New Voices in Self-Translation: Emmi Itäranta (Finnish-English)

Acclaimed science fiction author Emmi Itäranta (*1976) writes her novels in both Finnish and English, with manuscripts always created side by side. She was born in Tampere, Finland, but moved to Canterbury, UK, in 2007 where she lived for 14 years. Recently, she moved back to Finland. Since she kept travelling back to Finland while living abroad, she can be classified as a transmigrant self-translator (Gentes 2019).

Thus far, Itäranta has published three self-translated novels, which won several awards both in Finland and in the UK:

• Teemestarin kirja (Teos, 2012) / Memory of Waters (Harper Collins 2014);
• Kudottujen kujien kaupunki (Teos 2015) / The City of Woven Streets (Harper Voyager, UK 2016) / The Weaver (Harper Voyager USA 2016);
• Kuunpäivän kirjeet (Teos, 2020) / Moonday Letters (Titan Books, UK 2022)

Itäranta wrote the manuscript of her first novel while pursuing a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Kent. Because the Finnish manuscript of her first novel Teemestarin kirja (Teos, 2012) / Memory of Waters (Harper Collins 2014) won Teos Publishing's science fiction and fantasy novel contest in 2011, the Finnish version of the novel was published much earlier than the English one. As is often the case, however, the gap between the two publications does not indicate a consecutive self-translation process. Itäranta is indeed a systematic simultaneous self-translator (for the distinction between simultaneous and consecutive self-translations see Grutman 2009), writing both versions of her novels at the same time. So how did Itärante become a bilingual writer?

Her first novel grew out of an attempt to write a short  story during a creative writing course at the University of Kent. So English was an obvious choice. So why did she decide to include Finnish in the process?

"Once I had written one or two chapters, I realised that it would be really useful to get some feedback from my Finnish writing group. We meet once a month online. So I wrote those early chapters in Finnish, too. As I was doing that, I began to realise that working in both languages actually helped me polish the writing, because I had to look at it so closely." (Marten 2015)

Itäranta takes a very strategic approach to writing (on her writing process, see Riikonen 2014 in detail), and so it is not surprising that she also immediately developed a strategy for her bilingual writing process, which she improved upon for her next two novels:

“Most of the time I ended up writing the first draft of each chapter in Finnish, then I would translate it into English and edit it, making some changes as I translated, then update the Finnish version of the chapter” (Marten 2015). 

Each chapter goes through several versions in both languages before Itäranta moves on to the next chapter. The editing process is never unidirectional and both versions influence each other throughout the self-translation process: “Each chapter actually took shape through those two languages” (Marten 2015). Being constantly aware about the translation task ahead, may affect a self-translator's choice of style, as Itäranta confirms:

"I thought about how sentences and words would translate from one language to the other already while writing, and sometimes this may have simplified the language unnecessarily. [...] In order to find balance between the languages, I had to make some compromises. [...] I would have probably used Finnish more daring had I not been thinking about the English equivalents when writing. On the other hand, using two languages stripped away superfluous words and unnecessary decorations, because I had to think about the way each sentence worked several times" (Riikonen 2014, p. 18).

The negotiation between the two languages sometimes results in neologisms which prove challenging for her translators: "Sometimes I hear back from translators who don’t know what to make of my neologisms or other choices" (Karppanen 2017:7). The bilingual writing process also presents an additional challenge for her Finnish editors: 

“Finnish editors also need to be able to spot any Anglicisms in my writing. I try to be careful not to use them, but sometimes I slip up. Readers are also very particular about good language, so it’s important that any foreign structures are edited out” (Kortela 2021).

The textual relationship between the two versions is a subject of much controversy in research on self-translation (see, e.g. Fitch 1988, Oustinoff 2001). Itäranta takes a clear stand on this issue: 

"The English version is not a translation. The Finnish version is not a translation. They are both the original, and each was shaped by the constant presence of the other. They are twins, inseparable, and would not be the same without each other." (Itäranta 2014) 

In her analysis of the debut novel Memory of Waters, Katarina Leppänen underscores that the bilingual approach to writing creates a novel that "transgresses culture" in a unique way: 

"What Itäranta does is to build her work on two sets of languages and cultures simultaneously. In contrast to the effect of multilingual or bilingual texts, where distance and familiarity is created by words present in the text, such as slang, foreign words or sentences, or dialect, Itäranta’s text produces a world beyond the assumed British and Finnish literary and cultural contexts. What is achieved is not a hybrid, but rather an abstraction. It is thus already in the moment of creation a piece of world literature that transgresses culture not only by placing the events in another (fictive) world, but also by the cross-fertilization in making sense of different cultural contexts, the very process of intellectual back-and-forth movement, which cannot be grounded anywhere in between." (Leppänen 2020: 428)

