Sekiguchi in Toronto

The Japanese-French self-translator Ryoko Sekiguchi will participate in the translation festival "Found in translation" in Toronto on Friday 18th June at 8pm at the Japan Foundation (131 Bloor Street West, Suite 213). An English translation of her Japanese reading will be provided.
To view the entire program of the festival click here.

To know more about her self-translations see my blog entry from last year.

Self-translation: translation or rewriting?

I just read a very interesting interview with the Catalan writer Ferran Torrent, who insists that he does not translate his novels but that he rewrites them. In fact many authors who write two versions of the same books, don't like to call what they are doing "to translate". Here are some quotations:

• The Catalan writer Carmen Riera: "„[D]ado que no creo en la traducción intento hacer una versión, lo cual significa para mí reescribir el texto en la nueva lengua […]“ (Carmen Riera (2002): La autotraducción como ejercicio de recreación. In: Quimera 210, pp. 11-12.)
  

• The African writer André Brink: „However, I do not ‚translate‘ my books. I rewrite them in English or Afrikaans, sometimes alternating chapters and in the process reworking the original in the light of the changes made in the other language. This cross-pollination continues until I say ‚that is enough‘, otherwise I'd never finish a book.“ (André Brink: ‚We can only manage the world once it has been storified‘ – Interview with André Brink. In: Unisa Latin American Report 15:1, p. 43, PDF-page 45)
  

• The Chicano writer Rolando Hinojosa: „He refers to the English and Spanish versions of his books not as translations, but as ‚renditions.‘ ‚I think I like to keep the flavor rather than just a word-by-word definition or translation. Because what won't fit in English -- or Spanish, since I've done both English and Spanish -- I try to give the nearest equivalent to it, say, a word-play or something like that,‘ he says.“ (Barbara Strickland (2007): Crossing Literary Borders. Rolando Hinojosa-Smith. In: The Austin Chronicle, 28.08.1997

Traduction, auto-traduction et réécriture : Endgame, Lolita et Le Maître et Marguerite

Conference at the University in Paris 8 with Prof. Michaël Oustinoff, who wrote one of the few books on self-translation: "Bilingualisme d'écriture et auto-traduction: Julien Green, Samuel Beckett, Vladimir Nabokov"

18th March at 10 a.m.

Bibliothèque Universitaire : Salle des doctorants
Université de Paris 8
2, rue de la Liberté
93526 Saint-Denis

For more information: http://te-doctorants.blogspot.com/2010/03/conference-michael-oustinoff-18-mars.html

Conference on self-translation in Belgium

From 16th to 19th february Prof. Grutman will discuss multilingualism in literature and self-translation with graduate students. The conference language is French. It will take place in Ghent and Leuven.

Here is the schedule:

Mardi 16 février 2010 - Gand

• 10h-13h: “Le plurilinguisme et la traduction dans la galaxie des langues
• 14h-17h: présentations par les doctorants
  

Mercredi 17 février 2010 - Gand

• 10h-13h: “Traduire le plurilinguisme: défis, solutions, compromis”

Jeudi 18 février 2010 - Louvain

• 10h-13h: “L'autotraduction, une arme à double tranchant”
• 14h-17h: tutorat
• Conférence de clôture

Vendredi 19 février 2010 - Louvain

• 10h-12h: “Writing and Reading Diglossia”

For more information: http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/events/Documents/20100216-19_Plurilinguisme,%20traduction%20et%20autotraduction.pdf

Michael Idov about his self-translation

And interesting insight in how an author feels about self-translation gives a blog entry by the writer Michael Idov. He has self-translated his novel Ground Up which was also his first self-translation: http://jewishbooks.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/the-act-of-self-translation/

Remembering Raymond Federman

Truly sad news: Raymond Federman died yesterday after a long fight against cancer.
I was blessed to get in touch with him during my research for my diploma thesis. He was so kind to answer several questions concerning his self-translations. I also had the chance to meet him in person at a lecture in Berlin last year. He was so vivid and engaging and generous. That's how I will remember him. The world has lost another great writer. He will truly be missed. My deepest sympathy to his family.

"Language vanishes into death, and death vanishes into silence. Or is it, death that vanishes into language, and language into silence?" (Reflections on ways to improve death)
Read the whole text on:
http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/ezines/deluxe/five/reflections.html

Get to know him:
http://raymondfederman.blogspot.com/

People who had the chance to get to know him share their memories:
http://rougelarsenrose.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman.html
http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman-rip.html
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/#10-07-09
http://mrvicedhonest.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/raymond-federman-1928-2009/
http://rhystranter.blogspot.com/2009/10/raymond-federman-1928-2009.html
http://cameliaelias.blogspot.com/2009/10/federman-dies.html

Journals on Federman passing away:
Buffalo News
Público

New issue of Quaderns focuses on self-translation

The new issue of the Spanish translation journal Quaderns.Revista de traducció (number 16) focuses on self-translation. Here is an overview about the articles relating to our subject:

Dossier. L’autotraducció

p. 107-122 Helena Tanqueiro, Patricia López L.-Gay, Francesc Parcerisas
(Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació): Translating, self-translating, being translated. A lecture series on literary translation at NYU in Paris.

p. 123-134 Rainier Grutman (Universitat d’Ottawa. Facultat d’Art. Escola de Traducció i d’Interpretació) : La autotraducción en la galaxia de las lenguas.

p. 135-142 Valentina Mercuri (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació): Autotraducción, libertad de autor y mediación cultural: El caso del italiano Carlo Coccioli.

p. 143-156 Xosé Manuel Dasilva (Universidade de Vigo. Facultade de Filoloxía e Traducción) Autotraducirse en Galicia: ¿bilingüismo o diglosia?

p. 157-164 Patricia López López-Gay (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Facultat de Traducció i d’Interpretació - New York University) Conversación con Jorge Semprún. Sobre autotraducción. De los recuerdos y sus formas de reescritura.

p. 165-168 Muguras Constantinescu (Universitatea «Stefan cel Mare» Suceava. Facultatea de Litere si Stiinte ale Comunicarii) Irina Mavrodin sur l’autotraduction.

