translators on translation: two interviews

Two short but good interviews by translators on translating fiction: Marian Schwartz in the Boston Globe on translating Russian fiction, and the ubiquitous Chris Andrews on Bolaño in the New Yorker, with some nice examples of tricky problems in the text. Russianists may be interested in Schwartz's hints and tips about Russian translation and Russian resources here and here.

My only thin, reedy, querulous complaint: how, in the New Yorker of all publications, can an interviewer not know the difference between the present tense and the past tense of the verb 'to lead'? Am I the only person who remembers that the past tense is 'led'? Next you're seeing 'loose' for 'lose' and then Aughrim is really lost. 'Ware spellchecks.

Independent Foreign Fiction prize shortlist 2010 and fiction in translation

For those of you, like me, who get seized with anxiety in bookshops because of too much choice, and at the same time get frustrated by the limited and bland range of titles which are given most airtime, sigh no more, for the shortlist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction prize has just been announced.

Thinking about the books I've enjoyed over the last year or two I was struck by how many of them were in translation. Saramago's Blindness, translated by Giovanni Pontiero; Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog, published by Europa Editions and translated by Alison Anderson. I hugely enjoyed The Last Wish by the Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski, translated by Danuta Stok (many thanks to Tomasz whose essay introduced me to Sapkowski, and I have more of the books on order!). I and half the world have really enjoyed Stieg Larsson's Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy in Reg Keeland's translations. The style is sometimes clunky but Larsson can plot like nobody's business.
In their different genres, all riveting reads and I look forward to more in 2010. If any of our readers has recently read a translation they really enjoyed, why not post and tell us about it?

New Year

Dear all,

A very happy new year to you all. I thought this might be of interest for those of you who may be looking for an outlet to bring a non-English-language writer to a wider audience:

Call for submissions: Massachusetts Review
University of Massachusetts Amherst

In our fifty-first year of publication, the editors of The Massachusetts Review (www.massreview.org) plan to dramatically increase the amount of fiction, poetry and socially-engaged nonfiction which they publish in translation. MR is a general-audience journal of literature, arts and public affairs, with a particularly strong history of civil rights and feminist publication. Today we see a great need for US literary journals to internationalize – to open their ears, and their pages, to voices from outside the United States, and to writers in languages other than English. MR believes we have a real opportunity for synergy with friends and colleagues from local institutions, given the strength of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst programs in translation, of the locally-based translation studies journal Metamorphoses, as well as of the American Studies Diploma Program at Smith College (a one-year graduate program exclusively for international students). But we will of course also need the help of colleagues and translators from across
the globe. To that end, we plan to announce in our upcoming issue the Jules Chametzky Prize for Literary Translation, to be awarded annually to the best poem and prose translations published within our pages. To put it as simply as possibly, our goal is to publish great writing from across the globe, from writers we haven’t yet heard of. The Voice of America has been broadcasting non-stop ever since the early days of the Cold War. MR believes that our country instead needs to sit down, take some time, and listen.

Edwin Gentzler, with Ellen Watson, has been named translation co-editor for the journal.

Please forward to interested parties. For questions please contact Jim Hicks, editor, Massachusetts Review, at jhicks@smith.edu.

Translators Association translation seminars

For those of you in within hailing distance of London, there are two seminars coming up run by the Translators Association of the Society of Authors. They will be on 29 July (translating sex in literary fiction) and 8 October (subtitling). Both will be run by experienced professional translators and should be very enjoyable. The events are open to members and non-members of the TA and advance booking is required.

29 July

Lewd Rude and Nude: the art of translating private parts

This workshop will explore the ins and outs of genital mention in the translation of literary fiction. In many languages, our private parts can be described in neutral language, for example the French 'le sexe', which is applicable to either gender. In English however we often find ourselves vacillating between medical, pornographic and downright crude vocabulary.

Translators from any language are invited to join Polly McLean in a facilitated discussion of the impact on register and tone of these less than perfect choices. If you would like to contribute some problems or examples in advance, please email her on pollymclean at googlemail.com

3.00–5.00pm

£7.50

Society of Authors
84 Drayton Gardens
London
SW10 9SB

Enquiries to Sarah Burton, sburton at societyofauthors.org, 020 73736642 (last-minute applications by phone)

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8 October

Found in Translation: writing subtitles for the movies

This workshop will examine the nuts and bolts of subtitling fiction and documentary films. After a brief introduction presenting the raw material (spotting list and dialogue list as well as image) from which a subtitler works, the constraints it imposes on the translation process, and the types of problems encountered, we will tackle some concrete examples drawn from feature films, shorts and documentaries shot in French and subtitled in English. A command of French is helpful but not essential.

3.00–5.00pm

£7.50

Society of Authors
84 Drayton Gardens
London
SW10 9SB

Enquiries to Sarah Burton, sburton at societyofauthors.org, 020 73736642 (last-minute applications by phone)