International Translators' Day | Dia Internacional do Tradutor

(by wordle)

Happy Translators' Day everyone! I know there's a lot of complaining about this profession, but I always like to take the positive point of view. As a "gift" to translators, I've compiled a few translation quotes, but only optimistic or at least funny ones (left Umberto Eco out :-).

"Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament." Milan Kundera

"Say what we may of the inadequacy of translation, yet the work is and will always be one of the weightiest and worthiest undertakings in the general concerns of the world." J. W. Goethe

"Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture." Anthony Burgess

"Translation quality assessment proceeds according to the lordly, completely unexplained, whimsy of 'It doesn’t sound right'". Peter Fawcett

"Translators live off the differences between languages, all the while working toward eliminating them."
Edmond Cary
(from Translating is an Art)

"The secret to becoming a good and insightful translator is to think, think, and think some more. Then research, analyze, read, and never ever lose your sense of humor." Pimpi Coggins
(from Translation Journal)

“The best translators slip into the glove of a text and then turn it inside out into another language, and the whole thing comes out looking like a brand-new glove again. I'm completely in awe of this skill, since I happen to be both bilingual and a writer, but nevertheless a lousy translator."Alma Guillermoprieto

"I hope to finish the book before I'm 90. It keeps you alive. The secret of being a translator is not to be in a hurry. Sometimes it takes hours to find a single word.” Dr. Leonard Rosenman
(from Think Exist)

"The translator's task is to create, in his or her own language, the same tensions appearing in the original. That's hard!" Manuel Puig

"By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow." Brian Ferneyhough
(from Brainy Quote)
 
To learn more about the International Translators' Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Translation_Day

Translation Journal

The October (and 50th!) issue of Translation Journal is online with lots of interesting articles. One of the them is written by Brazilian translator Danilo Nogueira, whose blog Tradutor Profissional is a reference for all translators in Brazil, and co-authored by Kelli Semolini. It also features the profile of translator Pimpi Coggins. I really like one of the things she says right before she starts writing about her life as a translator: "The secret to becoming a good and insightful translator is to think, think, and think some more. Then research, analyze, read, and never ever lose your sense of humor." I love this and couldn't agree more. There are times when I think I'm spending too long thinking about one specific sentence, for example. But the result always pays off. And sense of humour: well, that really is essential! Enjoy your reading: http://www.translationjournal.net/journal/index.html.

(An addition to the post: Make sure you check the journal's complete table of contents from 1997 to 2009:  http://www.translationjournal.net/journal/toc.htm#profile)

Tip for the weekend 2 | Dica para o fim de semana 2

My second tip (first one below) for the weekend is to check two websites "for book lovers", which I've learned about via twitter (@costurandolivro):

Book Autopsies, where "Brian Dettmer carves into books revealing the artwork inside, creating complex layered three-dimensional sculptures." The results are amazing, like this one:

The "Silence of the Books": A collection of images (paintings, photos) of people reading. Love this one:

Enjoy and have fun!

Tip for the weekend 1 | Dica para o fim de semana 1

(Please scroll down to read in English)

Primeira dica para este fim de semana é aproveitar a Bienal do Livro que abriu ontem no Rio de Janeiro. Para quem está na cidade, vale a visita, nem que seja para ver uma parte (a área é imensa!). Mas para quem não está, é possível acompanhar ao vivo as discussões do Café Literário no blog da Bienal. E o portal G1 fez um site especial para a Bienal, onde também pode-se ver as transmissões ao vivo. São muitos convidados brasileiros e estrangeiros. Veja a programação aqui.


My first tip for the weekend is the Rio de Janeiro International Book Fair which opened yesterday. If you're in town, it's worth visiting, even if you only get to see a part of it (it's huge!). But if you're not, you can follow the discussions of the Literary Café at the fair's blog. The G1 news portal has created a special website where we can also watch the live broadcasts. Lots of Brazilian and international guests will be present. Check the agenda here.

Oficina de Tradução de Poesia | Workshop on Translation of Poetry

O site Portal Literal, entre outras coisas, tem uma seção de oficinas, onde publica as aulas de oficinas à distância já realizadas. É sempre bom ter opções on-line para quando queremos dar uma reciclada mas estamos sem tempo para aulas formais. Uma das oficinas disponíveis é a de Tradução de Poesia, com Sérgio Alcides, realizada em 2008. Todas as aulas e os exercícios traduzidos estão disponíveis aqui. As aulas têm os seguintes temas:

O que se ganha na tradução de poesia
Universalidade da poesia traduzida
Desfazer e refazer Babel
O fervor do original
A cidade estrangeira da poesia
Errar com brilho
Traduzir para adiante
O vazio entre as línguas
Traduzir, conquistar, viajar
Transcriar, ultrapassar o signo

"The original is unfaithful to the translation" | "O original não é fiel à tradução"

This is a famous translation quote by renowned author Jorge Luis Borges, who was himself a translator. His views on translation are frequently discussed by translation students (Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote is a must read). You can have access to a discussion on this topic via Google Books. I'm talking about the book Invisible Work, Borges and Translation by Efraín Kristal, which you can read online here . The book overview gives a good idea of the discussion, so I've transcribed it below:


"It is well known that Jorge Luis Borges was a translator, but this has been considered a curious minor aspect of his literary achievement. Few have been aware of the number of texts he translated, the importance he attached to this activity, or the extent to which the translated works inform his own stories and poems.

Between the age of ten, when he translated Oscar Wilde, and the end of his life, when he prepared a Spanish version of the Prose Edda , Borges transformed the work of Poe, Kafka, Hesse, Kipling, Melville, Gide, Faulkner, Whitman, Woolf, Chesterton, and many others. In a multitude of essays, lectures, and interviews Borges analyzed the versions of others and developed an engaging view about translation. He held that a translation can improve an original, that contradictory renderings of the same work can be equally valid, and that an original can be unfaithful to a translation.

Borges's bold habits as translator and his views on translation had a decisive impact on his creative process. Translation is also a recurrent motif in Borges's stories. In "The Immortal," for example, a character who has lived for many centuries regains knowledge of poems he had authored, and almost forgotten, by way of modern translations. Many of Borges's fictions include actual or imagined translations, and some of his most important characters are translators. In "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote," Borges's character is a respected Symbolist poet, but also a translator, and the narrator insists that Menard's masterpiece-his "invisible work"-adds unsuspected layers of meaning to Cervantes's Don Quixote. George Steiner cites this short story as "the most acute, most concentrated commentary anyone has offered on the business of translation."

In an age where many discussions of translation revolve around the dichotomy faithful/unfaithful, this book will surprise and delight even Borges's closest readers and critics."