Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Hindi to English
Agnel Joseph Mentor
Jason Grunebaum
A
gnel Joseph is a translator of Korean and, more recently, Hindi literature. He won the LTI Korea Award for Aspiring Translators and the Korea Times Modern Korean Literature Translation Award in 2013. He works as a programme officer at the Literature Translation Institute of Korea and edits the Korean Literature Now magazine. He is currently translating Park Min-gyu’s short story collection Double.
Introduction Agnel Joseph
A
nju Sharma is a poet and short story writer, whose work has appeared in various literary magazines, newspapers and online publications. Lane Number Two, a slice-of-life story about the family who live at the titular address, was published in the journal Hindi Samay. It follows the life of Jasso Masi (or ‘Aunty’), her husband and their children, who settled in Delhi after fleeing the horror of Partition. In the story, Kake, the eldest son, who drives an auto-rickshaw (but is more often in an alcoholic haze than at work), shows up at home with an Anglo-Indian girl he has wed at the courthouse, who struggles to adjust to her new life. Meanwhile, Bhupi, the younger son and hero of the story, is a gifted painter and sculptor of idols, withdrawn, distressed by his short stature, and haunted by the statue of a girl he has made. When he is married off to Sohni, a beautiful young girl who lost her father and brothers in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Bhupi slowly opens his heart to her, and over the course of the story, escapes from the “regime of quietude” that has a hold on his mind. The text is written in Hindi, although Sharma also uses words in Urdu, and even Punjabi. This is one of the reasons I chose the story, identifying that this would add to the com-
plexity of translating. For example, the repeated use of the word “colour”, whilst natural in the original, felt awkward in English; there were only so many ways to refer to it without relying on the same word over and over again. Equally, it was a challenge deciding how to translate the dialogue in Punjabi; when rendering both languages into English, how should you communicate to the reader that some conversations are in a different language to the rest of the text? Finally, because Sharma uses a mixture of Hindi and Urdu, the text contains many near-synonyms, close in meaning but varied in register. Words like “armaan” and “aarzu” mean more or less the same thing – “wish”, “desire” etc. – however, problems arose with words such as “dil” (Hindi) and “jigar” (Urdu); both mean “heart”, so how should they be translated when they appear next to each other in the same sentence? The most important lesson I’ve learned over the course of the mentorship is to not lose sight of the visual image, when in search for the right word.
Lane Number Two Anju Sharma, translated by Agnel Joseph
“H
urry up son, tea’s getting cold.” His mother’s loud voice broke the spell. His hand froze in the middle of dipping brush in paint. This was the first time over the course of an hour Bhupi’s gaze was directed at anything but statue, paint, brush. The tea was indeed getting cold. He gulped it down and directed his full attention to the statues. He had to finish three orders before Diwali. Bhupi, surrounded by statues of Lakshmi and Ganesh, turned his gaze at the birds playing on the power lines in the distance. Today, as usual, a stray notion perched on the top of the tree of his thoughts. Why did those birds sit at such heights? Height was the most wretched word in the world. Heights always drew him into a dark shadow in which his sense of self shrunk. In the distance, a vermilion hue had begun to spread in the sky, its shade slowly beginning to resemble Bhupi’s stained hands. A painter by profession, Bhupi aka Bhupinder is the youngest son of Jasso Masi and the hero of our story. He doesn’t have an especially hero-like characteristic we can highlight. If the scope of this story were limited to his world, this quiet story would have neither voice, nor room for dialogue. All sorts of hues and colours are scattered around Bhupi’s world, but this story,
adorned by the colours of the rainbow, is mixed with all other colours to create a colour that is bleak. So this story begins with Bhupi, who’s about twenty-nine, with a clear complexion hidden behind a scraggly beard at all times, and a shorter than average height—no, in fact much shorter, so short that a smile spreads across people’s faces when they spot him. His heart was never in his studies, and circumstances at home were such that he wasn’t able to study more in any case. He had studied up to the fifth grade, but his mind was always happily distracted by colour. Paan, bidis, cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol: Bhupi was untouched by bad habits. If he was prone to any vice, it was his companionship with sketching and scribbling and an immeasurable love for colours that probably was born with him—and with long stretches of silence that followed him everywhere. If he had a single companion or confidant, it was his dreams, which were, sadly, more like nightmares. Bhupi’s silent world often came alive in the embrace of these dark, cold, lonely, and fearsome nightmares—now that the dreams had become habit, he began to enjoy their company. There must’ve been very few occasions when anyone had heard him speak. Occasional neighbourhood
passersby must’ve thought he was unable to hear, or speak. When the lips are silent, the eyes are said to take on their duties, but Bhupi’s eyes only saw things related to his art. After all, sayings about how the eyes can speak were just that, only sayings. Maybe it was the effect of the nightmares encroaching on his sleep, or maybe something else, but his eyes were often lifeless, dry, tired. It was easy to see how the accumulation of black, dark, and fear, and all the loneliness of those shadowy nights, had left their mark under those dispassionate eyes—though no one could decipher their meaning. Jasso Masi aka Biji aka Jaswant Kaur was an upstanding, sociable and cheerful woman who didn’t believe in thinking too much, or, to put it in her own words, “When did life ever give me the chance?” Wheaten complexion, short stature, plump body, wisp of hair under a pastel chunni swaying at her temple as if to say, “I’m here too,” a salwar kameez wide at the hips, and a smile on her face. Partition had gobbled up everything, but she concealed its sting in her bosom. She, along with her husband of many years, had, in their youth, left Punjab and settled here. Was it her
heart, her soul, or her life she’d left behind over there, which people now said was called Pakistan? It took her a long time to accept that that land was now foreign, that it wasn’t hers anymore, and that still calling it hers was wishful thinking. And see? Her uprooted household and broken heart had found refuge in Delhi, itself razed and resettled God knows how many times. It was Delhi that had watched the sleepless nights of her youth and the nest she built one blade of grass at a time, and it was Delhi that stood mute witness to the struggles of the weary but ever-smiling mother.
