What Book of Mine is This?

Did you know that if you're an author popular enough to have your books translated into many languages, not only do you have no control over the image of your foreign language editions but you may not even be able to tell which ones they are? And no one fills you in, either. Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries and other popular series, shares some of her foreign editions and wonders which is which.

Who do you translate for?

From an article in Full Tilt, a journal of East Asian poetry, translation and the arts, some wise words from Harold Goldblatt, who "all but single-handedly introduced contemporary Chinese-language literature to the English-speaking world".

Who do you translate for?

I believe first of all that, like an editor, the translator's primary obligation is to the reader, not the writer. I realize that a lot of people don't agree, especially writers. I don't think that these things have to be mutually exclusive, but I do think that we need to produce something that can be readily accepted by an American readership. Ha Jin can get away with writing unidiomatic English and many people are charmed by it, but a translator's English is expected to be idiomatic and contemporary without being flashy.

What are some of the problems specific to translating from Chinese into English?

Not knowing Chinese well enough, not knowing English well enough. Actually, not knowing Chinese well enough isn't a big problem—you can always ask someone. You can ask your author, you can ask your friends. No, the thing that's really killing translation in our field is literalism. Too many translators are afraid of the text, especially when they're first starting out. And I understand that, because I was too. They're all afraid of the text. You need to overcome your fear of the text, put some distance between you and it. You have to because Chinese and English are so different. Take the use of the passive voice, for example, which just runs through the Chinese language. Five different agents for the passive voice! We only have one. And the Chinese use it all the time. It is part of the language, part of the way they express themselves. But if you use it that much in English—God!

So how do you handle linguistic problems like this?

My watchword is: did the Chinese writer write it that way for a particular purpose or did his language dictate it be that way? If it's the latter, then I put it into whatever my language dictates it should be. If I assume that it's idiosyncratic, that the author was trying to defamiliarize the text, to slow the reader down, then I try very much to capture that.

Fear of the text and literalism go hand in hand, don't they? And the translation suffers.

The Chinese novels that get translated without any care about good writing turn out to be crappy reads. They're often done by junior academics who have no feel for English, and who spent all of their time, as you and I did, learning how to speak and read Chinese. We didn't have time for anything else. I've spent all those years since then trying to catch up by reading good stuff in English. But many young academics don't have the time, and then they go to translate something, and they can't handle it—they believe in being literal. They read everything that comes out in Chinese—they read it all. And I want to say, “Stop! Don't read it all. Read something else. Get a sense of what English ought to be.”

In fact, as with all this extract from the article, the words on “problems specific to translating from Chinese into English” apply to all language pairs; only the specific examples may differ. Here's an analagous example of a question about sentence length in translating from Spanish into English

On translating poetry

An article by Carol Rumens and discussion by divers commenters about translating poetry here, at the Guardian.

The nub:

So why translate? My first answer is that poetry in translation simply adds to the sum total of human pleasure obtainable through a single language. It opens up new language worlds within our own tongues, as every good poem does. It revitalises our daily, cliche-haunted vocabulary. It disturbs our assumptions, jolts us with rhythms flatter or stronger than we're used to. It extends us in the way real travelling does, giving us new sounds, sights and smells. Every unique poetry village sharpens us to life.

Some people would disagree, saying poetry in translation is the wrong side of the tapestry - it just can't be done. But they are talking about replication, not translation. It is perfectly true that you will never get a replica of the original - nor would you wish to. The way it works, when translator and original are in tune, is that a third poem is created. It is the child of two parents and simply couldn't exist without them.

Digression: Why are so many of my recent posts about translating literature, when it's not something I actually do. The closest I get is translating book blurbs for publishers' catalogues, which isn't always a good idea.

Back to the article, I like how the commenters got into the spirit and, among other topics, shared their own attempts at translating Neruda.

Jules Verne needs better English translations

Just because a body of work is a venerated classic doesn't mean the translations we have are necessarily good. From an article by Adam Roberts in the Guardian:

I'd always liked reading Jules Verne and I've read most of his novels; but it wasn't until recently that I really understood I hadn't been reading Jules Verne at all.

I'll explain what I mean. Verne has been globally popular since the 19th century, and all his titles have been translated into English, most of them soon after their initial publication. But almost all of them were translated so badly, so mutilated that "translation" is something of a misnomer.

Some of this I knew already. I'd heard that the original translators into English felt at liberty to cut out portions of Verne's original text, particularly where they felt he was getting too "technical" or "scientific"; and I'd heard that one of those early translators - the Reverend Lewis Page Mercier - had bowdlerised any sentiments hostile towards or injurious to the dignity of Great Britain [...] I knew too that the original English translators tended to mangle the metric system measurements of Verne's careful measurements and descriptions, either simply cutting the figures out, or changing the unit from metric to imperial but, oddly, keeping the numbers the same.

But I didn't understand just how severe the issue was until I set about preparing an English edition of a Verne title myself.

His publishers decided to put out one of Verne's lesser-known titles, Off On a Comet (Hector Servadac), in conjunction with Mr. Roberts's new book. He describes what happened next.

