Adventures in Literary Translation, Part 1
I signed up to Casa Guilherme de Almeida’s esteemed literary translation programme, Programa Formativo para Tradutores Literários, on Tuesday 12th March 2024. Three weeks later, I e-mailed them to request a full refund.
‘That’s fine,’ they said. ‘But may we know the reason?’
‘I thought the course would have about 30 people. There’s over 100.’
It was the first time since the pandemic that Casa Guilherme de Almeida offered their 6-month course fully online. ‘Maybe they got a little too excited with the amount of money they’d make,’ someone suggested in the students-only WhatsApp group we’d set up.
Classes were held twice a week on Google Meet, plus workshops on Saturdays. The programme’s professors were academics at the top of their game, who’d translated Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and others into Brazilian Portuguese. During classes, one hundred little windows opened up across Brazil, North America and Europe, Google Meet’s chat box on fire with student questions and comments. One professor confessed she wouldn’t be able to look at everyone’s work; another couldn’t get through all her presentation slides, too distracted by our chatter.
Dissent grew in the WhatsApp group: ‘six months of lectures and most students won’t be able to get a word in!’ We all agreed, though, that the professors were lovely.
It was an unusually warm day for London exactly seven years before, on Saturday 17th March 2017. Spring buds had appeared early on trees. I found myself in West London with my then boyfriend Kevin, sitting in the Society of Authors’ offices. We had tickets for an event, “Getting Started in Translation”. Each ticket cost 5 quid.
Young admin staff moved about, checking people in and rearranging chairs in the main room. These bespectacled, cardigan-wearing types reminded me of my own previous career in the arts: badly paid but satisfied with the proximity the work brought to events and writers.
There were maybe 30 people in attendance. The event’s Chair interviewed two literary translators on their careers, how they got started and what tips they could share with us on following this path.
I raised my hand during Q&A with a question about bringing Brazilian literature into the UK market. The Chair gave me a tentative response, then she turned to Kevin and asked if he was also a translator.
‘No, I’m here with him.’
‘Did you bring him for moral support?’ The Chair asked me with a smile.
Gentle laughter rippled through the room and my face grew warm.
Two other memories stick in my mind from that event.
The first was the talk with a Russian literary translator who got roped into her career by accident, by a friend who had too many projects on the go and needed help. She agreed to translate a Russian novel for him, and soon more work followed.
She told us that she now lived a nomadic life, with no fixed abode. One month she might be translating a novel while housesitting in Malta, the next month completing her project in Turkey. I found it romantic and daydreamed of being a globetrotting house sitter, with a trusty laptop under one arm and a suitcase under the other. Surely my experience of cat sitting for friends would come in handy.
The second memory relates to how translators pitch to publishers.
Someone in the audience asked if publishers were open to translators bringing them book suggestions. The Chair answered that yes, it was definitely a route, though the risk was that the publisher might love your idea and then commission someone else to do the translation, and there’d be nothing you could do about it. It happened often.
More often than not, it came down to money. Was the translation interesting enough for the market? Would it sell? Was there an appetite for that book or author?
With my literary translation studies now on pause until next year, I’m back to studying on my own.
I’ve been reading at night Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. One of the main characters is a gay man who cares for an invalid elderly woman in a small town, and who translates ancient Greek literature as a hobby.
(The universe sometimes hits you right on the nose.)
I also dip into Viver e traduzir by Argentinian poet and literary translator, Laura Wittner. It’s a short memoir about her career, mixed with anecdotes about the Argentinian publishing industry and quotes from other translators. I have another book by Wittner waiting for me, her poetry collection Tradução da estrada, as well as the French and Brazilian Portuguese editions of Milan Kundera’s L’identité, to be read side-by-side.
I think from time to time about Casa Guilherme de Almeida’s course and if the classes have improved.
Before I left the WhatsApp group, I posted that it was a pleasure to have met them, though briefly, and that I had a guesthouse in Minas Gerais which they were welcome to visit any time. I even offered mates rates.
‘We can talk about literature, and you can share with me gossip about the course.’
The course had as its main objective to “mobilise a reflection on what is literary translation”. A few quotes from the Google Meet classes have survived on the first page of my notebook:
“The translator is a special reader.” - Alzira Allegro
And,
“A good literary translator is created through life.” - Simone Homem de Mello
This post was also published on Substack and includes over there an audio of myself reading the text.
