Project "Just for the Hell of It"
It’s already official: I’ve gone crazy. Or at least crazier than before. :P
I’ve started translating this book with the author’s permission. We don’t know yet if it has any chance to get published in Bulgaria.
If I never get paid for this translation, so be it. I’m not motivated by the money, not this time. This is my own personal project. I’m translating this book because I want to translate it. This is one of those one-in-a-lifetime chances not only to translate a book of my own choice, but also to have the author’s cooperation. I only wish he understood Bulgarian well enough to enjoy (or dislike) what I’m doing with his creation to make it work in another language. My only fear is of failing him.
I was still at the “trying my hand at it” stage until Sunday night when the draft translation of the first two paragraphs suddenly became real, and I began gaining confidence that I can manage it. This author's style is not for amateurs to tackle, not even for inexperienced professionals. His sentences are very long, but very coherent, and they run very smoothly. It takes every trick of the trade to restructure them into functional Bulgarian of the same level, to navigate around every problem that comes from the different grammar and style requirements, and still somehow preserve the quality that bgoberon calls "poetic". I wish I had more experience specifically with literary translation, but… here I am. The opportunity is here, and the only right time is “now”.
And here is a little sample of the “poetry” for you (not one of the most difficult sentences):
Even as I descended the stairs I heard his voice, which like the rest of him was too large for those subterranean rooms, spilling out of them as if to climb back into the afternoon, the bright afternoon that, though it was October already, had nothing autumnal about it, so that the grapes that hung ripe from vines everywhere in the city burst warm still in one’s mouth.
P.S. I have the author's permission to translate the first "section" (something like a chapter) for now, as a sample to possibly show to a publisher.