Translated Fiction at BookTrust's New Site

Over at translation blog Brave New Words I found a link to BookTrust's new website dedicated to translated fiction and thought I'd link to it here too. The site is a valuable addition to a small field, and certainly worth a look for anyone interested in literature in translation.

For years, BookTrust has been an outstanding exponent of translated fiction, regularly reviewing new titles and giving translated fiction the kind of publicity it is hard even for publishers to provide. Now it seems they have decided to concentrate their efforts on one website, so as to have everything under one roof, as it were.

The site contains articles by publishers, writers and translators alike, reviews of new works in translation and introductions to forthcoming titles. I was pleased to note that, though it – disappointingly – didn't make the shortlist Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008, my translation of Maria Peura's At the Edge of Light did however make it to BookTrust's Recommended Titles section. The review isn't bad, either.

European Fantasy in Paperback

In 2005 I translated an extensive anthology of Finnish fantasy literature, edited by Johanna Sinisalo, one of the the foremost SF writers in Finland. Some time later I was approached by Sinisalo to translate another of her short stories for an American anthology, the SFWA European Hall of Fame (2007), which features "sixteen contemporary masterpieces of science fiction from the continent". Edited by James and Kathryn Morrow, the anthology gives an overview of contemporary European fantasy writing, presenting it as both similar and distinct from the North American tradition of SF writing (Gaiman et al.) James Morrow's opening essay, 'Extrapolations of Things Past: A Barbarously Brief Account of European Science from Micromégas to Microchips', is informed and insightful, and serves as an excellent introduction to the collection.

The SFWA European Hall of Fame has recently been released in paperback, and in honour of this a video has been posted on YouTube (link below), featuring an interview with the editors about the process of putting the book together and with one of the authors on his feelings about having his work translated.



It's always fascinating listening to people – authors, translators, editors – talk about how they view the translation process. It's clear that most authors welcome the opportunity to have their works translated by professional native speakers (a certain Finnish playwright notwithstanding). However, working with editors, who are outside the initial creative process due to not speaking the source language, can be problematic, as their priority is the translation, while the role of the original is often seen as secondary. Not so with this collection.

As they point out in the interview, rather than normativise the text for an American readership, the Morrows actively encouraged all translators to retain as much of the feel of the original as possible. That being said, adherence to the original versus normativisation is always subject to the context and topos of the text; it is impossible to suggest that a given solution is necessarily desirable in every instance (as a certain Finnish playwright seems incapable of understanding). In the case of Sinisalo's 'Baby Doll' (the text featured in this collection), we all agreed that the language needed to be as accessible to an American readership as possible. After all, the subject matter – the over-sexualisation of pre-teenagers – is by no means a specifically Finnish problem.

This translation process differed considerably from previous ones in that, for the first time, I was working for an American publisher. I speak and translate into British English, so the Morrows agreed to Americanise my initial translation. This was an eye-opening experience; I realised that, though I have no difficulty understanding American English, the differences between our two variants of the language run far deeper than that we say "tomahto", they say "tomayto".

Thankfully, there was no need to call the whole thing off – I had to get that in somehow! It was like going through an additional level of editing. The Morrows sent me a revised version of the text, I then went through it and said whether they had strayed too far from the Finnish, or whether a certain phrase might better suit the feel of the original, until we reached a version all parties were happy with. There was much to think about: apart from vocabulary, word order and syntax is often markedly different; verb declension differs; people swear differently...

Actually having to engage with this on a textual level made me understand the full extent of the chasm between our modes of expression. Just as non-natives cannot translate into a target language that is not their native language, I will never be able to translate into American English, as I'll always need a native speaker to go through the text for me, and vice versa. Of course, real translators, being humble people, will be the first to acknowledge this; we have the conviction to know when we are right, but we also know where our expertise comes to an end. It is depressing that, in my experience, non-native translators have such an aggrandised image of their own abilities that they lack a default setting that says, "Sorry, I'm not qualified to translate that". What a shame that a certain Finnish playwright also falls into that category...

Blowing the Proverbial Brass Instrument

Of course, one doesn't like to blow one's own brass instrument too much and too often (take that as you will), but since last week was one of the most professionally challenging in living memory – for reasons that I'd better not go into on this forum – I think I can be excused a little self-indulgence.