‘That’s fine,’ they said. ‘But may we know the reason?’
‘I thought the course would have about 30 people. There’s over 100.’
It was the first time since the pandemic that Casa Guilherme de Almeida offered their 6-month course fully online. ‘Maybe they got a little too excited with the amount of money they’d make,’ someone suggested in the students-only WhatsApp group we’d set up.
Classes were held twice a week on Google Meet, plus workshops on Saturdays. The programme’s professors were academics at the top of their game, who’d translated Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, and others into Brazilian Portuguese. During classes, one hundred little windows opened up across Brazil, North America and Europe, Google Meet’s chat box on fire with student questions and comments. One professor confessed she wouldn’t be able to look at everyone’s work; another couldn’t get through all her presentation slides, too distracted by our chatter.
Dissent grew in the WhatsApp group: ‘six months of lectures and most students won’t be able to get a word in!’ We all agreed, though, that the professors were lovely.
It was an unusually warm day for London exactly seven years before, on Saturday 17th March 2017. Spring buds had appeared early on trees. I found myself in West London with my then boyfriend Kevin, sitting in the Society of Authors’ offices. We had tickets for an event, “Getting Started in Translation”. Each ticket cost 5 quid.
Young admin staff moved about, checking people in and rearranging chairs in the main room. These bespectacled, cardigan-wearing types reminded me of my own previous career in the arts: badly paid but satisfied with the proximity the work brought to events and writers.
There were maybe 30 people in attendance. The event’s Chair interviewed two literary translators on their careers, how they got started and what tips they could share with us on following this path.
I raised my hand during Q&A with a question about bringing Brazilian literature into the UK market. The Chair gave me a tentative response, then she turned to Kevin and asked if he was also a translator.
‘No, I’m here with him.’
‘Did you bring him for moral support?’ The Chair asked me with a smile.
Gentle laughter rippled through the room and my face grew warm.
Two other memories stick in my mind from that event.
The first was the talk with a Russian literary translator who got roped into her career by accident, by a friend who had too many projects on the go and needed help. She agreed to translate a Russian novel for him, and soon more work followed.
She told us that she now lived a nomadic life, with no fixed abode. One month she might be translating a novel while housesitting in Malta, the next month completing her project in Turkey. I found it romantic and daydreamed of being a globetrotting house sitter, with a trusty laptop under one arm and a suitcase under the other. Surely my experience of cat sitting for friends would come in handy.
The second memory relates to how translators pitch to publishers.
Someone in the audience asked if publishers were open to translators bringing them book suggestions. The Chair answered that yes, it was definitely a route, though the risk was that the publisher might love your idea and then commission someone else to do the translation, and there’d be nothing you could do about it. It happened often.
More often than not, it came down to money. Was the translation interesting enough for the market? Would it sell? Was there an appetite for that book or author?
With my literary translation studies now on pause until next year, I’m back to studying on my own.
I’ve been reading at night Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. One of the main characters is a gay man who cares for an invalid elderly woman in a small town, and who translates ancient Greek literature as a hobby.
(The universe sometimes hits you right on the nose.)
I also dip into Viver e traduzir by Argentinian poet and literary translator, Laura Wittner. It’s a short memoir about her career, mixed with anecdotes about the Argentinian publishing industry and quotes from other translators. I have another book by Wittner waiting for me, her poetry collection Tradução da estrada, as well as the French and Brazilian Portuguese editions of Milan Kundera’s L’identité, to be read side-by-side.
I think from time to time about Casa Guilherme de Almeida’s course and if the classes have improved.
Before I left the WhatsApp group, I posted that it was a pleasure to have met them, though briefly, and that I had a guesthouse in Minas Gerais which they were welcome to visit any time. I even offered mates rates.
‘We can talk about literature, and you can share with me gossip about the course.’
The course had as its main objective to “mobilise a reflection on what is literary translation”. A few quotes from the Google Meet classes have survived on the first page of my notebook:
“The translator is a special reader.” - Alzira Allegro
And,
“A good literary translator is created through life.” - Simone Homem de Mello
This post was also published on Substack and includes over there an audio of myself reading the text.