Lost in Translation

Robert Frost is usually credited for the quote that ‘Poetry is what gets lost in translation.’ But however good and whatever is translated in poetry or prose then what is also usually lost is the name of the person who translates the work. Which seems unfair as it is a highly skilled art and profession which I know little about.

All of Georges Simenon's Maigret works have been fully translated into English. Jean Stewart translated them through the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. 

In 2013 Penguin translated the full series but included no information whatsoever about the translators, such as Linda Asher, Anthea Bell, or Siân Reynolds. They are credited on the title page, but otherwise completely anonymous.

However, there are two organisations in the UK that do represent the profession.

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is a professional association representing translators, interpreters and language services businesses. ITI is affiliated with the International Federation of Translators (FIT). As the principal professional association of translators and interpreters it has become one of the primary sources of information on translation and interpreting to government, industry, the media and the public.

The Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) is the UK's not-for-profit royal charter body for languages and linguists. They support linguists in their careers and lives. They do have a Diploma in Translation, a Master's-level qualification for work as a translator and a Certificate in Translation a Degree-level qualification for translation.

The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) is an international professional association of translators and interpreters based in Argentina. I mention this as on its website there is an article by Marie Lebert entitled ‘60 translators who changed the world’. Well worth a look.

The Bukhman International Booker Prize, which is awarded annually, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.  It recognises the vital work of translators, with the £100,000 prize money divided equally between authors and translators. In addition, shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500. This year ‘Taiwan Travelogue’ by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, was announced as the winner.

In February of this year The Society of Authors announced the following:

‘Tonight we shine the spotlight on the often “invisible” creativity of translators, at a ceremony announcing the winners of our 2025 Translation Prizes.

Nine literary translators and one editor will be named winners at the event at the British Library, with more than £32,000 in prize money shared among the winners and runners-up. The prizes celebrate outstanding translations of prose, poetry and non-fiction, from languages from around the globe and across a range of genres.’

But I can only judge by how my reading has been affected by a translated book. I have no idea if they follow the original or read as well in English but I have loved them when reading. These are a few of my favourites.

'The Name of the Rose' by Italian author Umberto Eco was translated into English by William Weaver in 1983.

'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafón was published in 2004 and translated by Lucia Graves.

The Icelandic crime novel 'Jar City' by Arnaldur Indriðason was translated into English by Bernard Scudder.

When I was working at Butlins back in about 1970 the bloke in the next staff chalet said ‘You like reading, don’t you? Try this.’ It was a Penguin Modern European Poets copy of 'Rilke Selected Poems'. 3/6. Translated by J.B. Leishman. 

I was knocked out by it at the time. But I’m mentioning it now to show how there is no one way to translate a piece of work. I’m taking the first verse of Autumn Day from that book translated by J. B. Leishman and showing other translations.

Autumn Day

Lord, it is time. The summer was so great.
Impose upon the sundials now your shadows
and round the meadows let the winds rotate.
                                                  J. B. Leishman

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
                                                  Galway Kinnell, Hannah Liebmann

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
                                                  Stephen Mitchell

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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The 'Sleeping' Poet

The poet exists in two states: awake and ‘asleep’, and these two conditions are influenced/ determined by a singular act, or rather the lack of it.  If a poet is not writing is she still a poet?  Is a difference present; is she different when she is writing to when she is not?

I don’t think I could live without it.  It’s like water or bread or something absolutely essential to me.  I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I am writing one...  Having written one, well then, you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest.

(From an interview with Sylvia Plath)

On a grammatical level, the difference is caused by the verb usage: the poet is writing a poem or the poet has written a poem.  The latter utterance, with its past tense transitive verb, does not comment upon a current activity, but rather an activity that has since lapsed.  However, to state that one is ‘writing’ would mean that the present participle is in application, and thus is very much active.  Therefore, the poet fluctuates from past to present, ‘sleeping’ to awake, and it is writing that stirs her into full consciousness. 

However, fullness is lost when the pen slips from her grip – a semi half-life envelops her and her finger is pierced by a needle; the same sharpness and severity as that found upon the spinning wheel – sending her hand into a motionless sleep.  The poet is no longer directly engaged in writing, her present has fallen suddenly and sadly into the past – and she wonders, will she stay there?  Questioning if she will ever find writing again, or whether she will merely remember the poems she once wrote.

In some respects, when she is not writing, she becomes a victim of the past; a Sleeping Beauty trapped and devalued by the singular past tense form of the verb to be.  And during these moments there is no third person singular present tense, no knight on white horse, no ‘magic’ that sees words transposing themselves upon paper, and no complete self.  She was a poet, but what or who is she now?  An empty bottle that had its purpose drained by fear...  If there is no poet there is no poem, and what becomes of the poem’s identity?  A transparent bottle smashed – void of contents and form...  And without the poem there is no poet.  Each relies upon the other; the poet and poem must co-exist, and the loss of one is a wound which will markedly impact on what remains.

She makes a prediction with a negative modal auxiliary and foresees that she won’t be a poet; her future won’t be poetry and the slumbering figure will never wake onto yellow paper – ever again.  But she has not died, she is merely ‘sleeping’, and in the dreams and nightmares of her mind ideas still formulate, thinking still deviates and manipulates, and she hears a pen weeping for its owner.  Thus, the mind of a poet still remains...

*          *          *

Self-doubt is the apple and perfectionism its poison.  She cannot be a poet because she cannot believe it, and she cannot write poetry (again) because it will never be what the previous poem was.  There is a voice whose tones drone with improbability, and spit with impossible conclusions...

However, she probably would not alter the day – a distant, long ago time in her childhood – when an apple pip was planted and which eventually became a tree that bore one poisoned apple.  There were times when she had wished that she could chop the tree down, and send the solitary apple falling from the branches like the giant from the beanstalk.  But would she be the same person without it?  Perhaps she would not have needed writing, and even if they had still found each other the poem would inevitably be unrecognisable.

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it.  It must become knowing, it must become criticism.  Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proof from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting.  But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers – perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.  (Letters to A Young Poet, R. M.Rilke)

If I didn’t write I would always be ‘asleep’ –

                                                       never knowing what it means, or is like, to be awake

Thank you for reading,

Lara

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