Translation, a window on the world | The Press

“Translation offers us worlds,” writes Lori Saint-Martin in her new essay, A Necessary Good – In Praise of Literary Translation, which has just been published by Boréal. After 30 years practicing this profession of constant dilemmas, the one who is also a novelist and professor in the literary studies department of UQAM wanted to praise an art that is still too often hidden or downright misunderstood, in her opinion. Maintenance.

Laila Maalouf
The Press

Without translation, how many universes would we have been deprived of? asks Lori Saint-Martin throughout her essay. But what do we ultimately know about those who work behind the scenes to bring the words of others to life?

“I think people have a bit of the impression that translation is mechanical, mechanical, that there is a solution and that we take the one that is easiest,” notes Lori Saint-Martin.

With her husband Paul Gagné, she has translated English authors such as Margaret Atwood, Louise Penny, Mordecai Richler… Together, they have won numerous awards for the quality of their translations, including four Governor General’s Literary Awards. She has also been translating from Spanish to French for 10 years, and she had been reflecting for some time on what she has always experienced as “a writing experience”.

“This book has been in the works for a very long time; it is the result of a lot of experience in translation. I wrote a little [sur le sujet] and I wondered what people who love books, but don’t know much about translation or haven’t had a chance to think about it, would like to know. »

She thus sought to invalidate old beliefs associating literary translation with “a necessary evil” and linking it to loss – or even to betrayal. On the contrary, she writes in A necessary good, translation is “a work in itself” that transports, enriches and allows us to know the world.

An act of creation

If the question of translation found itself in the spotlight last year, with the controversy surrounding the choice of translators for the poet Amanda Gorman in Europe – a debate addressed by Lori Saint-Martin in A necessary good –, on this side of the Atlantic, too, voices have been heard.

The American translator Jennifer Croft had notably declared on Twitter that she would henceforth refuse to translate books if her name did not appear on the cover. An old claim often ignored, according to Lori Saint-Martin, who believes that this practice would be “the least of things”, when it is far from having been adopted by the majority of publishing houses.

“A lot of publishers have the following argument: if people know it’s a translation, they won’t want to buy it, they prefer to read in the original language. If you can read the original language, of course, I have nothing against that. But the job of translators is to give us all these subtleties, these nuances, these subtleties that we don’t necessarily have in a second or third language, even if we still have it fairly well,” he notes. -she.

She insists on the part of creation involved in the translation of a literary work, evoking the heartbreaking choices and the doubts that assail female translators.

“The question is always there: how do I make this world? What means must I invent? Did I understand everything? Not only in the sense of having linguistic understanding, but have I really understood the project of the writer I am translating? And how, in my language, to repeat this same path to give back something very similar to the readers of the new language? »

The case of Quebec

“Between blueberries and blueberries”: Lori Saint-Martin has chosen this very eloquent example to title an entire chapter devoted to the challenges of transatlantic translations. She recalls that there has been much criticism in Quebec of certain translations like those of Mordecai Richler – “perfect for the French”, she writes, but much less so for us.

She therefore dwells on explaining the difficult decisions surrounding translations intended for both audiences, where no compromise is possible (in particular for swear words, “a permanent nightmare” for translators), and underlines the relevance of co-publishing , which allows for “cultural adjustments” between the translation intended for Quebec and the one that will land in the hands of French readers.

But until co-publishing becomes the norm – there are of course economic considerations linked to the question – Lori Saint-Martin prefers to tolerate “slight shifts” rather than renouncing works to which she otherwise would not have had access without the translation.

“When I decided to write this book, one of the things I wanted to do was praise the translation; show its beauty and its necessity. And the other was to tell people: think about what you do when you spit on the translators, when you say: “I didn’t like the book, it must have been the translation”. Maybe it was the translation, but maybe you wouldn’t have liked the book either if it had been written in French. I find that it is always easy to throw that stone. So that’s kind of what I wanted… not exactly to denounce, but to warn people. Because we all do. »

A Necessary Good – In Praise of Literary Translation

Lori Saint-Martin

boreal

304 pages

The voice of the translators

We surveyed local translators on their vision of the profession and the place they think should be theirs.