Excerpt details: Anju Sharma alli Number Do G Lane Number Two (2016) Hindi Samay: www.hindisamay.com (2016) pp. 1–2 Contact details: Tw @AngelMisspelled angelone@gmail.com
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Arabic to English
Francisca McNeill Mentor
Paul Starkey
F
rancisca McNeill is a freelance translator, PhD Linguistics researcher at SOAS, and founder of the creative language and translation company BOOM Linguistics. Through her mentorship in translating Arabic, she wants to introduce an important author to Britain and promote translation, linguistics and language learning.
Introduction Francisca McNeill
G
hālib Halasā was born in Jordan in 1932. He spent his formative years at an international boarding school in Amman and as a teenager studied in Beirut. In 1955 he moved to Cairo, after having been a political prisoner in Baghdad and being banned from Jordan. His first novel, Al-Dahik (Laughter), was published in 1970. He had seven other novels published since, including Thalathat Wujuh li-Baghdad (Three Faces of Baghdad), Al-Riwa’iyyun (The Storytellers), and Sultana, as well as a collection of short stories and the only Arabic translation of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in The Rye. He died in 1989. Halasā was a controversial figure: prolific writer; political exile; literary patron and critic; translator-researcher with a penchant for the subversive and complex. He first piqued my interest when I found his translation of Salinger’s once-outlawed The Catcher in the Rye. Halasā’s magnum opus, Sultana, is a 500-page juggernaut, echoing Dos Passos’ non-linear narrative and Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s vivid descriptions, set during an era of immense change in Jordan. The main narrator and protagonist is a lascivious student with a conscience, much like Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, but even more well-read and much more political. Like Crime and Punishment and The Great Gatsby,
Sultana’s vivid story develops against a societal backdrop: international war, political intrigue, cultural imperialism... The amount of historical knowledge packed into Sultana is staggering. However, the real interest in the book lies in the character of the eponymous Sultana: a beautiful, modern woman with a sharp wit and a fierce spirit, who transcends the boundaries between tribe, village and city while leading her life uncompromisingly. Although Halasā was a well-known and highly respected author in broader Arabic literary circles, surprisingly little of his work has made it into English translation. My old Arabic professor used to say you cannot read Arabic without already knowing what it says. Written Arabic is an abjad, meaning it dsn’t mrk vwls (doesn’t mark vowels). Arabic is also a pro-drop language: if you want to write, “I laughed”, you would effectively be writing “lghd”, or in Arabic, d-h-kt ()ضحكت. In Arabic “ ”ضحكتcan mean “I/ you/she laughed”. Although mostly mitigated by context, some writers use this structural ambiguity strategically. Halasā didn’t always, but unsurprisingly, when translating Sultana, one sometimes has to do a double-take to figure out what’s going on!
Sultana Ghālib Halasā, translated by Francisca McNeill
A
nother time I saw Amman as a city anew. I was happy with my attempts to affirm my belonging, with my perseverance in trying to defeat its pride, its pettiness, to make it take me seriously. This house is west of the Mutran school. I’ve only been away from it for around two months, but the trees in the garden have grown, with their luminous green, almost transparent leaves, now darkened to a forest black. Where’s the old woman who always sits on the balcony at this time of day? Everyone passing by, her small frame raised overhead from behind the balustrade, and she, looking at them with her spiteful spinster eyes. Her sharp nose filling with wrinkles when she looks at them – seems to me they fill her heart with hatred. What’s happened to her in those two months? Did she die? Then I see the villager who opened up a shop in Amman but is obviously not planning on staying there, considering that he’s still wearing his village garb: the qumbaz, the kufiya with the headband, the beard. “Good morning, Abu Muhammad.” Surprised, he starts looking at me attentively. “Good morning, sir,” he says. “How’s your health?” He gets up, adjusts his clothes and shakes my hand. I ask him for a pack of
Goldstar cigarettes. He hands them to me and takes the money, then asks: “Where to today?” “I’m going to the university in Beirut.” “Is that all? Good luck.” “Thank you,” I say, and walk off. I’m walking leisurely. Will I see her again, this Armenian girl? I look at the garden and the one-storey house. Creepers cover the wall. Apricot and almond trees in the garden. No movement inside. One time I saw her climb up slowly from behind the wall. Her blonde hair first; her wide-open blue eyes, which grew even wider when she saw me. What did she want to say? Was she inviting me? Was she calling, “I’m all yours, there’s no one at home, come in”? Was she warning me? That day I walked past, straight to the market, and bought a bottle of perfume for eight piasters. I went back with the perfume. I got up close to the wall. She was standing there. I reached out my hand with the gift and said, “Take it,” shaking and sweating like crazy, with a dry throat. The girl was shocked and stared at me – as if she’d never seen me before, as if she hadn’t been climbing from behind the wall with her wideopen eyes that almost filled her entire face. She looked at the small bottle. But this time her eyes narrowed, until they
turned into just little slits embedded in her reddening face. “What’s this?” she said. Damn my voice, betraying me at a moment like this. As if my hands shaking wasn’t enough. My mouth was dry, and – no matter how I tried – I couldn’t make a sound, and all the while she kept pressing me. “What’s this?” She said it louder. She was angry and losing patience, and my voice just wouldn’t come out, but the question had been asked and I needed to answer. “A... a p-p...” I wanted to say, “A present”. “Are you deaf?” she said, irritated. How cruel she was! I didn’t say anything. She stuck out her index finger: “I want you to leave. Understand?” She said it with a strange, unpleasant stutter. “Who?” I asked. And again I extended my hand with the present, still shaking, and the bottle of perfume was covered in sweat, and now the girl yelled, this time not stuttering, “I want you to stop your dribbling and disappear.” I ran away quickly, looking around me, afraid that someone might see me.