I thought it would be a simple matter of reprinting the original, usefully out-of-copyright 1877 English translation, and blithely said yes.

But when I checked the 1877 translation against the original my heart sank. It was garbage. On almost every page the English translator, whoever he, or she, was (their name is not recorded), collapsed Verne's actual dialogue into a condensed summary, missed out sentences or whole paragraphs. She or he messed up the technical aspects of the book. She or he was evidently much more anti-Semitic than Verne, and tended to translate what were in the original fairly neutral phrases such as "...said Isaac Hakkabut" with idioms such as "...said the repulsive old Jew." And at one point in the novel she or he simply omitted an entire chapter (number 30) - quite a long one, too - presumably because she or he wasn't interested in, or couldn't be bothered to, turn it into English.

Hector Servadac is by no means an unusual case. Whilst a few of Verne's most famous titles have been retranslated by proper scholars (for instance, William Butcher's recent Oxford University Press translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea is very good), in most cases the only editions we have of these works are the hacked-about, disfigured, and in some places rewritten versions originally published in the 19th century.

It's a bizarre situation for a world-famous writer to be in. Indeed, I can't think of a major writer who has been so poorly served by translation.

Mr. Roberts proposes a mass effort to retranslate Verne's work properly.

This would be the way to address the common misconceptions about Verne's writings that so infuriate Verne specialists - that he is nothing better than a jumped-up author of two-dimensional juveniles; that he can't do character; that his stories are ineptly handled or clumsily put together. None of these things is true; but until we have a full range of properly translated titles these, and like accusations, are going to continue to dog his reputation. We need more and better translations of Verne.

Rejected! Utterly untranslatable

Via Justine Larbalestier we have this New York Times article by David Oshinsky on rejection letters from Alfred A. Kopf Inc. to famous and great writers; a collection to stir hope in the heart of any aspiring writer. The whole article is delightful reading, but the part that caught my translatorish attention was Knopf's rejection of Jorge Luis Borges's work as "utterly untranslatable."

Segue into essay on the untranslatability of literature vs. the opposite school, yada, yada, many times written, many times read. For now, I will just take the time to mention that Borges's first and principal translator was Norman Thomas di Giovanni, and others who translated his work included Anthony Bonner, Willis Barnstone and Andrew Hurley. Borges himself was also a translator; and a not-translator too, for a fiction of certain of his original works was that they were translations from (actually non-existent) works in other languages. Translation comes into his work in other ways, too.

In general, one book that truly is utterly untranslatable, for reasons which the author himself discusses within the work itself: Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language by Douglas Hofstadter. Moreover this book also contains some interesting observations about untranslatability and about Borges.

New Translation of "The Second Sex"

Remember last year three years ago* when the story went around about how bad the 1953 English translation, The Second Sex, of Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe was?

To summarize, the translation is said to be full of hundreds of major and minor errors, some of which do not merely miss or distort the meaning, but make the text state the opposite of the original. The original translator was a retired professor of zoology selected because the American publisher judged the book by its the title and thought it was a sex manual. The translator had no specialized knowledge of philosophy and knew French only from his student days. In addition, at the publisher's request, hefty chunks of the book were cut in the translated edition.

Even when the story about the bad translation made the rounds, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the publication, the publisher refused to authorize a new edition.

But now it turns out that a new translation was commissioned by the British rights holder in early 2006, and is about half finished! This article by Sarah Glazer in Bookforum tells how translators Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier got to translate Le Deuxième Sexe into English anew. Both are Paris-based Americans who have taught English at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques for many years.

Apparently Beauvoir scholars have expressed concerns that non-philosophers were selected to carry out the translation. However, Glazer writes:

Both women expressed surprise at the concerns about their lack of philosophical background and assistance. They said they are consulting with philosophers, including Margaret A. Simons, author of a groundbreaking article pointing out Parshley's [the original translator's] errors. They've sought out a biologist to critique the chapter on the biology of sex, a friend with analytic training to go over the psychoanalysis chapter, and a medievalist to decipher the Old French quotations. They've commissioned translations by specialists of the extensive poetry citations from Paul Claudel, André Breton, and Michel Leiris. The job is so overwhelming, they said, that they've asked for grant money to fund additional assistance.

Further, they will restore the material cut from the first translation, and are considering the original in their choice of language:

To retain the formality of Beauvoir's voice, who used vous with Sartre and other intimates throughout her life, they reversed their original decision to introduce contractions. To give it a period flavor, they are steering away from words that came into common usage after 1949. That's the basis for their decision to avoid the word gender, which today is more commonly used in the places Beauvoir uses sex.

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*sign of advancing age

Article on translating Harry Potter

...in The Guardian. Link to print-friendly version.

Sorry, this blog is too busy to comment, just go read it yourself.

A Resolution To Be Broken

Does this ever happen to you? Translating publisher's blurbs or liner notes for music albums I generally become so taken with the product that I offer to be paid in kind instead of in cash.

Write 10 times:
Publishers are not good clients for book addict translators.
Publishers are not good clients for book addict translators.
Publishers are not good clients for...

