So Close and Yet So Far

I really enjoyed the recent article by George Packer in the New Yorker about Israeli author David Grossman.

The article mentions Mr. Grossman’s relationship to Palestinian writers, such as a professor called Ahmad Harb. Here is a quote from the article:
“I visited Harb, a tall, painfully formal man in his late fifties, in his Ramallah home. His living room looked out over a hillside that was covered with Palestinian construction projects. In the early aughts, Israeli troops had the town under siege, and Grossman phoned him often to be sure that he was all right. Harb did the same after Uri’s death. Harb had once thought of writing a book on the works of David Grossman, but the political situation in the West Bank wasn’t right—it might have led to trouble.

“Yesterday, I was talking to David about the possibility of translating one of my novels into Hebrew,” Harb told me. “He said, ‘Honestly, there isn’t much interest to translate Palestinian literature.’ And if a Palestinian translated or taught Israeli literature he would be considered a kind of collaborator.” There was no reason for this, Harb believed—in spite of their enmity, the two peoples should know each other and read each other. But, for now, all that they tried to build twenty years ago has come to nothing. In a better world, he and David would be close friends. “I hope, sometime in the future,” he said. “But it’s like a phantom. You say, ‘At some point I will reach it,’ but then anything will explode everything else, and you are back at square one.”

As I left, Harb gave me an English translation of his new novel, “Remains,” to carry the eight miles from Ramallah to Grossman’s home, in Mevasseret Zion.”

I tend to believe, perhaps idealistically, that reading literature about other people is a way of bringing us closer. That’s one reason why we need translation and translators. There’s something very sad about the fact that two people living in such close proximity and yet not reading each other’s literature. Something is seriously wrong with this situation.

Reviewing Kudos

I was very impressed to note in the 6 September issue of the New Yorker that a book reviewer, James Wood, actually read a translated book and its original in order to comment on the translation. This is very rare but a welcome step in terms of reviewing translated literature. Writing about Jean-Christophe Valtat’s book O3, Mr. Wood said:

“Some of the aesthetic credit should go to Mitzi Angel, Valtat’s translator. A reading of the original novella, published in 2005, reveals what a careful, alchemical job she has done, often coming up with ingenious slang, and with creative ways of patching English syntax into complex, and very French, phrasing.”

I hope more reviewers follow Mr. Wood’s example of comparing the original to the translation.

Translation as Possibility

I saw the following quote in one of my favorite e-newsletters, A Word a Day:

Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

People are always claiming that poetry cannot be translated. But of course it regularly is translated and often quite well, too. So I think it’s time we moved on from this idea that translation is impossible, especially of poetry. No one can ever learn all the languages in the world, no one can be able to read all the literatures in the world, no one can converse with all the people in the world in their own native tongues – thus translation is necessary and by necessity, it must be possible.

And the Winner is…

This year's Nobel Prize in Literature was given to Mario Vargas Llosa.

What do you think? Was it the right choice?

2010 Nobel Prize in Literature

This year's Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday. Who do you think will win?

People regularly suggest authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Adonis, and Amos Oz. I don't think it's likely an English-language author will win this year. And given the way the Nobel tends to be linked somewhat to politics, I doubt an Israeli will get it, no matter how deserving his oeuvre might be.

What do you think?

Happy International Translation Day!

Today is International Translation Day, which is celebrated annually on the feast day of the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome.

So today is a great day to appreciate the art of translation and the translators who make it possible.

Social Networking for Translators

Has anyone tried out social networking site for translators and translation agencies? Is it any better than facebook or other such sites?

For example, I’ve heard about Langmates, which describes itself as a “community of freelance and in-house translators, translation project managers, human resource managers, and other industry experts.” Is this useful at all?

Personally, I rely on repeat customers and word-of-mouth, so I don’t do much in the way of advertising or networking, but this could be helpful for translators who are just starting out.

Job in Translation

There is a one-semester vacancy in my department for a lecturer in literature and translation. It would be a great opportunity for a recent PhD graduate or for someone looking for more experience teaching literature and translation at the BA and MA levels.