“On the border” between invisibility and recognition

For Fanny Britt, translation has been inseparable from writing since her studies in playwriting at the National Theater School. “In theatre, I really have the impression that translators have greater recognition than in literature, where we try to make them invisible,” she says. We seem to have freed ourselves from this idea that translation must be eternal, that there is a definitive translation for each work. Fanny Britt also translates children’s literature, where it often happens that the name of the translator does not even appear on the cover page; in other cases, on the other hand, the translators of his own youth albums into English were entitled to their own dedications. While she has just translated Martha Wainwright’s autobiography, Nothing bad has happened yet, Fanny Britt, however, confides that she felt “a great need for discretion”. “It tells her life, it’s her story. But with all that I have experienced as a translator of this book, I have a lot to express. Quebec America has also decided to put my name on the cover; I feel very honored and very proud, but at the same time, a little embarrassed. I’m still torn between my desire to be invisible and my feeling of being very invested in this work. A little bit on the border…”

“Something a little magical”

Dominique Fortier had been translating for nearly ten years when she wrote her first novel, in 2008. she. […] It is also true that the translator is someone who places himself between the author and the reader, and that ignoring him does no one a favor. Translation is not a mathematical activity where there is a right answer. There is a negotiation that is so delicate and fluctuating that this important contribution must be recognized. There is an element of subjectivity and sensitivity. We cannot ignore the contribution of the translator. And why not put the translator’s name directly on the cover, she remarks, since the same book translated by three people will result in three different books? Recently, she found herself “on the side of the translated author”, with the sale of paper towns in 12 countries; and the cover of the English version includes the name of the translator. “We gain world literature through translation; we couldn’t read 95% of the books that are published if there were no translators. It’s something a bit magical. »

“Creation in itself”

Daniel Grenier cut his teeth in fiction before embarking on translation. “In experimental poetry, the work of translation is considered creation in itself. It was while translating Indigenous and Black writers that he found himself grappling with this “complex” notion of universalism. “A joke, it adapts. But the jargon and the vulgar slang… Over the years, I realize that this is what is the most difficult to translate. Especially since in Quebec, we have a way of expressing vulgarity that is both very standardized and very typical. It has been made a cause up to a certain point in the translation. But with the revival of Aboriginal voices, that raises other questions because there, regardless of whether you speak English or French, there is a certain colonialism in the affixing of one language to another. […] Translating is really about making heartbreaking choices; there will never be an ideal solution. »

“Full-fledged artists”

Catherine Leroux recognizes the very creative dimension to literary translation, which appeared in her career after writing. One of the most important things when translating a book, in her opinion, is establishing communication between the author and the translator. “After all, it’s not nothing to rewrite a text in another language; it’s not just a neutral activity where you take an A word and transform it into a B word in the target language. It’s rewriting a book from A to Z by questioning each word. There is an immense subjective and creative dimension. It’s obvious to me that translators are artists in their own right. She also says that she worked for a year on the translation of Madeleine Thien’s novel. We who were nothing for which she received a Governor General’s Literary Award.

For greater visibility

Sophie Voillot has won three Governor General’s Awards for her translations, including of novels by Rawi Hage; she is one of those voices calling for greater visibility. “I think there is some confusion between the demands of the practice of translation and its place in the literary world,” she says. Let me explain: it is not only normal, but desirable for the translator to step aside in front of the author during the production of the translation. […] Once the work is done, when publishing the translation, it is no longer the time to delete it. However, some publishers seem to fear that the public will turn away from the work as soon as we stop hiding from them that… what? That this or that English-speaking author didn’t suddenly start writing in French? […] If translation is a literary practice in its own right (it is), why not proudly display this aspect which is an integral part of the work offered to them? Other cultures “value the work of translators at its true value,” she says, by putting their name on the cover of books. “No need to look very far: just see what is practiced in English Canada. For example, I have before me the cover of Ru, published in English by Penguin Random House. Under the name of Kim Thúy appears, in smaller form, the mention Translated by Sheila Fischman. »