words, a competition for children to write about a human rights issue.

This Year’s Nobel

This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Herta Müller. See the announcement.

MultiLingual Magazine

I have started receiving MultiLingual, a magazine on language, technology, and business. It is practical rather than theoretical and seems to have a focus on localization versus on translation proper, but it has some nice features, such as a list of terminology for each issue, a focus on a particular industry aspect (for example, medical translations), short news items, and a calendar of upcoming events. A recent issue had an interesting column by geographer and geostrategic content manager (a job I’d never heard of before) Tom Edwards on the country list used when we sign up for services or place an order online. I’d never even considered all the linguistic and political implications of this before, such as how certain countries do not recognize others or how some names are still up for debate. So such localization issues were new for me. This same issue had an article on global information management systems and another on “incorporating local regulations and culture into translations” and a more business-related piece on how “capitalizing on trends reduces translation costs.”