The issue is not yet available online, but I hope this will change soon:
http://ddd.uab.es/record/40

New research on Nancy Huston

The recent grown interest in self-translation is also reflected by the publication of several articles and book contributions this year which discuss self-translation issues by Nancy Huston:

Brownlie, Siobhan (2009): Translation and the Fantastic: Nancy Huston's Instruments des ténèbres French Forum 34:1, Winter 2009, pp. 67-83

Chatzidimitriou, Ioanna (2009): Self-Translation as Minorization Process: Nancy Huston's Limbes/Limbo. In: SubStance 38:2 , pp. 22-42.

Shread, Carolyn (2009): Redefining Translation through Self-Translation: The Case of Nancy Huston. In: French Literature Series 36, pp. 51–61.

Sigrist, Ilona (2009): The Stakes of Self-Translation as Authorship in Nancy Huston’s Dolce Agonia and Instruments des ténèbres. In: A. Fidecaro, H. Partzsch, S. van Dijk et V. Cossy (éds.): Femmes écrivains à la croisée des langues, 1700-2000, pp.199-212.

Francesca Duranti

In a recently published article on the Italian writer Francesca Duranti, Rita Wilson analyzes how self-translation becomes an integral part of the creation process of her work. In the short presentation of previous works by Duranti, it becomes clear that literary translation is a main concern for the writer as it is also one of the main themes of her literary oeuvre.
The translation of Sogni mancini (1996) into his English version Left-handed Dreams (2000) was the first time Duranti chose to self-translate one of her works: "Duranti, the writer as translator, draws on her own experience as a migrant from one culture (Italian) to another (North American) to reflect on what it means to be ‘translated’ both geographically and textually." (p.191). Wilson considers Duranti to be a "semi-expatriate" (Wilson, p. 187), because she lives only part of the year in New York. "Living and writing between two different cultures" (p.188) such became an important stimulus for her literary work. Because of various elements of hypertextuality in her work, "each version of a novel enters into secret dialogue with the others." (p. 190) This is of course also the case with the two versions of Sogni mancini: "both versions function simultaneously as hypotext and hypertext. Neither can be pointed to as the original one, or they both can" (p. 190).

For further reading:
Wilson, Rita (2009): The Writer's Double. Translation, Writing, and Autobiography. In: Romance Studies 27:3, p. 186–198.

Daniel Gagnon

Daniel Gagnon is a Canadian writer, who self-translated two of his books and wrote a few articles about this experience. His first language is French, his two literary languages are French and English. His two self-translations are The Marriageable Daughter/La Fille à marier and My Husband the Doctor/Mon Mari le docteur, both originally written in English, and then translated by the author into French. How the publication orders influences the perception of the original/translation is well illustrated by these two books, as Gagnon states:

Since French is my mother tonge, and publication of the French text preceded that of the English original, both translations, La Fille à marier and Mon Mari le docteur, were received in Quebec as original texts [...] (Gagnon 2006b, p. 46)

This perception was even intended by the publisher despite the wishes of the author:

In the case of The Marriageable Daughter, the French translation appeared first, as if it were the original. The English original was published four years later in Coach House's Translation series, under the banner, "Translated by the author", despite my efforts to have it recognized as the original text. (Gagnon 2006a, p. 125)

This example illustrates why research on self-translation can not just rely on the publication indications. In most cases self-translations are not even indicated, and if they are indicated this might be a wrong track as seen above. Another problem occurs if one version is not even published as it is the case with the English original My Husband the Doctor.

For further reading:

Gagnon, Daniel (2006a): Bilingual translation/writing as intercultural communication. In: A. Pym u.a. (ED.): Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting. Amsterdam, S. 117–127.

Gagnon, Daniel (2006b): Cross-writing and Self-translating. One Canadian/Québec Experience. In: Madelena Gonzalez et Francine Tolron (eds.): L'identité de la traduction et la traduction de l'identité. Cambridge Scholars Press, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, p. 46–59.

Gagnon, Daniel (2007): Les mots du Doctor Hat. In: Louis Jolicoeur (ed.): Traduction et enjeux identitaires dans le contexte des Amériques. Culture française d'Amérique. Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, p. 165 –176

Tschingis Aitmatov

Tschingis Aitmatov (1928-2008) had - like Beckett and Brink - two literary languages. He has written his books in his first language Kirghiz and in Russian. First he wrote in Khirgiz and translated his works into Russian. Later he decided to write them first in Russian so they could get translated faster in other languages, but he still tried to continue self-translation now in the other direction (Russian > Kirghiz):

Unfortunately, the language in which I write is not always my own decision, but is often a matter of circumstance. I often write in Russian now, because it is in my interests to do so; books get published and disseminated faster, and are also translated more quickly into other languages. Time is short, so I take the quickest way. I make a point, though, of at least trying to translate my own work into Kirghiz-though it is not always possible to do so. (Aitmatov, 1990:197)

For further reading:
Aitmatov, Chingiz (1990): Voice from the Republics. An Interview. In: Third World Quarterly 12: 1, p. 194–200.