After a week of unfounded criticism of my work, the seeds of doubt having been thoroughly sown in my mind (but let's not even go there), it was heartening to come across this review in the New Statesman of my recent translation of Maria Peura's At the Edge of Light (Maia Press). I spent a few days at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with Peura at the end of August (post here), and was very pleased at the reception with which her book was met. What's most pleasing about this review is that the reader has actually taken the time to put the novel in its proper context – a context with which most UK readers will be largely unfamiliar – and has realised that, though death is omnipresent, this is ultimately a book about survival, about living. A fascinating read, I'm sure, for all those with a Scandinavian bent, or does such blatant plugging count as one blow of the trumpet too many?

Perfect Partners

There are two principal reasons for my recent lack of contact with the blogosphere: a) I have had an immense amount of work to get done and b) I have been gallivanting across Europe (photographs from Gran Canaria hopefully to follow soon...) Now that the majority of this work has finally reached my big Outbox in the sky, I can finally sit down and return to more pressing matters.

Wandering through Foyle's in London yesterday, a place which is arguably one of the most amazing bookshops in the world, I was interested to discover a stand of books being sold in pairs. Amazon has been using its Perfect Partner scheme for years, and it seems to work very effectively - or rather, it certainly works on impulsive internet shoppers like me ("People who bought this item, also bought this item. Buy them both now for only £n!"). With this in mind, I suppose it's not too much of a leap for publishers to start doing something similar, in this case by packing two novels together in a plastic wrapper. Altruistically thinking, this will not only increase their sales, but will bring readers into contact with books they might otherwise have overlooked.

Be that as it may, I couldn't help being puzzled at some of the publisher's Perfect Partners. The Grimms' fairytales and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber seem a sensible pairing, as do AS Byatt's Possession and George Eliot's Middlemarch. But when we get to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein paired with Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, one has to wonder at the logic of it all. Would customers who bought Mary Shelley really also buy Winterson, and vice versa? But despite all this, the oddest couple on the stand has got to be the pairing of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting with Oliver Twist! Both are depictions of squalor, but that's about as far as I can connect them. Any guesses?


And while we're on the subject of books, I have to give a particular mention to a novel I read last week which utterly blew my socks off: The Half Brother by the Norwegian author Lars Saabye Christensen. This Friday I'll have the honour of meeting and interviewing Mr Christensen at the Edinburgh International Book Fair in a panel discussion with Finnish author Maria Peura, the translation of whose novel I have just completed. At 764 pages, The Half Brother is a fairly hefty tome, but worth every minute I spent reading it, and although I'm very nervous (especially as, when I went to look for the hyperlink to the above event, I noticed it's SOLD OUT...), I'm immensely looking forward to the whole event. Further posts doubtless to follow...

Deathly Hollow?

I came across this marvellous article, entitled Harry Potter and the Death of Reading, over at the Washington Post website. Critic Ron Charles makes some very interesting points about reading and literary phenomena in general and the cult of Harry Potter in particular.

Having never read any of the Potter heptalogy (gasp!), it's hard to say one way or another, though I can well imagine that, for many people, the admittance of not liking them is met with astonishment – everybody likes them. Ron Charles puts this very well:

"How do you like 'Harry Potter'?"
Of course, it's not really a question anymore, is it? In the current state of Potter mania, it's an invitation to recite the loyalty oath. And you'd better answer correctly. Start carrying on like Moaning Myrtle about the repetitive plots, the static characters, the pedestrian prose, the wit-free tone, the derivative themes, and you'll wish you had your invisibility cloak handy. Besides, from anyone who hasn't sold the 325 million copies that Rowling has, such complaints smack of Bertie Bott's beans, sour-grapes flavor.

Personally I tend to be rather sceptical of the Potters and books like them (eg. The Da Vinci Code, the works of Paulo Coelho), and find myself asking whether they are popular because they are truly good, or whether they are simply 'good' because they are popular. Can they be both?

Another argument I've often heard about Harry Potter is that if these books inspire people (especially young children) to read, then they are fulfilling a very valuable pedagogical function. However, as Charles points out, this is not always the case. The new Potter book may be the only work of fiction that many people read all year. The fact that the Potters are so hyped, not released before a given day (what is that all about?) and so on, removes the spontaneity of reading, as Charles puts it, denying readers "that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves".

