Advice from world-famous translators about the art of translation
Writers and artists are seductive yet formidable titles.
But translators? How often do readers remember who translated their book?
Translators are often hidden in the shadows of writers. They are invisible — and many believe that this is how it is meant to be anyway. Shouldn’t translators work for the writer and the original text? And when they’re done, perhaps they should quietly leave the literary stage.
While translators are tasked with ensuring the message of the text can be understood effortlessly in another language, it takes more than literal word-for-word translation. There is a skill behind translation that makes a text well-loved in another language — sometimes even more than in its original text.
It can be Russian works like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Преступление и наказание Prestuplenie i nakazanie), Indonesian Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia), French Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and English J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series in another language.
So what should we know about the art and craft of translation?
3 world-renowned translators give their take and advice on mastering this skilled profession:
1. Max Lane: Understand the thinking and context behind the text.
Max Lane is the English translator for Indonesian Eka Kurniawan’s Cantik itu Luka and Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Buru Quartet novels.
He points out that for him, it was key to understand and learn the writer’s thinking from the texts and personally witness how the writer engages within society.
“In this sense, I see myself as translating their ideologies and perspectives, not just the text in their books.”
The original text and its context is thus the key guiding principle.
2. Edith Grossman: Honour the author’s original style.
For Edith Grossman, translation is an art. Rather than something technical, translation is likened to writing — or rather, a “rewriting of the first text”.
Edith Grossman, along with translator Gregory Rabassa, introduced Gabriel Garcia Marquez to the English-speaking world. She was responsible for translating most of Marquez’s works, including Love in the Time of Cholera (1988), The General in His Labyrinth (1991), Strange Pilgrims: Stories (1993), Of Love and Other Demons (1995), News of a Kidnapping (1997), Living to Tell the Tale (2003), and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2005).
For Edith Grossman, translation can be seen as something more creative as the languages have different systems. What the translator should pay attention to, then, is the idea and style of the author — and that must be honoured.
On translating Marquez and to honour this author’s style, for example, Grossman would use more creative ways of describing adverbs in English. “I knew this Colombian writer was eccentric when he wrote me saying that he doesn’t use adverbs ending with -mente in Spanish and would like to avoid adverbs ending in -ly in English.” She would thus use “without haste” instead of “slowly” when translating “despacio” instead of “lentamente”.
Her biggest take on translation and why it matters is this:
“I think translation is the cement that holds literary civilization together. It is the way that we learn about other literatures, other people’s — I’m avoiding the word ‘cultures’ because it’s not a favorite word of mine. The way we learn about the world is through translation. Since not everyone can read every language in the world, the only way to find out what people are writing and thinking are to read translations.”
3. Jorge Luis Borges: Use your target language as a medium of exchange.
While Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was known for his short stories, he was also a prolific translator in Latin America. He famously translated Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince into Spanish at the age of 11.
Building up on translation as an art form, Borges went as far as to see it as a contribution to literature. Borges believed that “an original can be unfaithful to a translation.” He even added that a translation could in fact be more faithful to literature than to its original text.
A translation could even improve the text, making it better than the original. While such translations could risk losing certain words or meanings, Borges firmly believed these were necessary in making the texts improved.
While Borges takes it to the extreme, it points translators to look at translation as a way of feeding one’s creativity and underlines how integral translation is even to the author’s literary process.
For Borges, both writing and translating “became nearly interchangeable practices of creation.”
Recognising the Art of Translation
We find that a common outlook amongst these translators is that for them, translation is not merely technical work.
What ties many renowned translators together is the firm belief in their work, and that translation is indeed a respectable and creative literary exercise, that is able to proliferate the ideas and context of its original text in a different language medium.
Not every translator may agree with this. Famed Russian writer and translator Vladimir Nabokov for instance saw that faithful translations are more important than its descriptions. He in fact stated that “the clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase.”
Whether you agree or disagree, a lot of care and skill are required in conveying the author’s message into another language.
Translation is indeed an art form that requires creativity, thoughtfulness and understanding of the text. Perhaps this is what can bring a good translator out from the shadows.
Written by Liani MK