Translation in Vietnam

This article from the VietNamNet Bridge makes an interesting juxtaposition with the previous two articles posted here about Russian literary translation and a star Vietnamese translator.

Vietnamese translators killing int’l authors

Many foreign books have been translated into Vietnamese in the past 15 years and many of them contained major errors in translation. Are translators assassinating foreign authors’ works?

Recently, the Culture and Information Publishing House released a very badly translated version of the American novel The Da Vinci Code.

Vietnamese translators have worked individually, relying on personal talent. Thus far, no one has been successful in regulating a standard level of translation. Many international poets and authors have their work severely changed when it’s translated into Vietnamese. In the other words, their works are killed by translators.

There is currently no agency overseeing the translation of books into Vietnamese. Many are worried that the current situation offers no transparency in the translation process and few opportunities for quality control.

Many young talented translators are not being given the opportunity to work with international literature of any consequence. They are ignored by publishers because they apparently lack the prestige and experience of their older counterparts. What they actually lack is simply the relationships to get their foot in the door. Consequently, there is a lack of realistic youthful voices in translated literature.

For many years, Russian poetry was considered the epitome of literature in Vietnam. Now, one must wonder if the translations were good in the first place. According to many experts, Vietnamese translators have been assassinating Russian poets for quite some time.

Of course any translator faces a colossal task when attempting to translate a work of literature between two languages. All we can ask is that they do their best. However, it is important that the safeguards are in place so the public knows that the version they are reading is as close to the intentions of the author as possible.

My comments:
“According to many experts, Vietnamese translators have been assassinating Russian poets for quite some time.” !!!

“All we can ask is that they do their best.” I can't agree with this; I think one must ask more, namely that publishers ensure that they publish only competent translations. Given the investment involved in putting out a book, it should at least make economic sense to confirm the quality of the product, even if one has no esthetic sensibilities.

And last but not least, on the choice of The Da Vinci Code as an example of a very badly translated novel... Would it really matter so much?

Movie about a translator

This article in the St. Petersburg Times talks about changes in the literary translation industry in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia, touching on a number of interesting issues.

By Evgenia Ivanova
Staff Writer

"'The goat cried in an inhuman voice…' I could not leave this in!" the English professor in Autumn Marathon (1979) remarks after spending hours helping with a translation by his less talented colleague.The Soviet classic comedy recreates in detail the perfectionism of St. Petersburg's old school translation trade.

"The translator's character, Lifanov, states that translation in the modern world must facilitate better mutual understanding between nations, and you, with your babble, will only divide them," says the same professor rejecting one of his students' works.

Such customs, it seems, sank into oblivion with the end of the Soviet Union and now, experts say, nobody guarantees that a foreign book translated into Russian will contain exactly what it promises.

"During the Soviet era, translations were done mainly by people working at foreign language departments [of universities] and who were directly related to teaching translating," Natalia Molchanova, president of Ego Translating, a local translating agency, said.

"Literary translation was considered to be a scientific, a prestigious and a very well-paid job," she said.

After the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, the state no longer provided financing for such work, and the job was left in the hands of publishers. The quality of translations significantly worsened.

"Publishing houses — commercial enterprises having profit as their main aim — were governed by economic interests and tried to economize on translations as much as they could," Molchanova, said.

Pavel Krusanov, the chief editor of St. Petersburg-based publishing house Limbus Press agrees that low-quality translations of foreign literature are a regular feature on the shelves of Russia's bookstores. In his opinion, this often arises as a result of publishers being in a constant hurry to dispatch their books to printers to avoid penalties for delays.

In the event of a poor translation, it would be very "uneconomical" for the publisher to try and find another translator, but at the same time, publishers are not able to control the level of quality, he said.

"Say a publisher has a contract with the printers half a year ahead, [the case with bad translations]. To commission the translation from someone else will mean doubling the publisher's losses which, in turn, will be reflected in the book's higher price," he said.

"Before the publisher signs the contract with a translator, the latter is asked to translate a short sample of about two pages of text," Krusanov explained.

"If the test is successful, then the contract is signed. But the problem is that the translator might work with someone to do the test or really put some effort in while preparing the sample. As a result the quality of translation on the contract might be wretched".

Viktor Toporov, a well-known literary critic and a translator, recalled that as recently as six years ago translators were simply "taken on their word" and nobody in publishing houses ever attempted to check the quality of the end result. But the situation is gradually changing.

"To a large extent, such naive perceptions are slowly shifting back to normal," Toporov said. One of the ways out of the current crisis lies in improving the training of translators, Molchanova said.

"Until they start to train translators on specifically tailored programs (and not only on philological ones), the translation of applied literature will continue to be done by those who over five years [in university] studied Shakespeare and the language as cultural heritage — and fiction will continue to be translated by the rest," she said.

Ironically, the English subtitles in the film Autumn Marathon, at least of the VHS version, are said to be less than well-translated. Another review (of the DVD) describes the English subtitles as "excellent." Were they redone for the DVD?