That wasn’t the worst of it: I turned around and saw her outstretched arm, her finger pointing at me, and she was laughing so hard she was almost hysterical. She was obviously talking to somebody and describing what had just happened: “That stupid boy? He’s right over there.” What else could her laughter and strange pointing mean? I head to the bus stop and start looking at her house. It’s perfectly still, as if the owners are dead. The bus comes. I get in, and get off at the stop across from Wadi Al-Neel café. I cross the street and go in.
Excerpt details: Ghālib Halasā سلطان ة Sultana (1988) Beirut: Dār Al-Haqā’iq (1988) pp. 267-270 Contact details: Inst @linguafrancisca Tw @linguafrancisca
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Catalan to English
Jennifer Arnold Mentor
Peter Bush
J
ennifer Arnold is a literary translator from Catalan and Spanish. She completed her PhD in Translation Studies and Catalan at the University of Birmingham in January 2017, and is currently working as a research fellow on a Leverhulmefunded project compiling and translating an anthology of Spanish and Catalan Republican exile literature into English.
Introduction Jennifer Arnold
T
ina Vallès is a writer, editor and translator of several short story collections, novels and books for children. In 2012, she won the Mercè Rodoreda prize for her collection, El Parèntesi més llarg, (In Parenthesis…), and her latest novel, La memòria de l’arbre, The Memory of the Tree, was recently awarded the Anagrama Prize. She is also co-editor of Paper de vidres, an online journal dedicated to short stories in Catalan. I chose to translate (In Parenthesis…) for several reasons. Firstly, I wanted to work on a text by a contemporary female writer, a group underrepresented in translation, particularly from Catalan. Secondly, despite the undeniable literary quality of the text, the stories are written in a style and register which makes them accessible to a wider audience, and their subject matter gives them considerable commercial appeal. Each story is set in an everyday domestic scenario, but in parentheses in the lives of the characters, where is the reader is privy to their innermost thoughts, dreams, and fears. From the sharp wit and irony in “Hair Removal Cream”, an item the character realizes she has forgotten whilst stuck in an endless supermarket queue and plans to steal from the woman in front, to the moving account of a woman coming
to terms with the imminent birth of her baby in “Taxi”, Vallès’ characters are skilfully drawn, and her narrative firmly places the reader within each of the situations as a not-so-objective observer. The key challenge in translating this text lay in finding ways of translating both the humour and irony, whilst respecting the clever construction of the stories; the informal, colloquial register suggests a simplicity which in practice is far more complex. An important aspect of the humour is the everyday situations in which the stories are set (a restaurant, for example, or waiting for an internet connection to be installed), which contain specifics relevant to the Catalan context. For the reader of the translation to have the same experience of the text and for the humour to be maintained, these had to be dealt with carefully, in order to create a similar scenario. For example, in one story, which describes a dinner date with a man from Hell the choice of dessert was key to the relationship; crema catalana for him to show his national pride and pedantry, and, for her, el flam, which had to be translated as “crème caramel” to convey the irritation shown in her “chewing” every mouthful, and the comparisons between the pudding and her gelatinous feelings towards him.
