Reading the Way:
A Translation Challenge
Seminar Report
London Book Fair, Tuesday 14th April
Alexandra Strick of Outside In World welcomed the audience and gave an overview of the organisation.
Outside In is a small, not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and exploring books from around the world, particularly children’s books in translation. It was set up very much in response to the ‘shamefully low’ number of translated books published in the UK.
In addition to a website boasting a range of resources for educators, publishers, translators, parents and children themselves, as well as many reviews of both translated and yet-to-be-translated titles and an interactive ‘virtual gallery’ of children’s book illustration, Outside In runs projects such as the current ‘Reading the Way’ project, the focus of this seminar.
‘Reading the Way’ is a research and development project, supported by the Arts Council that aims to:
Following the introduction guest host, Pam Dix (chair of IBBY UK) welcomed the panel.
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and literary translator with forty-something books to his name. He translates from Portuguese, Spanish and French. He is a former chair of the Translators Association, and now chairs the Society of Authors.
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp is a British translator of Arabic, German and Russian into English. She has two book-length translations out this summer: Jordanian author Fadi Zaghmout's novel The Bride of Amman and a co-translation with Nashwa Gowanlock of Samar Yazbek's account of the Syrian civil war, The Crossing.
Nadine Kaadan is a writer and illustrator. She has published over 15 books in the Arab region and in 2010 founded ‘Box of Tales’ publishing house - one of the first publishing houses in Syria for children’s literature. Nadine’s book “Answer Me, Leila” won the Anna Lindh Award for the Best Fiction Book for children with special needs.
Deborah Smith is a translator from Korean to English. She is the translator of The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Portobello Books), The Essayist’s Desk and The Low Hills of Seoul by Bae Suah. Portobello Books will publish her translation of Han Kang’s latest novel in January 2016.
Pam asked each member of the panel to tell the audience more about themselves and their involvement in the project.
From left to right Pam Dix, Deborah Smith, Nadine Kaadan, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Daniel Hahn. Photo © Alexandra Strick
Translator Daniel Hahn talked about his background in writing about and talking about children’s literature, prior to translating any specific books. He described the value of having this existing understanding of the general ‘architecture’ of children’s picture books. His role in the Reading the Way project was primarily as a translator of The Ghost Story by Jaime Gamboa, a book first published in Guatemala. This is the story of a book that is anxious about what might happen at the end of a story. The book believes he has nothing in him until a girl comes into the library and reassures him that stories can be read again and again, and also that his pages are not empty but in fact feature braille. It’s a beautifully constructed piece of work with highly unusual illustrations. Daniel explained that the hardest thing about translating it was that it was doing it justice because it is simply ‘so good’.
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp then introduced She and the Others by Nahla Gandour, one of the books she translated for the Reading the Way project. This is an unusual book, featuring two stories in one and crossing genres in a way which may be unusual for English books, with its deceptively simple language but very complex ideas and messages. The book is about being an outsider. Ruth explains how a girl with polio (depicted in the illustrations by a ‘key’ leg) is stared at by the narrator until the two girls get to know each other.
Another of the books translated by Ruth was Answer Me, Leila, by Nadine Kaadan. Nadine explained the background to the book, which was based on a deaf woman, with whom Nadine did not ‘connect’ until they started to communicate by email, upon which she recognised the value of their friendship and wished she had learned sign language. Nadine did not want to portray her deaf princess as someone who has a disability, but rather as someone who speaks a different language. She is not an outsider, she is an empowered protagonist who speaks her own language, and the prince is the one who struggles. It is our responsibility to try to communicate and to learn sign language, not the deaf person’s.
From left to right Nadine Kaadan and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Photo © Alexandra Strick
Deborah Smith, a translator (currently completing PhD at SOAS, writing on contemporary Korean fiction) then talked about the Korean books she has translated for the project, particularly a book entitled Twelve Birds. Deborah described how she had not been involved in children’s books prior to this project. The books she translated for the project were accessible titles, as opposed to books featuring disabled characters or plots. Twelve Birds is a picture book which features the Korean braille alphabet. The text is quite abstract and whimsical, with birds used to depict particular feelings. It features onomatopoeia for a peacock’s call.
The panel moved on to the specific challenges of the project.
From left to right Deborah Smith, Nadine Kaadan, Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
and Daniel Hahn. Photo © Alexandra Strick
Daniel Hahn talked about The Ghost Story and the fact that the greatest challenges were not concerned with the translation itself but the stages which follow – those of encouraging publishers to consider the books. Where picture books are concerned, publishers can make assumptions about the way the books ‘should’ look and about children’s attitudes. Outside In World’s ‘Reading Round the World’ project proved that children are in fact very interested in books which look ‘different’. The problem is that children’s books (in particular books for younger children) are not bought by children themselves. There are various different ‘gatekeepers’ who may feel that these books may not appeal to children. A member of the audience asked whether it was really the publishers who are not receptive to such books – to which Daniel Hahn replied that everyone thinks it is someone else who won’t like it – so publishers may think booksellers or reviewers are to blame, who in turn feel that readers won’t like them….meaning everyone is slightly nervous on someone else’s behalf.
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp then shared some of the challenges of translating She and the Others by Nahla Gandour for the 'Reading the Way' project. She raised the issue of the way in which we tend to classify books as a hurdle, particularly in terms of the assumption that a picture book should be targeted at younger readers. This makes it challenging to identify a suitable audience for a book like She and the Others by Nahla Gandour, which actually offers itself up to a much older and wider readership. She didn’t find as many translation challenges in relation to cultural issues as she had expected to. She did, however, need to give some thought to the way in which school was presented, both in this and in other titles which she translated for the project. In this particular book, children are described as lining up according to height, to go into class, and this is something which would be unlikely to be seen in contemporary schools.
From left to right Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Daniel Hahn. Photo © Alexandra Strick
Nadine Kaadan then described how her book featured her Rapunzel character writing a message in Arabic for the prince with her hair – this could present an interesting challenge when translating into English. However, most of the issues she came across would, she felt, just be areas of additional interest for children in the UK, as opposed to problems or challenges. She talked about the cultural setting of the book – the traditional Syrian dress, the scenery, the roses, and the décor, are all inspired by her own knowledge of her home in Syria. These details will enrich and inspire children from other countries.
From left to right Deborah Smith, Nadine Kaadan and Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp
Photo © Alexandra Strick
Deborah Smith talked about the challenge she didn’t have to face – that of translating braille from Korean into English. This wouldn’t be a challenge specific to accessible Korean books, but rather a challenge for many Korean books, as the Korean alphabet is much more frequently used in the illustrations – it’s a very ‘visual’ alphabet. It was designed originally to mimic the shape that one’s mouth makes when it makes those sounds. Onomatopoeia is also much more frequently used in Korea than in English, so for example each of the twelve birds mentioned in the book had a distinctive onomatopoeic cry. So Deborah had to use various different strategies for translating them, for example finding an equivalent in English, such as the ‘twit-twoo’ of an owl, however, it was more challenging where the bird was not one which exists in the UK.
The seminar ended with each of the speakers being asked to ‘pitch’ their book to UK audiences in just one minute.
Video extracts of Seminar held at the London Book Fair in April 2015.