Here is the info:

University of East Anglia
School of Literature and Creative Writing

LECTURER IN LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION
Ref: ATS420

£29,853 to £35,646 per annum

The School of Literature and Creative writing is hoping to recruit a Lecturer to cover for a colleague's study leave during the Spring Semester 2011 and the following summer period.

The Lectureship will involve teaching in the areas of Literature and Literary Translation, and will also include administrative and enterprise and engagement work relating to these areas.

This is a full time, fixed-term appointment available from 1 January 2011 to 31 August 2011.

Closing date: 12 noon on 15 October 2010

Further particulars and an application form can be obtained by calling (+44) 01603 593493.

Learning Polish

The last post mentioned the Holocaust and as I recently went to Auschwitz, I thought I would post links for learning Polish.

Polish grammar

BBC’s list of essential Polish phrases

Polish 101

Apronus Polish

Creating a Dictionary during the Holocaust

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum sent me a calendar for 2011. It has quotes from diaries written during the Holocaust and is very moving. The quote for December 2011 caught my eye because it is from a Dutch Jew, Selma Wijnberg, who fell in love with a Polish Jew, Chaim Engel, and together they created a dictionary so that they could communicate with one another. In other words, during World War Two, as they were in a concentration camp, they were still living and loving and thinking about language.

The quote from her diary, written on 21 June in 1944, says: “This little book is for me…about the time that my man and I are hidden in a hayloft somewhere in Poland. I have the hope that I will live free again.”

The information about Ms. Wijnberg (happily, later Mrs. Engel) says: “Selma Engel, a Jewish woman born in the Netherlands, met her future husband, Chaim, a Polish Jew, when they were imprisoned in the Sobibór killing center. Young and in love, they made a daring escape with other prisoners during the camp uprising and found refuge with a farmer until liberation. In her diary Selma writes about Sobibór and her deepening relationship with Chaim, with whom she created a translation dictionary so the two could communicate with each other.”

Wordnik

I just learned about a new dictionary and thesaurus, Wordnik. It’s a really handy reference tool because it offers a number of sentences for each word, so you can see how the word is employed in various contexts. Wordnik was founded by Erin McKean, the former editor-in-chief of The New Oxford American Dictionary, and it already contains more than four million words.

The Entrepreneurial Linguist

The translating twins, Dagmar and Judy Jenner, who also run a great blog, have recently published a book, The Entrepreneurial Linguist.

The premise of their book is that translators need to run their business as though it were, well, a business. Too many of us translators view ourselves as freelancers rather than businesspeople and we act accordingly, so the Jenner twins provide a lot of helpful advice and practical suggestions for how we can act more business-like. They discuss what it means to have a business and how said business can work best for both the owner and the customers.

They start the book with the basics, such as what you should buy for your office and how you can save money on necessary goods. Then they use case studies, as is done in business school, to look at what a customer wants, what the translator and business-owner wants, and how a compromise can be reached. They also look at a variety of related topics, such as how a translator can make use of blogging and Facebook, how to negotiate and decide prices, marketing and media coverage, how to find and work with customers, why conferences and other types of professional development are useful, how to keep a good work-life balance, how to avoid isolation as a translator, why volunteer work is good to do, how to work towards and reach goals, and much more.

This is not a book about the linguistic aspects of translation or about translation theory or other such issues. Instead, The Entrepreneurial Linguist is a very detailed and thorough book about how to “run a business like a business,” even if your business is just a small one. It’s a perfect book for people just starting out in the field, but it also has useful information for more experienced translators. The Jenner twins have hit a very important point: translators must be professional, if we want to be successful and to have other people respect our profession, and this book gives tips on how to accomplish that.

