READING THE WORLD: Katherine Silver Interview

(For Reading the World, I conducted a number of interviews with translators of RTW books. These interviews are meant to get a variety of translators' opinions on matters common to all translations, and to let each translator discuss their particular book. These will be posted throughout the month. This is the first.)

What did you find particularly enjoyable or distinctive about Paradise Travel and what do you think English-language readers could gain from this book?

Besides being an excellent read—well-told, funny, and moving—Paradise Travel gives English-speaking North Americans the opportunity to see ourselves and our world as others see us. It also has the merit of making visible those among us who all-too-often go unseen: the poor, the foreign, the illegal.  Franco is a fresh, talented, and audacious writer whom I suspect we will be reading with sustained and increasing interest for years to come.

Is there anything about Franco's writing that you think is difficult to translate into English?

Paradise Travel is narrated by the main character, whose subtly idiosyncratic voice—part idiot savant, part idiotic innocent—gives the novel unity and depth. Finding and maintaining that voice in English was perhaps the most overarching challenge. I also enjoyed working through the linguistic dilemmas arising from the interpenetration of cultures/languages (Spanish here, English there, Spanglish everywhere) and among dialects in Spanish (Colombians trying to understand Mexican Spanish, for instance).

In translating, do you tend more toward trying to make the reader forget that this isn't the original, or toward trying to actively remind the reader that the book is from a different language?

Ah, the million-dollar question, or in keeping with the pay scale of translators, several hundred. To be very brief, and from the point of view of a professional translator, I would say “it depends.” On what, exactly, would take too many words, but included would be: quality of the original text, relative importance of form versus content and style versus story, author intention (!), and publisher and/or market considerations. 

Can a translation be as good as the original?

Better, even. My grandmother owned a volume of Shakespeare in Yiddish. It’s title page read “Translated and Improved by . . .”. On a certain, rather esoteric, level, the question makes no sense, for the original and the translation have to be read as versions, albeit at different distances removed, from the inchoate imaginations of an author, which just may be the even more unformed musings of a universal force beyond our understanding.

And lastly, do you think it's important to read works in translation? What part of your own reading do works in translation make up?

Profoundly important. Indifference to and ignorance of other cultures, contexts, and realities is both symptom and cause of many evils we suffer and perpetuate on others. What kind of a world would this be if only the ancient Greeks could read Homer, or if Ana Karenina had remained in St. Petersburg? Think of fresh air pouring in the window of a musty, dusty room; think of a portal opening onto a world of beauty and complexity you never dreamed was there and is now yours forever. I recently found myself reading so many works in translation that I decided, partially for professional reasons, that all my readings in English for a year must be of original works.

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Comments

[JH]

"Can a translation be as good as the original?"

(Anna Arkadievitch Karenina, transfigured into English by R.G. Stonelower, Mount Tabor Ltd., 1880)

"transfigured" is a great joke.

[Matthew Tiffany]

There's a new translation of Kafka - posted about it at my place - discussed in the Guardian, author feels it hews more closely to Kafka's intended spare style - remind me to send you the article -

[Mark Vane]

Fellow blogger, Found a cool new tool for our blogs... www.widgetmate.com It helps get latest news for our keywords directly on to our blog.

[Arturo von Vacano]

I admire Ms. Silver very much.
I saw her work with Mr. Skarmeta's book.
How can I find Ms. Silver?
Where can I write a note to her?
TKS!