“Milk Cereal Water” from El Parèntesi més llarg - (In Parenthesis...) Tina Vallès, translated by Jennifer Arnold
I
found an envelope from a gas bill I could use to write the shopping list. We need milk, we’ve run out of cereal, and we always need bottled water. I wanted to make a note of what we needed using the pen from the bank that we keep on top of the microwave so you could go to the supermarket this evening before you got home. And I was going to write milk cereal water but that wasn’t what I have written. Standing, leaning on the kitchen top, I started to write, filling the whole envelope, even over the gas company logo, because I’ve suddenly realised that there’s a lot I need to say to you before milk cereal water and I need to say it now. And all at once the envelope is too small and I’m too uncomfortable, so I take a few pieces of paper from the printer, use yesterday’s newspaper to lean on and sit on the sofa, tucking my left foot underneath me. And I continue, saying everything except milk cereal water. And the words unleashed by my pen are repeated on the other side with the print from the newspaper. So many words, so many sentences, everything so sudden that I’ve decided to forget about full stops and commas, you can add them in later, because if you think about it there are no punctuation, no pauses, it all just pours out in one go, any old how,
and that’s how I’m writing to you, how I have to write to you. And if my left foot goes to sleep, I change position but carry on writing and my writing gets worse because actually I’m not very comfortable sat writing to you on the sofa, leaning on the flimsy paper with yesterday’s news. But I can’t find the right moment to stop and go to the study - and, while I’m there, find a different pen, because it’s not easy to write with the one from the bank, the ink goes all over my fingers and it wasn’t really meant to be used to write this kind of thing, the pen that, every week, writes milk cereal water. I glance at the clock, perhaps the interlude to write the shopping list was only a short parenthesis in a day that has only just started and will be full of meetings, appointments and jobs to be done. But I can’t budge from here, my hand moves on its own, I don’t care about the ink stains, or being uncomfortable. I’ll tell you everything without punctuation and you’ll work it out, and if there’s anything you don’t understand, well maybe you just weren’t meant to understand it. This break had to be short, but I’m going to make it last, I’ll stretch it out as long as needed, just as my writing spreads, ever more illegibly, my wrist starting to ache as I’m so unused to writing by hand. But what I’m writing
cannot be typed, an important part of what I want to tell you would be lost between my finger and the keyboard, reading me in Arial 12 wouldn’t be the same. You’ll have to make the effort to decipher me, to fill out the scrawny ‘a’s, distinguish my ‘e’s from my ‘i’s, which I don’t dot because I’m going so fast, and capture everything that is hidden in the holes in the ‘o’s and rest in the seats in the ‘u’s before you start again. You must understand that I stopped adding the accents, I’ll write them all on a piece of paper at the end and then if you like you could scatter them over this improvised letter that doesn’t even mention milk cereal water. I can’t stop now, I can’t even start to think about whether they should be acute or grave, because I’m not thinking, my thoughts are inside this inkstained pen that’s starting to miss the shopping-list routine and the tranquil top of the microwave. My thoughts are blue as they spread across the page in a scribble that resembles what my handwriting was and which right now is just a succession of tiny dots, lines, and circles in a desperate attempt at the alphabet. It won’t matter to you if I leave out a few vowels, we’re in the 21st century
and anything goes, and if I don’t do it this way, I won’t be able to do it at all, the connection between head and hand won’t work if I have to add in all the ‘a’s, ‘e’s and ‘i’s…
Excerpt details: Tina Vallès “Llet cereals aigua” “Milk Cereal Water” El parènthesi més llarg (In Parenthesis...) (2013) Barcelona: Proa (2013) pp. 2-4 With thanks to Tina Vallès
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Finland-Swedish to English
Kate Lambert Mentor
Sarah Death
K
ate Lambert has a BA in Swedish and History and an MA in Translation. In the 1990s, she spent four years teaching English conversation to silent Finns, and has since been translating professionally from Finnish and Swedish, on topics ranging from tiara auctions to sixteenth-century Baltic shipwrecks. Kate is delighted that the mentorship allows her to combine her knowledge of Finnish culture and the Swedish language in literary translation.
Introduction Kate Lambert
A
nni Blomqvist (1909–1990) spent all her life in the Åland Islands. Her first book, I Stormens spår (“In the Wake of the Storm”), an autobiographical novel about the tragedy of her husband and son’s deaths while fishing in the Gulf of Bothnia, was published in 1966. This was followed by the series of five books about Maja of “Storm Skerry”, which became popular classics. The 1970s television dramatisation led to many visitors, including Finland’s President Kekkonen, making their way to the island of Simskäla to meet the author. Blomqvist won the Pro Finlandia medal in 1977, and the citation for the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland’s prize termed the Maja novels “her epic on people and the sea”. Set in the mid-nineteenth century and loosely based on the life of Blomqvist’s great-aunt Maria Mickelsdotter, the Maja books depict a tough, self-sufficient way of life in a harsh environment. Comparisons could be drawn with Laura Ingalls Wilder. The first book, Vägen till Stormskäret, begins with Maja, the second of eight children on a family farm, in her midteens, and ends with her sailing off with her new husband Janne, who she barely knows, to build their home on a remote island. The books provide a fascinating insight into life in the
archipelago surrounded by a merciless sea, and of a girl with a mind of her own navigating the demands of a deeply religious, stoical and patriarchal culture, in a world in which the forces of nature and the supernatural are ever-present. One of the challenges posed by the text was the sheer level of domestic, agricultural and fishing-related detail; I found myself wondering how many different words for types of bucket one language could need! Another challenge was the historical setting, and the need to find a narrative voice in keeping with the period without sounding stilted. I kept the present tense of the original to increase the immediacy, and used contractions to convey the text’s down-to-earth informality. Maja is an engaging and imaginative heroine, an Anne of Green Gables of the Baltic; where her metaphors could be understood by a modern reader, such as “nit-combing the beach” and her mother’s voice “like a fire through heather”, I kept them. My aim was to keep Maja’s language lively without using modern slang, and without losing any of the energy that brings her world of the past to life.