Perhaps I may yet read a Harry Potter book, just to say I've done so. I recently watched Borat, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I feel it is set to become one of the significant cultural reference points of the next few years and, as such, I ought to have seen it in order to have an opinion about it and be able to engage in fruitful debate about it. That being said, I'm quite content for Harry aka Daniel Radcliffe to continue taking on challenging, engaging roles such as that of Alan Strang in Peter Shaffer's Equus (see photo). I was very disappointed to have missed this show (for reasons both artistic and otherwise) due to not living in London, and even more disappointed to note that the production will be touring to Bath Theatre Royal (the theatre closest to my parents' house) while I will be visiting, but that, alas, Daniel is to be replaced by someone else... How late it was, how late.

Compelling, Inscrutable, and Relentless

Apart from seeing me into my fourth decade, June 8th saw the English-language première of Laura Ruohonen's Queen C ('Kuningatar K'), a play I translated some five years ago. The play was finally performed in its entirety in English by the Lit Moon Theater Company in Santa Barbara in a production directed by their in-house director, John Blondell.

I was unable to attend to the performance, partly because of my busy schedule, partly because I wasn't invited (grrr...), and have been keen to find any information about the production online. This morning I came across Elizabeth Schwyzer's review in the Santa Barbara Independent. The photograph is great (depicting, I assume, Queen Christina and the Friend) and the review is generally very positive.

Needless to say, the translator doesn't get a mention anywhere. This is a common phenomenon. Do people think texts translate themselves? Initially I was slightly concerned about this project, as the performance was to be in the States, while my translation is very much in British English. After working on the text for over five years, I was keen that the director consult me on any potential alterations. Thankfully, it would appear that none were necessary; perhaps British English suits the monarchical tone and milieu of the play.

Looking on the bright side, not getting a mention in the review means that the translation didn't make its presence felt at the expense of the drama. The British English was acceptable. The audience was 'unaware' of the translation, allowing the 'foreign' original to shine through unhindered. More often than not, when translations are mentioned in reviews it is to comment that "the translation was clumsy" or "the play doesn't translate well" – though quite how reviewers have the linguistic knowledge necessary to make such claims remains a mystery. In this instance, however, Schwyzer rounds off her review with the following comment:

John Blondell’s direction captured the play’s layered, poetic, and metaphorical nature — letting out the script’s humor and absurdity, as well as its deep ambiguities and tragic moments. The playwright took it all in, rapt and beaming.

I may not have got a mention, but I think there is some consolation to be had in these words.

You lay the table...

The revelation that somebody actually reads this blog (you know who you are and, though we disagree on many things, your readership is very valued) has spurred me on to post here more often. Here is an unpublished translation that I did years ago of a poem by Mirkka Rekola.

I had just spent a weekend at an old ramshackle cottage in Pukkila with an eminent Finnish poet who was trying to encourage me to venture into poetry translation. We had talked about many different poems, and miraculously during that drink-fuelled weekend we managed to come up with some pretty good translations of a number of challenging poems. This one caused us a great deal of frustration. Rekola's imagery is always challenging, and I remember sitting on the backseat of the bus on the way back to Helsinki (with said eminent poet and half a box of wine) discussing the implications of the imagery in this poem – after we'd already debated it all afternoon! Here it is, so make of the translation what you will.

Katat pöydän, näe nyt nälkäsi.
Puolikas leipää, lasillinen punaviiniä.
Kukahan osti sen toisen puolikkaan.
Selkeää puhetta yhteisestä ateriasta:
suupalat samaa leipää, puolilasillista viiniä.
Ei täällä ole ketä katsoa. On.
Juo pois kuvasi ja lakkaa sinuttelemasta.

– Mirkka Rekola

You lay the table, now witness your hunger.
Half a loaf, a glass of red wine.
Who could have bought the other half?
Simple talk of a shared meal:
morsels of that same loaf, half a glass of wine.
There's no one here to look at. Oh yes.
Drink up your reflection and stop calling yourself you.

