Scenes from the Life of a Translator

Opening scene: A translator is in her office, talking on the phone. She is surrounded by piles of books and papers, in a haze of smoke from the cigarette she forgot to put out earlier. She is wearing a cropped blue-green Harris tweed blazer, red lipstick, a messy updo and thick upper rim clubmaster glasses.

"Yes, I understand that translation can be very expensive for publishers,” she says, in a brisk, no-nonsense tone. “However, I do think it's important to pay translators the going rate as this is already a very precarious profession with a majority female workforce. Women, as we know, already face all manner of oppression in their lives, the pay gap being one of them, and I would expect any publishing house—in particular one dedicated to the Humanities—to do their utmost towards securing fair payment for their translators, as a matter of ethical urgency."

She slams down the receiver.

Cut to: The pajama-clad, sleep-deprived translator stops daydreaming and re-reads those exact words in an email draft response to an editor at a UK publishing house, who claims their translators—even those working on complex philosophical texts—work for just over half the going rate. She is tempted to accept the offer, since she currently has very few projects in the works and no idea how she will pay next month’s rent. Yet she knows that for the amount of time she will spend on the book, the hourly pay will come to half of minimum wage, if that.

Still, she can’t quite bring herself to hit send, and is about to re-word, for the 11^th time, the part about the “majority female workforce,” when another email comes in from a Poet she is currently translating. He is keen to meet up to discuss the project.

*                      *                      *

The relationship between author and translator can be among the most beautiful, generous, collaborative, expansive, and poetic imaginable. But this was not the case, at least at the beginning, for this particular translator. Alas, who among translators has not wanted, at least on occasion, to get into a proper argument with their author? Or to yell from the rooftops: “I don’t get paid enough for this”?

*                      *                      *

Busy café scene: Ignoring the translator’s obvious impatience, the Poet (b. 1938) begins by glossing some of his works, explaining how and in what context they emerged, and drawing the translator’s attention to certain words and phrases that he, as a one-time translator himself, thinks warrant clarification. The translator (b. 1990) incessantly clicks her retractable pen, without taking notes.

“One thing to notice in this poem,” says the Poet, “is the phrase: ‘Everything is hosted.’ The word ‘hosted’ has a divine, angelic meaning that escapes easy definition.”

The translator glances at the Poet and says, “Surely ‘hosted’ just means being housed by someone, the host … .”

“No! Think about the phrase ‘a host of angels,'” he says, and then, looking up at a damp stain in the ceiling, he lifts a hand, slowly, in a quasi-priest-like gesture, “think about a painting where the angels are so many that they blend in with the light of the sky.” The translator follows his gaze, in an attempt to understand what he is saying. He goes on: “It’s as if everything were wrapped in a heavenly embrace.”

“But there is no mention of angels, or heaven, or the sky, or anything divine or religious anywhere in the poem,” says the translator. “In this context, ‘host’ surely just means ‘many’! I think most readers would agree with me. You can’t just randomly decide the meaning of a word.”

“This poem came to me in a dream. I woke up and wrote down the whole thing from start to finish, still half asleep,” he says.

The translator does not see how this solves the issue of meaning, and attempts to reason with the Poet: “Just because the phrase ‘a host of angels’ is common, it doesn’t follow that angels come to mind whenever people read the word ‘host’. One might equally say ‘a host of problems’ or ‘a host of tennis balls’.”

“How do you say ‘a host of angels’ in Spanish?” the Poet asks.

“You don’t,” the translator says. Resisting the urge to be snarky, she explains, gently: “There is no equivalent idiomatic phrase for that in Spanish. You could say ‘un millar de serafines’ or something, but that would be saccharine. I’m not denying a set phrase might exist that I’m not familiar with…” She briefly doubts both her sanity and her own ability to communicate in the Spanish language, but then the Poet interrupts her, laying those fears to rest:

“Can you say ‘todo está millando’?”

“No, because ‘millando’ is not a word.”

The Poet is unfazed: “I like ‘millando’. Has a nice ring to it.”

Still in a daydream about angels, the Poet mutters the Spanish line to himself again.

Because the Poet “has” (in his words) Latin and French, as well as some understanding of Italian, he believes himself qualified to make suggestions about the Spanish, all of which the translator immediately rejects, only to secretly mull them over later, for days on end.

Poets sometimes ascribe meanings to words that do not fully align with their dictionary definition. This particular Poet’s ‘personal glossary’, as it were, if a little fanciful and at times infuriating, has stayed with the translator ever since. While his approach makes the work of the translator particularly difficult, it also gives her a new perspective on the art of poetry itself: how meaning can become sticky, and attach to other things in connection with one’s own emotional landscape and experiences. The word “table” may well mean vastly different things to different poets: not just an object but a collection of histories, affectivities, textures, sounds. If a single word opens up different semantic fields across various cultures (in some cultures a table has more connection to ritual and to leisurely conversations after lunches that last until evening, whereas in other cultures a table’s role is more functional, in terms of either food or a workshop space), then for poets, with their highly idiosyncratic relationship to language, these differences will be even more varied and subtle, and thus harder to carry across into another tongue.

 

*          *          *

 

The karate chops scene: After much wrestling with the texts and with the Poet’s long-winded explanations, the translator realizes that the Poet’s personal glossary gives her, in turn, the freedom to be a lot bolder in her choices, and even to bring her own personal relationship to words into her translations. With what feels like martial arts precision, she chooses a synonym that, in some contexts, does in fact make one think of angels. She mixes Northern Mexican slang with archaic Spanish terms to emulate the Poet’s use of Scots dialect, changes a whole poem to the formal form of address “usted”, and even uses the Latin scientific name of a bird that does not live in Spanish-speaking regions. Until finally, one day, suddenly overcome by a samurai-like mixture of rage and determination, she deletes a couple of seemingly key verbs, letting their absence reverberate throughout the text. And voilà, the translation is complete.

“You clever, clever lass,” the Poet replies, upon receiving the final draft. The translator rolls her eyes, but at least he is brief this time. “The translations are so well cadenced, and of course sensitive and lively too. Terrific.”

 

*          *          *

 

Closing scene: We see the translator attaching the final draft to a funding application, in the hopes that her hard work might one day pay off.

The simplest solution to a translation problem can take the longest and most circuitous path, riddled with all sorts of obstacles, and not just of the linguistic variety. All of this makes for a fascinating journey, but in a world where time is money, ‘labor of love’ seems the best way to define it. Sometimes love and hate, both.