Everyday Miracles

      by Lene Kaaberbol

Some UK bookshops have sections labelled: ‘Literature in Translation’. As if translations need their own little reservation, sheltered and protected, sought out only by academics with a taste for the unusual.

Please. Don’t put me in that reservation.

I have no wish to be sheltered. I do not want to be labelled as unusual. I just want to write, and be read, in as many languages as I can manage. So far, I am indecorously proud to say, my work has been translated into more than twenty languages of quite stunning diversity – Japanese, Cantonese, Finnish, Inuit, Hungarian, Turkish and Latvian, to name but a few. I don’t think that my readers in those faraway places have paid any attention whatsoever to the fact that they were reading a translated work. What they have heard, I hope, is the voice of Dina, the Shamer’s daughter, speaking to them in their native tongue with naturalness and authority, sweeping them into her world and her story. After all, no author sets out to create Literature in Translation. Most of us just write a book.

In Denmark, where I live, a ‘Literature In Translation’ section would be completely nonsensical – it would comprise more than half the shop. In a small country like ours, a book is a book, whether translated or home-grown, which is as it should be.

It is a thrill and a privilege to be translated, but a pleasure shot through with threads of paranoia. True translation, in the strictest sense, is impossible. How can you separate a story from the words that make it up? It is like separating the soul from the body. I think I share with every translated author those little moments of panic: “My God, I’ve given them my baby, and they’ve made it speak Japanese! What have they done to it? I wouldn’t even recognise it if it weren’t for my pathetic little photo on the flap!” Yet at the same time, I get an immense kick out of knowing that there are children in this world who read my books from the back, moving their eyes up and down the page, rather than across.

If we wish to cross borders, we must also cross language barriers. So we send our stories off, like Hansel and Gretel, to find a way through the wilderness, hoping not too much will be lost along the way. Occasionally, a few breadcrumbs are tossed, in the shape of letters or phone calls from translators, asking questions, seeking reassurance that they are on the right track. At other times, there is merely silence. Right, you tell yourself. Surely this means that everything is going just fine, your story and the translator have met and are getting on famously, a successful language transplant is expected any day now . . .

And the miracle is that this is usually the case. By the grace of your translator, through her talent, hard labour and dedication, your story is about to be reincarnated: born fresh in a language you yourself cannot even read, let alone write. A necessary, everyday miracle that opens the gate to a wider world.

But please – let those little miracles off the reservation. They do not want to be treated like incubated marvels, pampered and cosseted, kept from the real world. They want to come out and play with the other children.

When it comes to the English version of my work, I am in the unusual position of being both the author and the translator. No longer am I doomed to watch from the wings, caught between dumb gratitude and neurotic paranoia. This time, I get to speak the lines myself. And I have one enormous advantage over most translators: I can cheat. If something doesn’t work, I can simply change it. So far, the author hasn’t complained . . .

Thus, translation for me isn’t really translation, but rather one more rewrite. There is a peculiar freedom in moving from one language to another. I find that I see the story afresh. Habitual assumptions drop by the wayside, and not all of those assumptions are to do with linguistics. I’ve been able to work out knots in the plot by shifting languages. I’ve gained new insight into what my characters might say and do. Translation for me has become a writer’s tool, a way to switch lenses; a way of seeing.

On the face of it, this makes no sense at all. Why should the story assume a different shape to me, just because I’m writing it in English? Yet it does – because language is not just a range of sounds and signs we use to communicate with other human beings. Language is bound up with the way we see the world. And despite teasing similarities, even the most closely related of languages do not match, word for word. A switch in language means a switch in perception.

Or, as Edith Grossman puts it: “a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly”. And who is Edith Grossman? Though they have enjoyed her words, probably not many of her readers remember her name. She is the translator of one of today’s greatest living writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is lucky to have her, and I think he knows it.

A story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez will never be an English story, no matter how excellently translated. It will be something much better: a story that has made a miraculous transformation, a second incarnation which holds still the unique flavours, scents, and sounds of its original Colombian-Spanish soul.

Translation is impossible. Transformation is not. Praise be to the unsung heroes who perform such miracles.

Oh, and please . . . let them off the reservation.

© Outside In: Children’s Books in Translation, Milet Publishing (2005)

Edith Grossman’s speech at the PEN Gabriel Garcia Marquez tribute (2003) may be read in its entirety at http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_PEN_grossman.html

Lene Kaaberbol was born in Copenhagen and published her first book at the age of fifteen. She is a graduate of Aarhus University and has taught English and Drama to high school students in Copenhagen. Lene has published many books in Denmark, several of which have been translated into other languages. 'The Shamer' series,  has been translated from Danish by the author herself and The Shamer's Daughter was shortlisted for the 2005 Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation.

Titles reviewed on this website:

The Shamer series (2019) - The Shamer's Daughter, The Shamer's Signet, The Serpent's Gift and The Shamer's War;

Silver Horse (2007)

The Wildwitch series (2016) - Wildwitch Wildfire, Wildwitch Oblivion, Wildwitch Life Stealer and Wildwitch Bloodling.