– trans. DH

Finished Product

After a year's hard work, how wonderful it is to be able to hold the finished product in my hands! This selection of Finnish fantasy literature (perhaps 'speculative fiction' would be a better term) offers a broad cross-section of writing both new and old, and demonstrates that elements of the fantastical have always existed, even in a body of literature as young as that in Finland.

Dedalus Books publishes an entire series of anthologies of fantasy literature in translation. A friend recently asked me whether there is a market for this kind of book in the UK. Perhaps an anthology of this kind will cross the boundaries between the fantasy / sci-fi readership, and the readership for all things Scandinavian.

My personal favourite is perhaps Pentti Holappa's 'Boman': the story of a talking, literate dog who through sheer power of will grows herself a pair of wings. Holappa's career has been long and varied, and in 1998 he won the Finlandia Prize for his novel 'Ystävän muotokuva' (Portrait of a Friend), a moving depiction of the relationship between two men in the post-war years in Helsinki. 'Boman' dates from 1959, but still I think there is a queer reading to be had. The more I read this text throughout the translation process the more this idea began to make sense to me. I'll read this text again and formulate a more coherent argument over the holidays.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Another year, another Finlandia Prize, another furore. This competition always sparks controversy, and given this year’s shortlist Paavo Lipponen’s decision was bound to awaken strong feelings whichever way the prize finally went. The decision this year to award the prize to Bo Carpelan, an author who has already won the prize once before, for his novel Berg (‘Mountain’), together with the fact that the shortlist included another previous winner, has prompted a much-needed debate on the nature of the prize in general. Many of the arguments presented could equally apply to competitions of any kind.

I was somewhat surprised to read articles, notably in Aamulehti, condemning the prize, the recipient and this year’s ‘dictator’. The idea that an author should not be allowed to win the same competition twice – for two separate works – seems absurd, but far more absurd is the notion that the point of the prize is that every author will eventually has his / her turn at winning. If everybody takes it in turns to win the prize, winning itself has no value or meaning.

Aamulehti’s esteemed literature critic Matti Mäkelä claims that the credibility of the Finlandia Prize is now irreparably damaged by virtue of its being awarded to the same author twice. Perhaps he should consider the fact that, whether we like it or not, the outcome of the prize IS subjective, the final decision is left to a single reader. On the contrary, the credibility of this institution in very much intact, as Antti Majander pointed out in today’s HS, the winner should represent ‘the best, not the most appropriate’ work of Finnish literature. If a writer is consistently excellent, should that go unnoticed simply because s/he has been acknowledged once before?

Last month, on the day the Finlandia shortlist was announced, I happened to bump into a nameless publisher in the Academic Book Shop. The said publisher was shocked and outraged that none of their books were to be found on the list. I couldn’t help wondering whether it had ever crossed said publisher’s mind that perhaps none of their books that year were worthy of a place on the shortlist amongst the crème of new Finnish literature this year.

Time and again it occurs to me that publishers are entirely blind to anything outside the ‘business’ of the book world. It seems that selling copies of a book is more important than rejoicing at the quality of that book. Similarly, the ability to assess objectively the quality of one’s own publications seems sadly lacking: not all books are great works of literature, no matter how much one publicly lauds them to anyone who will listen or dismisses the opinions of anyone who cannot see the emperor’s new clothing. In the tiny Finnish book market, winning the Finlandia or similar prizes ensures increased sales figures (naturally, the winner is always announced in the run-up to Christmas…) and continuing publicity for both novel and author. For the publisher, it seems that of primary importance is having the kudos of being able to say that ‘our book’ won the prize; ‘our book’ was shortlisted.

Media circuses like the Finlandia Prize or, say, the recent Sibelius Violin Competition, are becoming increasingly detached from what ought to be their fundamental raison d’être: to celebrate art, creativity, flair, genius. One need only read a single column in Helsingin Sanomat dealing with the Violin Competition to realise that what is most important is not musicality, but which of the automatons on stage can perform a Paganini caprice without making a technical mistake. Or one could listen to Madonna’s latest travesty to good taste and realise that what sells records is not creative genius (the woman’s sheer lack of originality never fails to astound me) but good marketing and pilfering the right pieces of music from real artists. No wonder Sony delayed the release of Fiona Apple’s marvellous third album for so many years: after all, if it’s not going to be a commercial success, what’s the point?