Akoya's Marketing and Publicity Director, Ruth Waldram, sat down with Chris Andrews to discuss his translation of Liliana Colanzi's short story collection You Glow in the Dark, and the importance of reading literature in translation.

 

How did you get into translating?

When I was a postgraduate student, or maybe even an undergraduate student, I thought I would like to get into literary translation. But it took me a long time as it was hard to get a translation contract, especially in Australia, since very little literary translation was commissioned. I began with two non-fiction books, more specifically travel narratives. The first was by Luis Sepúlveda, a Chilean writer, about travels through South America called Full Circle: A South American Journey. The other was by Ana Briongos, a Catalan woman who wrote a lovely book about Iran – where she lived and studied both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution – called Black on Black: Iran Revisited. Then, in 2001, I came to London and bothered some publishers who were commissioning translations. I had a stroke of luck as one of the people I was bothering was Christopher MacLehose, the publisher at Harvill Secker, who had acquired the rights to By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño. There was already a translator lined up but for some reason they could no longer do the work, so they asked me for a sample as I had read and chatted about Bolaño and, in the end, I got the opportunity to translate By Night in Chile. A lot of the work I have undertaken since then has been a result of that lucky break. 

 

How long did it take you to translate You Glow in the Dark and what was your process for translating this book? 

I can’t remember exactly how long it took me to translate You Glow in the Dark. I am fairly slow in general when it comes to translation and my process is to do many drafts, it's the same for most translators. Generally, I find that the first draft takes me less than half of the total time that I will spend translating, and the second draft seems to take almost as long as the first. After that, the process seems to speed up a little bit. The process in the case of You Glow in the Dark involved a lot of communication with Liliana. She read the whole translation before I sent it to New Directions for editing which was great as she pointed out a couple of things that really improved the translation. It was a dream working with Liliana. 

 

Following on from that, how do you usually like to work with authors during the translation process? 

It depends a lot on the author as to the manner in which I work with them. Before he passed away, I actually got to ask Bolaño some questions when translating his works. He did not read the translations but I had lists of questions for him – much like I did with Liliana – and his answers were very interesting as he would sometimes get rather carried away when answering a query. For example, in his explanation of the meaning of a particular sentence, Bolaño would often add more sentences that you could easily have slipped back into the original text to expand it. His answers were in the same style as his writing, rather than being ‘what I meant was…’ answers. That was fascinating from a critical insight point of view. With César Aira, one of the other authors that I translate a lot, I often send him questions and he’s very helpful as he’s a translator himself, so that’s been a really good relationship. 

 

What was the last great translation that you read which you would encourage people to read?

The book that comes to mind immediately, although it is not that recent, is Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag (Faber & Faber, 2015). The novel is translated from Kannada, an Indian language, by Srinath Perur, and the translation is simply outstanding. I only read the novel a few years ago and it was a wonderful reading experience. 

 

Why do you think it is important to read translated literature? 

I met a writer recently who does not read anything in translation as he feels translations cannot be trusted, but I think it is so important to read in translation. It is vital. We live in a world where there are so many languages which view and articulate life in ways that are significantly different from one another. We are shrinking and impoverishing our worldview if we only read in our mother tongue and shy away from reading in translation. Equally, although it is great to learn and read in other languages, a person is only ever going to be able to know a small number of the world's languages, even if you devote your life to language learning. As such, it is so encouraging that the number of translated titles is growing steadily and that the range of languages from which we are translating is growing as well. It is also great that new publishing houses, like Akoya and many others in Britain, the United States and Australia, are actively commissioning translations to widen the range of books available to readers in the English-speaking countries.

 

If you could learn another language – although I am aware you already know Spanish and French – which would you like to learn? 

There are so many languages that I would love to learn. I am currently learning Persian – mainly spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan – which is a great pleasure. But I will admit it is a lot harder to learn at my age than when you are in your twenties. If I had a magic wand, however, I would love to learn Chinese.  

 

Why do you think it is important to read translated literature?

I met a writer recently who does not read anything in translation as he feels translations cannot be trusted, but I think it is so important to read in translation. It is vital. We live in a world where there are so many languages which view and articulate life in ways that are significantly different from one another. We are shrinking and impoverishing our worldview if we only read in our mother tongue and shy away from reading in translation. Equally, although it is great to learn and read in other languages, a person is only ever going to be able to know a small number of the world's languages, even if you devote your life to language learning. As such, it is so encouraging that the number of translated titles is growing steadily and that the range of languages from which we are translating is growing as well. It is also great that new publishing houses, like Akoya and many others in Britain, the United States and Australia, are actively commissioning translations to widen the range of books available to readers in the English-speaking countries.