Vägen till Stormskäret The Way to Storm Skerry Anni Blomqvist, translated by Kate Lambert
“S
o it’s true they have a painted table and a silver clock?” “Yes, both.” Maja listens, fascinated. Imagine having a painted table! It’s such trouble to keep the table clean and you’re still always scrubbing it. She sneaks a look at the wall cupboard, which is painted, and tries to compare how easy it would be to keep that clean. But a cupboard is a cupboard and a table is a table. A cupboard just sits in its place on the wall, somewhere to keep things, but a table has to be used all the time and gets all kinds of food spilled on it. And even if it isn’t used for evening porridge, a table is still going to mean more than enough work. Mother is so mercilessly fussy about scrubbing the table too. It’s as if she has two pairs of eyes when she’s checking the scouring on Saturdays. The scouring sand has to be fine grained and you can’t get away with anything other than fetching it from just one particular spot on the whole island. This is in Nyäng and it takes an age to get there. She remembers well what it was like when they were just settling in after the move from Lumparland, nit-combing all the beaches for that blessed scouring sand. But once Old Olle told them that scouring sand was to be found in Nyäng, that was where they had to go and that was
where they had to fetch it from. If only the road didn’t go through the marsh: the worst spot for ghosts on land. Once when she was little she was told to go and fetch sand on her own but she was too scared to go any further than just past Rikärret, where she turned back and went off to the beach at Västra skogstranden instead. She searched there. Scooping sand into her pail and emptying it back out again. Finding another place where she thought the sand was better and testing it again by sifting a fistful through her fingers. And afraid of Mother all the while, in case she could tell that it wasn’t Nyäng sand. Ideally she would have had Old Olle to give her advice. Or what if she had taken little Fia with her? Fia wouldn’t have had the faintest idea about the quality of the sand, and she would have been a great deal of extra trouble because Maja would have had to carry her and console her and keep an eye on her all the time. But it would still have been better than going alone, and with all that fear and worry. At last she thought she had found fine-grained sand and she felt so pleased, so she scooped it up and started for home straight away. At last she had dodged her way round the house and was facing the
farm gate, the way she ought to have come. She seized the gate and pulled it open. Then tried to bang it shut, loud enough to be heard for miles. Like a voice in her defence. “Good girl,” said Mother as she entered the farmhouse. “Go and put the pail in its place now.” Maja put the pail down and felt her heart lift in relief. “Where did you get the sand?” Mother’s voice sounded harsh to Maja’s ears. She was scared to death. “Nyäng.” “You are lying. That sand is not from Nyäng.” Mother came and grabbed her roughly, led her outside, took the twigs that had been gathered for scouring the oven and beat her until her blood ran. “Promise that you will never tell lies again.” “No.” “That’s no promise!” Mother shouted, her words raging about Maja’s head like a fire through heather. “No, I won’t tell lies again,” she forced out in confusion. “Why didn’t you go to Nyäng as I told you?” “I was frightened of the marsh and
the ghosts.” “There is no need to be afraid of ghosts in the middle of the day. If I was to do my duty, you would be going straight to Nyäng for sand this minute, but the table needs scouring for the Lord’s Day and the evening will soon be upon us. You will go on Monday instead. Remember that.”
Excerpt details: Anni Blomqvist ägen till Stormskäret V “The Way to Storm Skerry” (1968) Helsinki: LTs Förlag (1972) pp. 15-16 Published with the kind permission of the Åland Cultural Foundation (Ålands kulturstiftelse) World rights: The Valter, Tommy Bengt and Anni Blomqvist Memorial Fund, info@kulturstiftelsen.ax
Contact details: Tw @translatingkate www.katelambert.co.uk translation@katelambert.co.uk
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich. The Finland-Swedish mentorship is supported by the Finnish Literature Exchange.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Polish to English
Scotia Gilroy Mentor
Antonia Lloyd-Jones
S
cotia Gilroy is a literary translator from Vancouver, now based in Krakรณw. She graduated with First Class Honours from the English Literature department of Simon Fraser University, and in 2010 received a Koล ciuszko Scholarship to study Polish language and literature at the Jagiellonian University (Krakรณw). She currently translates for many Polish cultural institutions and publishing houses.
Introduction Scotia Gilroy
D
ionisios Sturis (1983) is a Warsaw-based journalist of mixed Polish-Greek descent. He has written three non-fiction books: Grecja. Gorzkie Pomarańcze (Bitter Oranges) about contemporary Greece; Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz (Wherever You Throw Me) about the Isle of Man; and Nowe Życie (A New Life) about the Greek and Macedonian people who came to Poland as refugees in the 1940s & 50s. He has been shortlisted for several prestigious awards: the Grand Press Prize, the Polish Press Agency Award and the Kapuściński Award for Literary Reportage. In the mid-2000s, Sturis worked at a shellfish-processing plant on the Isle of Man. Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz (Wherever You Throw Me) is the book he wrote based on his experiences. It is a fascinating mixture of stories about the local Manx people whom Sturis befriended, and the Polish people living on the island. The book tells the island’s history, including how it was the site of an internment camp during the war, how a local widow championed female suffrage and became the first woman to vote in Britain, and how the Manx Giant, the tallest man in the world, faked his own death to live a new life in America. Sturis traces a number of connections between Poland and the Isle of Man. He tells
us about Poles who came when Poland joined the EU – both those who worked hard and endured difficult circumstances, and those who never learned English or ended up in prison for drug offences. He also tells us local legends, such as how the Manx cat lost its tail. Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz is a book which readers in Britain would enjoy, since the Isle of Man is rarely in the spotlight. Sturis portrays life on the island vividly, evoking the landscape and feel of the place. His writing is unpretentious, but lyrical and highly atmospheric, reminiscent of some of the very best British travel writing. Translating Sturis’s prose has been an enjoyable experience for me; it flows with the grace of a looselywrought diary. The leaps in time, as well as its interjections of legends and various other literary forms, give it a collage-like, impressionistic feel. However, it was a challenge to capture Sturis’s light, colloquial tone, given that I have mostly worked with more linguistically sophisticated literature. Ironically, a great deal of hard work and careful attention were necessary in order to gain the lightness of touch this text required.
