Dutch publisher Meulenhoff had announced Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker prize, as the translator of the Joe Biden inaugural poet’s forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, last week. But the move quickly drew opprobrium. Journalist and activist Janice Deul led critics with a piece in Volkskrant asking why Meulenhoff had not chosen a translator who was, like Gorman, a “spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black”.
So the translator has to share the same identity as the translatee? The point of translation is to transcend identity, or, if that sounds bad to you, to negotiate differences in identity.
4 comments:
This all seems to follow the same line as the idea that actors have to be chosen from the groups that their characters represent. The idea, I think, is that the main beneficiary of the translation / role is the person who collects the fee. Whether the translation is any good, or the role is well-acted is secondary, because, well, who cares, it's only art, right?
The idea that the Dutch public deserves the best translator that the publisher can afford seems to pass these people by. "It's not *about* the reader," you can almost hear them say. This is where it would have been nice to be able respond tersely that poetry isn't "about" anything. But I think that would go completely over their heads.
The actor, though, literally embodies the role. I'm not saying it is right or wrong in all cases to want some sort of "realism" in casting parts. It would depend on a lot of things.
With the translator, it seem absurd because the printed page has no body. But take away the body and the backstory of her begin chosen, then Gorman's poetry pretty much dies on the page.
I agree with you that it's absurd from the point of literature. That's why I'm pretty sure this mainly about giving a paying gig to the wrong sort of person.
It's surely about paying.
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