Self-translation is often portrayed as a painful experience, a tedious re-enactment of a once creative act: "a real torture" (Miletic 2008: 44), "Boring, frustrating, painful" (Cordingley 2013: 5), "exquisitely painful" (Beaujour 1995: 719).  Itäranta, however, asserts: "It's not a burden.[...] I enjoy the interaction between the two languages" (Islam 2022: 3:59-4:27). In fact many statements by authors are followed by a "but" (see Gentes 2017: 109-112), and writers like Itäranta highlight the rewarding nature of self-translation:

 "You get very, very close to the text when you work in two languages; translators often spot details that the author and editor may have missed. It is a slow process, and hard work, but ultimately I find it rewarding." (Moore 2014)

Itäranti's novels are internationally successful: According to the website of her literary agency Elina Ahlback, the debut novel was translated into 21 languages, translation rights for her second novel have already been sold to Brazil, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy and for her third novel to Czech Republic and Hungary. Katarina Leppänen suggests that the English self-translation may have played a decisive role in this success: "When it comes to the question of quick global publication, an existing English version is of course a great benefit for a debuting author as it gives access to the transnational world literary networks" (Leppänen 2020: 428).

References on Itäranta:

Homepage: https://www.emmiitaranta.com/
Literary agency: https://www.ahlbackagency.com/author/emmi-itaranta/?authorId=15

Islam, Mahmudul.2020. "Dystopian thinking, bilingual writing, and Finnish culture". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXntTW-F7jM&ab_channel=MahmudulIslam-Finnophile

Itäranta, Emmi. 2014. "Guest Post: Emmi Itäranta, author of MEMORY OF WATER". Published on 16.06.2014 on Harper Voyager: https://www.harpervoyagerbooks.com/guest-post-emmi-itaranta-author-of-memory-of-water/

Karppanen, Pasi Karppanen. 2017. "Conquering the World as a Finnish Author". In: Spin, issue 2/2017. http://pasikarppanen.net/texts/2017-02a_Conquering-the-World-as-a-Finnish-Author.pdf 

Kortela, Anne. 2021. "Turku Book Fair. Digging into the Core". https://anjasnellmanbooks.com/book-fair.html

Leppänen, Katarina. 2020. "Memory of Water: Boundaries of Political Geography and World Literature." European Review, 28(3), 425-434. doi:10.1017/S1062798719000541

Marten, Peter. 2015. "Finnish author writes memories of the future". May 2015. https://finland.fi/arts-culture/finnish-author-writes-memories-of-the-future/

Moore, Lucy. 2014. "Exclusive interview with Emmi Itäranta". Published on 15.05.2015 on Female First, https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/emmi-itaranta-memory-of-water-470063.html

Riikonen, Marika. 2014. "The words will flow as long as she can move her hands". Finnish Weird. Translated by Marianna Leikomaa. First published in Tähtivaeltaja 2/2011. English translation available on: https://www.finnishweird.net/files/finnish_weird_2014.pdf

References on self-translation research:

Beaujour, Elizabeth Klosty. 1995. "Translation and self-translation". In: Vladimir E. Alexandrov (ed.): The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov. New York / London: Garland, 714–724.

Cordingley, Anthony. 2013. “The Passion of Self-Translation: A Masocritical Perspective.” In: Anthony Cordingley (ed.), Self-Translation: Brokering Originality in Hybrid Culture. London: Continuum, 81–94.

Fitch, Brian T. 1988. Beckett and Babel. An Investigation into the State of the Bilingual Work. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Gentes, Eva. 2017. (Un-)Sichtbarkeit der literarischen Selbstübersetzung in der romanischsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur. Eine literatur- und übersetzungssoziologische Annäherung. Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.  https://docserv.uni-duesseldorf.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-45333/Gentes_Dissertation.lit_Selbstübersetzung.pdf

Gentes, Eva. 2019. “Transmigration und Selbstübersetzung – Linda Olsson und Miroslav Penkov.” In: Bruno Berni & Alessandra D’Atena (eds.), Autotraduzione. Obiettivi, strategie, testi. Roma: Istituto italiano di studi germanici, 122–144.

Grutman, Rainier. 2009. "Self-translation". In: Mona Baker (ed.): Routlegde Encyclopaedia of Translation. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 257–260.

Miletic, Tijana. 2008. European Literary Immigration into the French Language. Readings of Gary, Kristof, Kundera and Semprún. Amsterdam / New York: Rodop.

Oustinoff, Michaël. 2001. Bilinguisme d’écriture et auto–traduction: Julien Green, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov. Paris: L’Harmattan.