Gdziekolwiek mnie rzucisz Wherever You Throw Me Dionisios Sturis, translated by Scotia Gilroy
I
take my things to my room upstairs – the one I’ve usually stayed in. It once belonged to Rupert, one of Siân’s three sons, before he left for Australia. The window faces east and I have a view of the sea, the nearby bay, and the masts of moored boats. The next morning, I get up early and go out to reconnoitre. I want to make sure there haven’t been any major changes in Port St. Mary since my last visit. It’s no more than five hundred metres from Siân’s house to the shellfishprocessing plant. I walk along, looking at the harbour cottages stretching in a long row – small and narrow, with coloured walls and windows low down. I know most of their inhabitants and I know what they do for a living. Even though it’s past eight o’clock, it’s quite dark because of the heavy clouds and the drizzle. An hour ago, when the factory started work, it must have been still completely dark. Once I’m quite close and the stench hits me, I think of Angus. I wonder if he’s still loading guts from the fish factory onto his clapped-out old lorry. I wonder if he has had his teeth fixed; several of them used to be missing. Angus was one of the first Manx people I met. Tall and thin, but broadshouldered, with a mop of black hair, energetic and loud, he walked with
huge steps as if there were always puddles in front of him and he was trying not to step in any of them. He had a wide smile despite his chipped, blackish-orange, decaying teeth. Nine years ago we were neighbours – we both rented rooms in Erin House. Angus was supposed to take the guts and shells away every afternoon, especially at the peak of the summer or winter season – but even then you couldn’t rely on him. Sometimes he got drunk on a Sunday night, and then he didn’t appear at the factory until Tuesday. If he started drinking on a Friday, and kept going through Saturday and Sunday, he didn’t show up before Wednesday. Then, the stink from the guts which hadn’t been taken away became so unbearable that the people living nearby would call the sanitation department to complain. Angus raised the containers with a forklift and emptied them into his lorry’s rusty trailer. Then he’d jump onto the pile of guts and shells, and throw the empty boxes to the ground with a bang. All of the blackened shit from the bottom – the most rotten, the most putrid, the most disgusting bits – landed on top. It reeked so badly that it made you want to throw up, and none of the workers at the shellfish plant were brave enough to go outside
for a smoke, not even for a few minutes. Smelly, greenish-brown slime leaked from the trailer – a nourishing soup for the screeching seagulls that were watching Angus from high up, impatiently waiting for him to drive off so they could begin their dinner. Angus would head for a provisional dump – at the edge of a field, if one of the local farmers had asked for some shells to caulk a drainage dyke, or at the edge of a bluff, and then the shells and guts fell onto the stony beach. From there, they’d be carried away by the water at the next high tide. Before driving away from the factory, Angus would cover the trailer full of guts with a special piece of material. He’d do it quickly, and thus carelessly, because he was in a hurry to get to his rendez-vous with the lady bank manager. She only had a one-hour break for lunch. Because of her position, once in a while she could wangle an extra fifteen minutes for herself, but even then they didn’t have much time. The bank manager still had to get to Angus’s room upstairs in Erin House and undress, and afterwards rest a bit, spray herself with deodorant, fix her makeup, put her clothes back on, tidy her blonde hair and return to the bank. They spent no more than half
an hour together. This was why Angus was always so careful not to be one minute late. He’d tear along the main street of Port St. Mary as fast as he could, dropping shells and tangled entrails. Then he’d slow down a bit on the narrow lanes between villages. All this time, the entire length of these roads, a flock of grey-and-white, eternally voracious, clamouring seagulls swirled above the lorry.
Excerpt details: Dionisios Sturis dziekolwiek mnie rzucisz G Wherever You Throw Me (2015) Warsaw: Wydawnictwo W.A.B.(2015) pp. 12–13 Original text © Grupa Wydawnicza Foksal 2015, reproduced with kind permission of the publisher and the author
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich. The Polish mentorship is supported by the Polish Cultural Institute.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Bengali to English
Somrita Ganguly Mentor
Arunava Sinha
S
omrita Urni Ganguly, Doctoral Researcher at Jawaharlal Nehru University, is the recipient of the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund Award and the Sarojini Dutta Memorial Prize. She has presented research papers on translation at conferences organised by the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature & Language Studies and the International Association of Translation & Intercultural Studies, among others. Her translation of Ramashankar Yadav ‘Vidrohi’, from Hindustani to English, was published in Asymptote in 2017.
Introduction Somrita Ganguly
P
urnendu Pattrea (1933-1997) is an Indian film-maker, illustrator, and writer of Bengali prose and verse. His first collection of poems, Ek Mutho Rod, was published in 1951. His first published novel, Daarer Moyna (1958), earned him the Manik Ratna Award. Today, he is best remembered for his path-breaking film adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s short story Streer Patra. The moment I read the first ‘conversation’ in Kawthopokawthon, I intuitively knew that I wanted to translate it. There were things which had stayed with me from those early readings: Pattrea’s metaphors, for instance. They aren’t mere ornamentations decorating the black-andwhite. I could feel the juice from the pomegranate that he had dug his nails into moistening my mouth, dirtying my dress. His tangible imagery reached out to the translator in me. Kawthopokawthon is a series of verses in five volumes. Volume 1 (1987) is an anthology of overheard conversations between two lovers, Shubhankar and Nandini. Pattrea began another series of conversations in Volume 2 (1988) with a different set of characters. However, Shubhankar and Nandini had by then acquired a life larger than the initial 41 verses, forcing Pattrea to reimagine their journey. He returned to their narrative in Volume 3 (1989), later extending it to two more books. In his preface to Volume 4 (1992) Pattrea wrote, “I was in Bangladesh in ’89. No matter where I went, young men and women had one frenzied demand: we want Kawthopokawthon-4.” Pattrea was conscious of what he said and
how he said it. He carefully chose every word, braiding together in Kawthopokawthon the lyricism of the Romantics and intellectual conceits of the Metaphysicals. He also used his own sketches to compliment the word-pictures. His verses are replete with eclectic intertextual references: Baudelaire, Beethoven, Bibhutibhushan, Michelangelo, Miroslav Holub and Begam Akhtar, among others. Pattrea’s idiom is alternately everyday and esoteric, his vocabulary an inviting treasure-trove, propelling me in unchartered linguistic directions. In India, when we translate from a regional language to English, there is a tendency to homogenize texts and cultures, which I have tried to strain against. Kawthopokawthon is rooted in the Calcutta of 1980s and ‘90s. Through this translation, I want to take Pattrea to an English reader, not make him English. Translation helps us arrive at, accommodate and acknowledge the existence of several Englishes today; I hope Shubhankar and Nandini’s conversations add to the experience of hearing our English a little differently.