Reasons for Learning New Languages

I’ve long had a fascination for languages and I’m always eager to dip into new ones. But some people are quite resistant to learning languages, so here is a list of reasons why they might want to give another language a change:

50 Reasons You Should Learn a New Language

Changing Biblical Sexual References in Translation

Mentions on translation pop up in all sorts of unexpected places. I was reading Jonathan Margolis’ book O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm and was surprised to see him refer to the way Bible translators changed sexual references. For example:

“Generally speaking, when Bible translators have happened upon sexual references, they have been assiduous in seeking out neutralizing euphemisms like men with a mission to protect unborn generations of virginal Sunday School teachers. Thus is ‘penis’ changed in every instance to ‘thigh’. ‘Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh,’ Abraham asks his servant in Genesis, ‘and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of earth.’ (This is a reference to the custom of ‘testifying’, by which anyone taking a vow places their hand on their testicles.” (138)

Of course, he doesn’t specify which translations and translators he’s talking about, but at least it’s good to see issues of translation crop up in a variety of works. And it’s important to remember that ethical issues, in terms of what translators change and why, have been around for a very long time and still are.

Translators on Translating

While convalescing from surgery a few weeks ago, I enjoyed reading Andrew Wilson’s new book Translators on Translating. Each themed chapter includes quotes, anecdotes, and extracts from practicing translators, and it makes translators and their thoughts on translation more visible.

Many of the usual suspects are included (such as Douglas Robinson, Lawrence Venuti, Martin Luther, Anthea Bell), but there are also names that are less familiar, such as Sharon M. Bell, Cathy Hirano, Eivor Martinus, Moura Budberg), and it’s very interesting to get such a wide variety of views, from different countries, languages, and time periods.

The themes include work (Samuel Johnson refers to translation as “the great pest”), technical translation, the relationship between translators and authors (Wilson points out that “[f]ew authors will ever have occasion to read a translator’s work with anything like the attention the translator puts into theirs, and fewer still are actually capable of judging the quality of the translation.”), translation theory (Andrew Chesterman and Emma Wagner say that “[m]essages from the ivory tower tend not to penetrate as far as the wordface. (The wordface is the place where we translators work – think of a miner at the coalface.)”), and more.

Wilson’s book is more than an anthology of extracts, as he explores many of the concepts and adds his own opinions and experiences. It’s a fun and fascinating book to dip into.

Translation as Manipulation

Some of you might be interested in this recently published article of mine, which is on how translation can manipulate the reader. In this particular piece, I’m looking at how this happens in children’s literature, and with regard to dialects and allusions.

Calls for Papers

I am on the editorial committee for In Other Words, which is published by the British Centre for Literary Translation. I will be guest editing the next issue and co-editing the following one, so I’d like to invite submissions of papers for those issues. Here are the calls:

Translating Queers/Queering Translations

We welcome article submissions on any aspect of 'Translating
Queers/Queering Translations', which can include but is not limited to:

- Whether lgbtq writers/subjects ought to be translated differently
than other texts and, if so, how

- How queer theory influences translation and translation theory

- Whether a queer form of translation should be developed

- What it means to queer translation or translators

Articles should be a maximum of 4000 words; style guidelines are provided in the back of each issue of In Other Words.
Further queries should be addressed to the guest editor at:
b.epstein@uea.ac.uk. Deadline for submissions is 1 October 2010.


Translation and Philosophy

We welcome article submissions on any aspect of 'Translation and Philosophy', which can include but is not limited to:

- Translating philosophical texts

- What philosophers say about translation and what philosophy can contribute to the act of translation

- Philosophies of translation

- Philosophical and ethical issues in translation

Articles should be a maximum of 4000 words; style guidelines are provided in the back of each issue of In Other Words. Further queries should be addressed to the guest editor at: b.epstein@uea.ac.uk. Deadline for submissions is 1 March 2011.

Translation Jobs

Here is a site called Get Translation Jobs. Pretty self-explanatory!

Creative Constraints

I’m a great fan of Italo Calvino, and I’m generally interested in Oulipo and similar literary movements. Sure, sometimes it seems too “shticky” (Jonathan Safran Foer springs to mind) but when done well, it can make you think about what literature is and what it could be. I recently read John McGreal’s novel The Book of IT, for example, which employs non-standard spelling and language as part of the method for telling the story. I gave a selection to my undergraduate literature students as a way of challenging them to think beyond the traditional style of literature and the typical ways of using language, and then I asked them to write a work with self-imposed constraints.

