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So, after months of hard work your book is finally out and selling like hotcakes... You might feel that there is nothing else to do except for relaxing and enjoying the success... Well... you’re wrong. This is the best moment to start thinking of translation. Using this moment of popularity to take your story to distant cultures sounds like a sensible decision for various reasons.
Publishing a book into more than one language multiplies and diversifies its audience. The obvious consequence of this is more sales, but let’s think beyond that. Translation is a powerful tool that leaves linguistic barriers aside and creates connections that, otherwise, wouldn’t be possible. Readers from other parts of the world will know your name and enjoy your story. Isn’t is gratifying to think that, perhaps, your words will make a life-long impact on someone who lives in distant places? In addition, your translated book has the potential of enriching the culture of its readers. A faithful translation can carry, apart from a good story to entertain, a unique set of ideas and ways of understanding the world. Every individual belongs to a culture, which shapes how they see the world, themselves and others. No culture has the absolute truth as regards this way of understanding... let’s just say that they are like different “glasses” that we use to see reality. Translated literature has an immense value, since it acts as an instrument that can communicate much more than the story itself, but a whole perspective and set of ideas capable of broaden its readers minds. A further motivation to translate your works is that you might become an inspiration to authors in the culture that receives your book. Your ways of expressing ideas and organizing your productions are certainly unique and make you who you are. Translated literature encourages local authors to experiment with new forms of organization, which, in the long run, diversifies and transforms literary systems. In conclusion, there are many interesting aspects that may encourage you to translate your book into other languages. If you still haven’t considered it as an option, let me tell you that there is a lot to gain and nothing to lose. The most important thing is to find a good literary translator that can reproduce your story in the most faithful way... Why staying local? Raise your voice and go global!
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Why, how and what for is fiction written? What do authors have in mind when they venture to start a new story? In the previous article I referred to the benefits that book translation can have for authors and how translators can help them by providing a good product. (If you still haven't read it, you can click here). I mentioned the importance of choosing the right vocabulary and phrasing the content in a way that would sound natural for readers of the translated version.
But, before that, there is a previous step which is the key if we want to obtain an accurate translation. Before finding equivalents, before attempting to translate anything, we need to understand the author’s mind, what were their thoughts when they wrote that? According to Ernesto Sábato, an Argentinian author who lived in the 20th Century, a novel is not written using one’s head, but the whole body. The writing process is not always rational, sometimes authors are driven by emotion, that is, they start off with a certain idea in mind and they end up writing something else. It is common to hear authors saying that, once created, characters come to life. They often claim that, originally, they intended to tell a different story, but then, the characters they had imagined started to act at will. What do they mean by that? This illusion takes place when the character is well defined and compelling. Its traits are so perfectly depicted that we find ourselves thinking “no, he wouldn’t do that”. This is an important aspect to consider during the translation process. Characters must stay as complex as they are in the original version. In the same way, we can’t add traits that were not there before. Another aspect to keep in mind is the author’s background and ideas. It is our responsibility to catch their voice, to reproduce their way of expressing themselves. The objective is to produce a final text where the author can still be found. The reader has to perceive that it’s the author and no other who is telling the story. Of course, it is just that, an illusion, because all the communicative situations will be different for readers of the translation. This is why it is so important to choose a professional to carry out this task. As I mentioned in our previous program, it is not enough to know two languages to do a translation, especially in literature. It takes a lot of analysis and investigation to obtain an equivalent text which reads smoothly, as if there hadn’t been intermediaries between the author and the readers. Creative writing is a form of expression and, as such, it cannot be translated as a mere equivalence of words. There has to be emotion in it. As literary translators, our primary task should be to read and understand the text so deeply that we are able to discover what is beyond its surface structure. Only when we gain a profound understanding of it, do we move on to the second stage of translation: the reproduction of the text in the target language. A special case is the translation of poetry. Much has been said about this endeavor; there is an endless debate about whether it is possible or not and there are multiple points of views. Truth is, poetry translation is achievable, but it requires additional abilities from the translator. When we translate a poem, we need to read it again and again until we can feel all the rhythm and semantic load of each word. In prose we work with the meaning of sentences, but in poetry, each word counts and we can’t forget about metrics and rhyme. Translating a poem is very much like writing a poem from scratch, there has to be meaning, melody, and unity. As you can see, translating involves much more than finding equivalents for words. There is a whole world beyond that awaits to be discovered. Can your book be translated into other languages? Is it worth it? Did you know that, according to The Open Mic, which is a blogging community for translators, in the United Kingdom, between 2001 and 2016, translated literary fiction has almost doubled in sales? According to a research carried out by the Man Booker International prize in 2016, despite the fact that the market for general fiction was on a slight decline, the market for translated fiction had risen significantly. The survey confirms that this trend can be observed not only in the UK, but throughout the world.
The greatest fear of most authors is that, during the translation process, the original meanings they intended to convey are distorted or even lost. However, as literary translators, our greatest ambition is to keep every single detail and nuance of the text so readers of the translation can experience the same emotions that the original words would provoke on them. We are trained to perceive all the semantic load of the words chosen by the author and we struggle to find the best equivalent to use in the translated version. Once the appropriate vocabulary is chosen, and the content is phrased in a way that would sound natural for target readers, the author’s ideas are ready to travel to distant cultures. Translation is a powerful tool that leaves aside linguistic barriers and creates connections that, otherwise, wouldn’t be possible. Readers from other parts of the world will know the translated author’s name and will gain access to what they have to say, and that can have far-reaching consequences, not only enlarging their audience, but also making an impact on someone who lives overseas. Isn’t that a great feeling for someone who wrote a story without imaging that it would reach such a broad audience? The culture that receives the translated book has also many good reasons to embrace it and make it part of their own literary system. Let’s talk about some of them:
About three years ago, when I started translating #literature, I had some trouble remembering the Spanish conventions for writing dialogues. Fortunately enough, at that time, I had the most dedicated editor (Analía, if you are around, I am completely grateful for your patience in explaining the rules to me over and over again every time whenever I kept “messing it up”). Eventually, it all became automatized and, now, I use these conventions without even realizing it.
Spanish is my mother tongue, yes, but, as everything, it is a question of practice, and it is not so frequent to find formal contexts that call for the use of these “rules”. Academic texts hardly ever include dialogue and informal contexts, well... raise of hands those of you who even use punctuation when anxiously texting a friend to tell them all that someone else has told you. Correctness in transcribing dialogues is most of the times neglected, and it is only when we are writing or translating #literary or #journalistic texts that we realize we are full of doubts regarding this issue. These days, while doing some editing jobs, I noticed that other people were having the same trouble with the transcription of dialogues. That's why I thought it would be useful to write this post with a quick reminder of the main conventions.. I hope you find it useful!
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It’s not so difficult after all, is it? If you have any doubt regarding this issue or any other, please, feel free to contact me! |
AuthorVirginia Castro is an Argentinian English-Spanish translator who works mainly in the field of editorial translation, helping authors and copywriters build an international audience. She holds a bachelor's degree in translation from the National University of Cordoba, Argentina and is currently specializing in literary translation and transcreation. She strives daily to produce texts that reflect the author’s mind and soul, enabling publications to cross borders and seas so that more and more readers can enjoy them. ArchivesCategories |