Kawthopokawthon - Conversations Book 3/ Section 8/ Letter 1 Purnendu Pattrea, translated by Somrita Ganguly should have tipped the old rickshaw-wala at least two rupees more that day after reaching home, trust me my conscience started pricking me after reaching home after taking the soaking clothes off my body the smell of rain remained clothes changed the smell of your sky-enshrouding hair stayed the anarchy of your melting lips, like molten candle flames of melting wax the fingerlike branches of your palms pregnant with pomegranates a new me born phoenix-like from an old me as though i myself had planted the plant that i am today leaves branches twigs leaves metamorphosed into the unflinching marble sound of revolutions my whole body is shuddering as though, always, perhaps all my life, i was destined to be that young tree green with its young leaves green pulling the strings of a violin i feel drunk as if on a barrelful of alcohol, trembling, tumb ling even though its roots are bound to the earth the tree flies as far away as it possibly can, high up, mid sky roaring drunk, trembling, tumbling gratitude, in deep gratitude, over and over again, i kept thinking should have tipped the old rickshaw-wala at least two rupees more that day this isn’t a make-believe story, trust me, honestly i could see this happening clearly: a miracle descending with the help of a tall crane and the rain coming down like a deluge hiding us behind its white mosquito-net cloister and erasing like the letters on a slate,
the world to our right, the world to our left, with a wet rag and we becoming the centre of the universe, the two symbols living of this city undying the two constant fountainheads in this inconstant city wavering we the antennae, we the television sets we the exhibitions filling up empty hallrooms, we the film fests it is because of the old rickshaw-wala, is it not? because of him that day, because – unable to pull it any further, he abandoned the rickshaw by that pothole in the relentless rain, on the rickshaw, with its drawn curtain, on the rickshaw we made the little room our everywhere i got drenched in you, you in my rain wet wet and till it stopped raining we created our little eternity oh, to have owned right in the middle of the busiest street of Calcutta our clandestine darkness, our personal theatre to have found right there my joy from having plundered and your glow from having been plundered had I tipped the old rickshaw-wala two rupees more i would not have been any poorer we had by then shared between the two of us a hundred years of love, Nandini hadn’t we? Excerpt details: Purnendu Pattrea Kawthopokawthon 3 - Conversations (1989) Calcutta: Sudhangshu Shekhar Dey for Dey’s Publishing (1989) pp. 19-20 Contact details: Fb @UrniGanguly Tw @blessed_damsel
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich.
Emerging Translator Mentorships 2017
Russian to English
Yelena Karl Mentor
Sasha Dugdale
Y
elena Karl (Saratov, Russia) has lived in the USA, Germany, and England since 1996 with her American husband and bilingual children. She works as a freelance translator and Russian language tutor, and is an avid reader of Russian and English books.
Elsa’s Land: Act 1, Scene 3 Yaroslava Pulinovich, translated by Yelena Karl
E
lsa pushes a pram along a country road. ELSA: (singing) Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf, Der Vater hüt die Schaf, Die Mutter schüttelts Bäumelein, Da fällt herab ein Träumelein. Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf! A pram wheel breaks off and falls in the dirt. ELSA: (swears) Damn and blast it! Elsa takes the wheel, tries to attach it back to the pram. It does not work. Vasily, an elderly man, sticks his head over a nearby fence. For a while he watches Elsa try in vain to fasten the wheel back on the pram. VASILY: Is it beyond repair? ELSA: Can’t you see? VASILY: An old pram? ELSA: If it were old, it would have been built to last. But this modern stuff – just useless and ugly. It was made by idiots for people who don’t know any better. VASILY: Is everyone an idiot? Surely it’s not as bad as all that. Vasily comes out the gate, helps Elsa to attach the wheel. VASILY: There, you see? It’s not as bad as you thought. Not everyone’s an idiot. ELSA: I’ll be the judge of that. VASILY: Alright then … test it! ELSA: How? VASILY: However you want. ELSA: Oh... I wouldn’t like – VASILY: But I would. ELSA: Would what? VASILY: Like to know your name. ELSA: Mine? Elsa.