Oulipo and writers who work in that vein create artificial constraints for their writing. In a way, this is how translators always work – while a writer might decide to write a novel without a particular letter or based on, say, the five senses, our constraint as translators is the original text. This forces us to be very creative within the limits imposed by the writer. So while some of these literary movements seem very modern and daring, in fact they are doing what translators have always done, but what translators rarely get credit for.

It’s a Crime to Ignore Translation

Yes, we know how popular Stieg Larsson’s books have gotten and how people in English-speaking countries and elsewhere are suddenly becoming aware of Nordic crime fiction (note: they aren’t showing much interest in Nordic literary fiction, unfortunately), but it’s no surprise that articles about the phenomenon still fail to mention translation. Here’s a typical article on Larsson’s work and Nordic crime fiction in general. It does not include a word on how these books make it into English (or other languages) and onto the international market.

How can we educate the reading public, including book reviewers, about what translation is and what it involves?

Swedish References

I maintain a list of references on my main website and that prompted someone to let me know about this other list of mainly Swedish references. I also note that Sweden.se is tweeting a Swedish word each day at WordSweden. Are other countries doing the same with their languages?

Word Nerds ‘R’ Us

This list of the “50 Coolest Online Tools for Word Nerds” is definitely for me. It has links to references sites and sites where you can play games, among many other things. As a proud word nerd who plays Scrabble regularly and works with language on a daily basis, I enjoyed the list.

Job in Translation

I thought some of you might be interested in applying for this job. I teach at the University of East Anglia, which is where the British Centre for Literary Translation is based, and part of my job involves working with the BCLT as well. The BCLT is currently looking for an interim director. Here are the details:

INTERIM DIRECTOR, BRITISH CENTRE FOR LITERARY TRANSLATION
Ref: ALC173

£37,839 to £43,840 per annum

The School of Literature and Creative Writing is looking to recruit an Interim Director to oversee and manage implementation of the Centre's 2010-11 plan, and to liaise with members of the School, especially those working in Literature and Translation, and with a number of external bodies. You should have a relevant postgraduate degree and experience of funding applications, arts administration and events management, as well as knowledge of the literary translation community in the UK and beyond.

This full-time, fixed term post is available from 1 October 2010 until 31 August 2011.

Closing date: 12 noon on 6 August 2010

Translation Directory

Here is a very useful translation directory, with links for many different areas of language and translation.

A Round-Up of Articles

As you read this, I am at a conference, attending stimulating sessions on the connection between authors and translators (and I’m giving a talk myself, on the Swedish author and translator Gösta Knutsson). Here’s some interesting reading to keep you occupied while I’m away.

The first article is about the use of French in France, and how this compares to the way many Americans complain about the role of Spanish in the U.S.

Next is a piece on linguistics, which includes the sentence: ‘Language diversity is the “crucial fact for understanding the place of language in human cognition”’.

The Swedish author Stieg Larsson has become a worldwide phenomenon and this article explores him and his work, including its translation. I don’t usually read thrillers myself, but I have read and enjoyed his first book in Swedish, and I plan to read the next two while I’m at home next month, recovering from surgery.

Here, Edith Grossman explores translating Quixote.

The next piece on all the languages in NYC and on preserving languages.

Finally, have a laugh with these funny signs from around the world.

Question from a Reader: Answered

Brave New Words recently featured a question from a reader. Peter Linton kindly replied, saying that
The Language Of sells second-hand books in more than a dozen languages. Thanks, Peter!

If you have a question on language, literature, or translation, email me!

Top 10 Translator’s Blogs

Check out this list of the top 10 translator’s blogs. Brave New Words is happy to be included, and is in great company, including BNW guest bloggers Dagmar and Judy Jenner.

Multilingual Eye Chart

In non-Latin-alphabet-employing countries, what do people use for eye charts when they go to the optometrist? Certainly not the standard one in the US or the UK, which is now being replaced by computerized projections. This question never occurred to me until I learned of multilingual eye chart. While this multilingual eye chart would not be practical for actual use, it is enjoyable to look at, and would be fun to have in the classroom.

