Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | Reviewed by Amy Brown

Jean Anderson, the chair of a panel discussion titled, The Art of Translation, introduced the crux of the topic with a rather nice metaphor. She compared an original text to the wearer of a raincoat, and the raincoat to a translation. This, to me, clearly demonstrated the possibilities of literary translation. The translator’s treatment could be so subtle as to be transparent, leaving the original text still visible underneath. It could be bulky and unflattering or tailored and elegant. It could be so large, bright and distracting that the original text would be almost forgotten. Although I was enchanted with this analogy, Anderson wisely refrained from taking it too far and began introducing her panel of speakers.

Andrei Makine, a Russian who has been living in France and, thus, writing in French since 1990, was the first to speak. From his tweed jacket and immaculate hair, to his black-polo-neck-ed interpreter, he resembled a Tin-Tin-esque European. He spoke in French, which seemed to delight the half of the audience who could understand him without the assistance of his interpreter, and entertained the ignorant half (in which I include myself) with his deep, Russian-accented laugh. The fact that Makine writes in his second language posed a problem when he first attempted to get published in France. In order to woo the publisher, Makine lied that he’d had his work translated from Russian to French. When the publisher asked to see the Russian version (due to finding the French “translation” dubious) Makine hastily translated his novel into his mother-tongue. “It was an average work,” he admitted to Anderson, but sufficient to convince the French publisher.

When asked what the greatest challenge of literary translation is, Makine suggested that it was not merely a question of representing grammar and vocabulary, but of finding an equivalent reality. This answer excited the rest of the panel. Pierre Furlan, a French writer and translator whose recent collection of short stories, Bluebeard’s Workshop, was translated by Anderson, interjected in French, adding that, in fact, “everything is a translation”. That words don’t have the same meaning in each country, and that, say, in English, much coarser language can be written than in French, Swedish or Russian, affects the translator’s job. To some extent, then, Makine concluded, the challenge of literary translation is rewriting a text without losing the original’s essential characteristics. “It’s not about the anecdote, it’s about the style.”

How does the translator recognise a text’s essential characteristic? How many questions should a translator ask an author? Makine, who was pleased to announce that his translator was learning Russian in order to better understand the background of Makine’s novels, said simply that “the soul of the author must be translated correctly.” He followed this mysterious statement with a comparison between translation and adaptation. “Being translated is like having a book made into film, opera or play. The result is something new.” New, but somehow the same – the slipperiness of the endeavour was dawning on me. Linda Olsson, a Swedish-born, New Zealand resident who has recently had a novel translated from English to Swedish, elaborated on Makine’s suggestion that moving between languages is not merely to do with finding equivalent words. “I don’t think in Swedish when I write in English,” she said, “English has nothing to do with my Swedish thinking and writing… I considered translating my own book into Swedish. But I was constantly tempted to rewrite. Translation requires a higher degree of respect for the text than its original author is able to give it.” To the author, Olsson implied, her text is always malleable, but to a translator, an author’s text is fixed and finished.

Olsson’s relationship with her translator was not perfect, but this is often the case when the author understands the language into which her book is being translated. When Olsson reads the translation she finds the tone of voice very formal. But as Swedish is a more formal, precise language than English, Olsson recognises, this is probably an unavoidable side-effect. And, as Olsson also points out, her translator must have done well because 95,000 copies of the book have already been sold in Sweden. Anderson asked Olsson what qualities make a good translator. She answered, “There has to be an indefinable talent for picking up a certain tone of voice, which can never be identical in another language, but equivalent.”

Pierre Furlan, with experience of both translating (Alan Duff and Elizabeth Knox to name a couple) and being translated, was voluble and entertaining on the subject. “When I get into a book there is a distinctive feeling about this book… it’s immaterial and goes beyond words. It’s not even really linguistic… denotation has to be there, of course, but what you translate is the whole ensemble.” Anderson, clearly familiar with Furlan’s enthusiasm for the abstract, smiled and asked him where one would begin to find this immaterial ensemble. “Getting the feel of the book – reading and knowing what I think of it,” Furlan answered decisively, “I never accept a book which I find offensive. A book may be stupid but that is not offensive to me… offensive is when a book goes against my grain of experience about the world.” Anderson gently asked if he could be more specific but Furlan just laughed and explained that his wasn’t a scientific process. “The challenge is when the book you’re in is so different to the French culture,” he said. I hoped that he’d go on to mention Once Were Warriors and right on cue he did. “Alan Duff has an extremely odd way of using English,” There was a burst of laughter from the crowd; most it came from me. “The literary world in French does not like slang, offensive curse words. English is, er, more tolerant… when I read Alan Duff, I thought, what can I do with this?” Another interlude of laughter. “What I did in French is comparable to what Alan Duff did – I’m faithful in the deep sense, not in a literal sense.”

In discussing Anderson’s translation of his work, Furlan was extremely approbatory. He described the soul-destroying experience of reading a bad translation of one of his stories and thinking, “well, I’m doomed – it’ll never get across borders”, but this was before he’d discovered Anderson’s talent. When he found her, he said, “I was overwhelmed. I think I was crying on the phone. It was incredible.” This reaction may seem hyperbolic, but Olsen and Makine both agreed with Furlan’s sentiment. Olsson said that finding the right translator is like finding your spouse you know when you meet them. Makine seconded this, stressing that a translator must be faithful to his author at all costs.

But is translation a work of art? Anderson asked the whole panel. “Translation is highly creative but it is a craft which requires a lot of perspiration and inspiration,” Furlan began. “It’s a craft which requires art and an art which requires craft.” He went on to compare a translator to a linguistic gymnast, who needs to perform many exercises before they’ll be ready to complete a task. Olsson interjected, saying that in addition to being practised, a good translator has “an element of brilliance”.

In a final attempt at describing the nature of translation, Anderson, who throughout the hour had done an excellent job of mediating the panel’s discussion, added her own opinion. “The best thing,” she said, “is for there to be multiple translations of everything. For every translation brings something new.” And loses something, a member of the audience suggested with a question relating to what is lost in translation. Makine’s answer concluded the session positively. “In a translation, you lose tonality. But in a simple reading you lose something anyway. And find many things as well – it’s an adventure.”