VASILY: Elsa. What a name. Elsa! ELSA: A so-so name, to tell you the truth. VASILY: It’s a great name. ELSA: It hasn’t brought me any special happiness in life. VASILY: (nods at the pram) Grandson? ELSA: Great granddaughter. They are out having fun, again, and I’m left looking after their baby, again. VASILY: These youngsters do love to have fun. ELSA: We managed to survive without having fun. VASILY: Not all of us. ELSA: In any case, decent folks did. VASILY: Aha! So, in your book, everyone who likes to have fun is bad. ELSA: I won’t argue, I hardly know anything about that side of life. But I’ve seen enough filth on TV. VASILY: Big Brother? ELSA: And that too! It’s not a programme, it’s an orgy! VASILY: Why do you watch it then? Pause. ELSA: Alright, I’d better go. I need to take the baby home. VASILY: Wait. Aren’t you going to ask me? ELSA: Ask what? VASILY: Wie heissen Sie? ELSA: What do you mean? VASILY: Well, you were singing in German, weren’t you? ELSA: So what?! What do you want from me? VASILY: Ah, forget it! I remember only two phrases from school. Wie heissen Sie? And Mein
name ist Vasily. Or just Vasya. ELSA: Are you visiting someone here, Mr. - ? VASILY: Please, call me Vasya. No, I’m my own guest. From town. Bought a house here for my retirement. I’m a slave to the garden now. ELSA: You’ve escaped to the middle of nowhere. VASILY: Yes, I have. One day I happened to be passing your village on a train. Could not take my eyes off of it. Beautiful place you have here. ELSA: Only too many mosquitoes. VASILY: Well, plenty of mosquitoes everywhere in Siberia. ELSA: That’s also true. Have you planted much? VASILY: Oh, lots. ELSA: What have you planted? VASILY: A lawn. A huge lawn. ELSA: Is that all? VASILY: I don’t need anything else. I just want a nice view. Everything else I can buy in the shop. ELSA: When people want nice views they usually plant flowers. VASILY: I don’t know anything about growing flowers. I want to plant roses. Do you like roses? ELSA: Don’t know. They’re said to be difficult to grow. (pause) You have such a good posture. Are you ex-military, by any chance? VASILY: No. An ex-Geography teacher. And the straight back is all the morning exercises. ELSA: Oh, I do exercises, too. My mother made me exercise as a child. “You must exercise even if it kills you!” VASILY: Your mother was a clever lady. She knew what was good for you. ELSA: Yes, but she didn’t have an easy life. VASILY: Elsa, why don’t you come and visit me? We can plant flowers together. ELSA: I don’t know anything about flowers. Only vegetables. VASILY: Well, neither do I! Just come over, let’s learn together. I’ll get the instructions from the Internet. Pause.
ELSA: I don’t feel comfortable about this. I’m still in mourning. VASILY: Husband? ELSA: Yes. I’m a widow now. VASILY: So am I. ELSA: How long? VASILY: It’s been a year. ELSA: You see – a whole year. And for me – it’s only been a week. If it’d been a year then, of course. VASILY: Still, please come. ELSA: When? VASILY: Whenever you want. How about tomorrow? ELSA: Alright. At about six in the evening. Oh, no, it’s too late. VASILY: Do people go on dates in the mornings? ELSA: Are you asking me out? VASILY: Yes, I am. ELSA: You know... I’m... It’s really... The baby starts crying in the pram. Elsa starts shaking the pram, pushes it along on the road. ELSA: Hush, hush! Don’t cry! VASILY: So, will you come? ELSA: I... I don’t know! VASILY: Please come! Love thy neighbour, and all that! ELSA: Well... I’ll try! Elsa leaves, taking the pram with the screaming baby.
Excerpt details: Yaroslava Pulinovich Земля Эльзы Elsa’s Land (2015) Moscow: Magazine Kinoart No. 5 (May 2016) pp. 3-5
Introduction Yelena Karl
Y
aroslava Pulinovich was born in 1987 in Omsk, Russia to a family of journalists. In 2009 she graduated from the Ekaterinburg State Theatre Institute (Nikolai Kolyada’s class). She has written 20 scripts for theatre and cinema, several of which have been performed at theatres in Russia and abroad, and her plays have received various prizes at both Russian and international theatre and film festivals. Elsa’s Land was written in spring 2015, and staged in Moscow Theatre on Taganka in June 2016. Yaroslava Pulinovich is a talented playwright with alluring original stories and a perfect ear for dramatic dialogue. Using simple, precise phrases, she shows human relationships in their true, recognisable and sometimes extreme forms. Some of Yaroslava’s plays have been translated and staged in England, USA, Poland, Estonia, and Ukraine, but Elsa’s Land is not yet known outside Russia. It follows the story of Elsa, who, having lived her life without mutual affection, falls in love, and learns how to be happy for the first time in 70 years. Her love interest, Vasily, is a retired Geography teacher who has taught about distant, exotic places his whole life, but never had a chance to travel. This play shows us that a chance encounter may change your
life forever if you follow your heart and that it’s never too late to fall in love, even if your relatives don’t understand you. Although this Romeo and Juliet love story is set in present day rural Russia, the British audience will recognise the characters as their neighbours or relatives. It is very enjoyable to translate the natural, lively dialogue between urban and country dwellers, old and young people, each of them with their own vocabulary and speech patterns. In the process, I had to find each character’s voice, determine their relationships and look for ways to convey the emotional nuances in their conversations. In my translation, I tried to use as many colloquialisms as possible, and substitute Russian idioms with English ones. For example, the Russian “strong as a bull” became “tough as old boots”. The most difficult task was to translate Russian proverbs, puns and certain cultural and historical references. For example, a Russian proverb, “you won’t drink water from a face” was replaced with, “there’s more to him than his looks”, and the acronym NKVD with KGB, a more widely-known name for the Russian Secret Service.
The Emerging Translator Mentorships are organised by Writers’ Centre Norwich.