Question from a Reader

Brave New Words reader Alice asks if there was any place in the UK that holds English books translated into other languages. Does anyone know the answer?

If you have a question about translation or literature, email me and I’ll post it on the blog.

References on Translating Children’s Literature

For my second list of references (the first list was on translation in general), I thought I’d offer a list of books on translating children’s literature, which happens to be my area of special.

Hallford, Deborah, and Edgardo Zaghini, Outside In: Children’s Books in Translation (London: Milet, 2005).

Klingberg, Göte, Barn- och ungdomslitteraturforskning: områden, metoder, terminologi [Research on Children’s Literature: Areas, Methods, Terminology] (Göteborg: Lärarhögskolan, 1969).

Klingberg, Göte, Barn- och ungdomslitteraturen [Children’s Literature] (Stockholm: Natur & Kultur, 1970).

Klingberg, Göte, Barnlitteraturforskning. En introduktion [Research on Children’s Literature: An Introduction] (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1972).

Klingberg, Göte, Översättningen av barn- och ungdomsböcker: en metodisk förundersökning [The Translation of Children’s Literature: A Methodological Preliminary Investigation] (Göteborg : Lärarhögskolan, 1974).

Klingberg, Göte, Att översätta barn- och ungdomsböcker: empiriska studier och rekommendationer [Translating Children’s Literature: Empirical Studies and Recommendations] (Mölndal: Lärarhögskolan, 1977).

Klingberg, Göte, ed., Children’s Books in Translation: the Situation and the Problems. Proceedings of the third symposium of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1978).

Klingberg, Göte, De främmande världarna i barn- och ungdomslitteraturen [Strange Worlds in Children’s Literature] (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1980).

Klingberg, Göte, Children’s Fiction in the Hands of Translators (Stockholm: CWK, 1986).

Gillian Lathey, ed. The Translation of Children’s Literature (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2006).

Oittinen, Riitta, I am Me – I am Other. On the Dialogics of Translating for Children (Tampere: University of Tampere, 1993).

Oittinen, Riitta, Translating for Children (New York: Garland, Inc., 2000).

O’Sullivan, Emer, Comparative Children's Literature, trans. Anthea Bell (London: Routledge, 2005).

Jan Van Coillie and Walter P. Verschueren, eds., Children’s Literature in Translation: Challenges and Strategies (Manchester: St. Jerome, 2006).

Some Other Blogs

Here are two new blogs I’ve recently found that you might be interested in checking out.

Become a Translator

Sesquiotica

Thinking Italian Translation

I was looking at the Thinking Italian Translation book put out by Routledge as part of my thus-far lazy effort to learn Italian. This book is part of a series that also includes Spanish, German, and French. These texts do not teach you the language, but they teach you to think about the language from a translator’s perspective and thus they’re quite useful both for translators and for language-learners (well, for language-learners of a certain nerdy inclination, like yours truly).

There is some basic information, such as explanations of sociolect, adverbs, code-switching, and calques, among other topics, and there is information on scientific and technical translation and legal and business translation. Throughout the book, there are a number of examples, tips, and practical exercises. There are also several chapters on contrastive linguistics, in which the authors compare and analyze linguistic features in English and Italian, such as the conditional tense.

Saying No Now -- and Forever?

One thing many translators (and other people who run their own small businesses) tend to worry about is what will happen if they turn down a job. They fret, saying things such as, "If I say no to this particular job, the client will never ask me to do anyting again. And s/he won't recommend me to anyone else either." This leads to a situation where many translators (myself included) take on more work than they handle and thus find themselves stressed and overworked. Okay, I can admit that I personally prefer being stressed and overworked to not having any jobs at all, but it's actually not an ideal situation.

So is it true that if you say no to a client once, that means never hearing from him or her again? I would say that this depends on how you say no. Do not say no without explaining why. And always say you are looking forward to hearing from that client again at some point.

If you are turning a job down because you simply do not have the time, explain that, and make sure you add, "Thank you for asking me. I hope you will think of me again in the future."

