Introduction – the beauty and challenge of becoming a translator

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Introduction

the beauty and challenge of becoming a translator

The language of Europe is translation Umberto Eco

With more than 60 indigenous languages, Europe is blessed with wealth in both cultural and linguistic terms, and the EU, with its 24 official languages, is a model for practising multilingualism on an everyday basis. Referring to literature, Umberto Eco goes on to say, ‘[…] We know there are books we have yet to read that will help us reflect on cultures different from our own. Little by little: that is how our European identity will become more profound. … It’s culture not war, that cements European identity.’ In other words: ‘We must live up to being surrounded by multilingualism, by a plural culture. This is what our existence is about – enabling ourselves to endless possibilities through the others. Through translating ourselves – beyond communicating, we translate to perceive, to know, to feel, to comprehend.’ (3)

This is precisely what translators do: they provide Europeans and the world with the means to come to know and comprehend each other, whether they work for the EU, in the growing audiovisual sector or in the book market. They play an invaluable role in broadening people’s horizons and developing the EU’s political and cultural cohesion. Literary translators in particular go ‘beyond communicating’, as their task is not simply to translate from one language to another – through their linguistic expertise, they support our European ‘plural culture’ and make it accessible to everyone. This is certainly the case with regard to ‘bigger’ languages. However, when it comes to ‘lesser-used’ languages – for example Estonian, Polish and Maltese (not to mention regional or minority languages spoken by 40 million Europeans, such as Basque, Catalan or Yiddish) – and the promotion of their literatures, we see an ever-widening gap that threatens our cultural diversity.

To achieve a ‘plural culture’, the creative process of translating a work of European literature must take place within a genuine relationship with the author. Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk sums it up with the following: ‘Translators come to us [the writers] from the outside and say: I have been there, too. I have walked in your footsteps – and now we will cross over this border together. And indeed, the translator literally becomes a guide, taking me by the hand and leading me across the borders of nation, language, and culture. […] The responsibility of the translator is equal to that of the writer. Both stand guard over one of the most important phenomena of human civilization – the possibility of transmitting the most intimate individual experience to others, and of making communal that experience in the astonishing act of cultural creation.’ (4)

In order to achieve this, the translator – who is indeed an author in their own right, not only according to copyright laws, but also in view of the creative process required when translating a literary work of art – must be an expert reader of the language in question, and have as intimate a knowledge of the country’s or region’s history, culture and literary heritage as

of their own. This necessarily involves extensive tertiary-level study, accompanied by lifelong learning.

You live as many lives as the number of languages you speak

If we want to safeguard our common literary heritage, there is an urgent need not only to encourage students to learn and study languages other than the predominant ones (e.g. English, French), but also to provide these students with the means and incentives to train to become literary translators of these languages, and to be able to make a living from this practice. A translator who devotes themselves to translation from, for example, Estonian to Hungarian, or Icelandic to Portuguese, needs long-term support not only educationally, but also economically. Praising the cultural wealth of Europe in words and appeals needs to be matched with action, in the form of mutual efforts from the various stakeholders in the fields of translation and publishing.

Literary translators are highly skilled professionals and passionate bibliophiles. Their contribution to European culture and diversity may not perhaps be as immediately visible as other factors, but in the end it is the literary translators all over Europe who will enable Europeans, with their many languages and often very different cultural backgrounds, to reach a better understanding of each other – and thus ‘to perceive, to know, to feel, to comprehend’ each other. If that’s what literature does, translators are the ‘mediators’ of Europe.

Translators should not be alone in their challenge. To become ‘ideal readers’, they need a strong multilingual and multidisciplinary education, along with opportunities to train and broaden their competences at any stage of their career. To go from national to universal, they need courageous publishers willing to open new horizons and to treat them with professionalism, and they all need the support of national and international funding institutions. Putting translators and publishers against each other should be avoided by transparent, non-confrontational communication and integrating funding. Better practices must be adopted within the literary translation industry in order to improve the status of translators. This also includes helping translators to engage in collective organisations, and to better understand their rights as authors.

This task is especially important because the profession in general shows some signs of ageing. According to French statistics,(5) confirmed by the wide international survey conducted in 2020, in France, the average age of translators was 53 years in 2019, compared with 49 years in 1999 and 45 years in 1983. There is, therefore, a real challenge to make the translation profession attractive to young people.

Few translators are able to devote themselves entirely to their ‘core business’: in France, only 20% are able to do so (this figure is certainly much higher than the European average), 16% are retired, and 64% are not retired and have another activity. One of the reasons for this is

This is precisely what translators do: they provide Europeans and the world with the means to come to know and comprehend each other, whether they work for the EU, in the growing audiovisual sector or in the book market.