Features

Visible Poets, Invisible Translation

Sophie Mayer

An estimated 2-3% of translations internationally have English as their target language, as opposed to 60% for which English is the source language.
 
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‘The Visible Poets series was established in 2000, and set out to challenge the view that translated poetry could or should be read without regard to the process of translation it had undergone. Since then, things have moved on. Today there is more translated poetry available and more debate on its nature, its status, and its relation to the original.’ Jean Boase-Beier, Series Editor, Visible Poets.
 
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In contrast to most European countries, the UK has no single agency or resource focused on gathering and providing information about literary translation.
 
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‘We are more aware that translation lies at the heart of our cultural exchange; without it, we must remain artistically and intellectually insular.’ Jean Boase-Beier, Series Editor, Visible Poets.

 
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ONIX, the book data program, does not automatically collect information on source language, country of origin or translator, and Amazon.co.uk rarely displays this information.
 
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‘Dorothea Rosa Herliany, according to the [Ledbury] festival, is one of the most important poets writing in Indonesia today. She is a feminist, note the Muslim society in which she works, and has eight volumes of poetry to her name [including Kill the Radio, translated by Harry Aveling for Visible Poets]. Currently resident for a short time in Germany, she received this crushingly dim response to her application for a visa.

“You have provided an invitation to participate in the Ledbury Poetry Festival in the UK, however you have failed to provide any documents showing the funds available to you or demonstrating your current circumstances in Germany. I note that you only arrived in Germany in April 09, and have limited leave to remain until 30/07/09. I am therefore not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that you are a genuine visitor, that you intend to leave the UK at the end of your visit.”

The festival only learned about the ban two weeks ago and did not have the time to make representations on her behalf. In the event she was given a visa for the day after she was due to appear.’ Henry Porter, The Observer, 11 July 2009.
 
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That there is a ‘shattered network of cultural communication through books between all those countries and languages … [marks] proof of a deep fragmentation’ (Rüdiger Wischenbart, 2008).
 
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perempuan itu melukis dosa yang tak tertejemahkan
ia tulis rahasia puisi yang perih dendam dalam gesekan rebab.
lalu ia hentakkan tumit penari indian yang gelap dan mistis.

the woman writes of sins which cannot be translated.
she writes bitter secret poems hidden in the sweep of the violin
then makes a dark mysterious indian dancer stamp her foot down hard.
(Dorothea Rosa Herliany, ‘Perempuan Berdosa’/‘The Woman Who Sinned,’ trans. Harry Aveling).
 
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The Indonesian word for Indian is Indian, the name Cristobal Colón gave to the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas, thinking he had sailed clear across the Pacific.
 
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What goes around.
 
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Colón, the vernacular Spanish of Columbus, is not the etymology of ‘colony,’ but they do share a root – ‘colonus,’ the Latin for farmer. Yet Columbus comes from an entirely different Latin root: ‘columba,’ dove. The dove is a sign of peace in the Judaeo-Christian version of the flood story, but also the harbinger of colonialism, returning with the olive branch that signified ‘terra nullius.’
 
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Hollywood still tells Indian tales, outsourced to the slumdogs of the subcontinent.
 
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‘kita cuma barangdagangan yang telah
dikhianati nurani!’

‘we are commercial objects
turned into victims
by your conscience!’
(Dorothea Rosa Herliany, ‘Rumah Kertas – untuk sebuah film kelas tiga’/‘Cardboard Houses – for a third rate movie’, trans. Harry Aveling).
 
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Equitable translation is a key component of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity.
 
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‘As a Jew [in post-war Soviet Russia], Larissa faced both “casual” anti-semitism from school friends and officially-sanctioned anti-semitism throughout her education. Her description of these injustices, the child’s own hot feelings of rage and bewilderment, are so precise that the reader quivers with furious indignation on her part.’ Sasha Dugdale, ‘Larissa Miller: An Introduction’ in Miller, Guests of Eternity (Arc Visible Poets).
 
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Левее – пол; каких кровей
Чкажем ниже и правей
И роспись. Что, теперь яснее
И жнзнь и как справляться с нею

on the left – the sex, lower on the right
we give our nationality,
then the signature. Well, is life clearer
now and how to cope with it? (Larissa Miller, trans. Richard McKane)
 
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Only two books apiece by the two most recent Nobel Prize for Literature winners, J.M. Le Clézio and Herta Müller, were available in English translation at the times their awards were announced.
 
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‘We in English-speaking countries are accustomed to thinking of the French language as “poorer” than the English … But my guess is that few of us have stopped to think about the poetic consequences of the Académie’s restraint. Valérie Rouzeau’s poetry makes us remember that impoverishment on one level may be an invitation to enrichment on another.’ Susan Wicks, ‘Translators Preface’ in Wicks, Cold Spring in Winter (Arc Visible Poets).
 
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Ismail Kadaré, winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize, had been published first in French translation and some years later in English (translated from French), before he was published in his native Albania, where his books were banned.
 
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Te parler papa j’ai pu te paparler un peu un petit peu paparce que nous avions plus tout le temps.

Talk to you dad I managed a bit of daddychat a chitter ‘cause we didn’t have that much time.
(Valérie Rouzeau, poem 24, trans. Susan Wicks)
 
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Half of the 6,700 languages spoken today are in danger of disappearing before the century ends (UNESCO).
 
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Talk … ‘cause we don’t have that much time.
 
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