If you are turning a job down because it is not in your area of expertise, recommend an appropriate colleague (or give a link to where the client can find a translator, such as the Swedish Association of Professional Translators) and remind the client what your particular speciality is.

The point is that even as you say no, do so politely and helpfully, while also subtly telling the customer you will be available in the future for other assignments.

It's true that once clients have found a good translator who delivers on time, charges a fair price, and is professional to work with, they might be unwilling to switch to someone else, partially due to inertia. So if you say no once and the client finds another translator who fulfills the requirements, you may not hear from that person again. But if you are selective about which projects you take on, which clients you choose to work with, and when and how you turn down assignments, it is likely that you will build up a stable of customers who return to you over and over again, even if sometimes you have to reject certain jobs.

Vote for Brave New Words

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References on Translation

I often get emails from people who ask me for reading lists and while I don't think I should do people's research for them, as I've said before, I can provide some suggestions. And if any readers come up with other books and articles that could be of use, feel free to add them in the comments.

So, for the first such list, I thought I'd offer some good introductory texts on translation. These will serve as a useful academic basis for a deeper understanding of what translation is and what translators do.

Mona Baker: In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation

Basil Hatim and Ian Mason: Discourse and the Translator

Clifford E. Landers: Literary Translation: A Practical Guide

André Lefevere: Translating Literature: Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context

Jeremy Munday: Introducing Translation Studies

Peter Newmark: Approaches to Translation

Peter Newmark: A Textbook of Translation

Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber: The Theory and Practice of Translation

Christiane Nord: Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained

Gideon Toury: Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond

400 Posts

This is just to mark that there have now been 400 posts on Brave New Words, amounting to close to 130,000 words. Thank you to everyone who reads this blog and thank you, too, for all your comments and emails.

Bilingual Editions

I know that it isn't always practical or feasible to publish bilingual editions of translations, but when possible, I think publishers should do so. Such editions are good for language-learners, of course, and I remember a bilingual version of Carlos Fuentes' book Aura that I read when I was learning Spanish many years ago. But they are also great for people who are interested in translation, because then we can analyze the original and the translation in a convenient way.

I was thinking about this recently while reading a bilingual edition of Edward Lear's nonsense limericks, as translated to Spanish by a student of mine, Matías Godoy, and published by Destiempo Libros. Here, for example, is one page in the book:

Había una joven con una quijada
Igual a la punta de una larga espada;
Mandóla afilar, compróse un citar,
Y así tocó música con su quijada.

There was a Young Lady whose chin
Resembled the point of a pin;
So she had it made sharp and purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.

It's really nice to be able to see Lear's original with Godoy's translation. Poetry is particularly well-suited to bilingual editions due to its length, but I wonder if, as more people gain a deeper understanding of translation and what it involves, publishers might start to publish bilingual editions of prose as well.

Free Language Classes Online

I’ve posted a number of links and other information before about learning languages, so here is another such reference. It has 100 links for learning languages for free online.

Twitterature by Alexander Aciman & Emmett Rensin

A friend of mine gave me Twitterature by Alexander Aciman & Emmett Rensin and I read the entire book in one setting. Yes, it’s shticky and self-consciously so. But it’s also a lot of fun.

Aciman and Rensin play with the classics, retelling them through the medium of Twitter. Is it essential that you have read the original tales before you read the Twitter versions? No, but you’d probably get more out of the book if you have, because otherwise some of the jokes might be a bit difficult to get. Aciman and Rensin helpfully include a glossary (bromance, LOL, MILF, nose candy, and STFU are just a few of the terms that get defined) and an introduction to Twitter format, but they do not summarize the books they satirize, nor should they, since having a joke explained takes the humor out of it.

In one of my classes this semester, we used this book to look what it means to “translate” texts from one form to another (in this case, from a classic novel to Twitter) and then the students attempted to parrot Aciman and Rensin. It was enjoyable to read what they came up with too and to discuss what it means to update classics.

If you like, for example, Mel Brooks’ films, you’ll probably like Twitterature by Alexander Aciman & Emmett Rensin, but you’re also likely to find the joke wearying halfway through.

Turkish Literature

This is a nice resource on Turkish literature.