Welcome to this week's French Friday !
This is the second part of a special series of interviews with my friend Laure. To read my introduction post, the first interview and to discover Laure's blogs, hop off to last week's French Friday !
The interview will be divided in three French Fridays :
2. On Being a Translator
3. On Being an Interpreter
Today you will learn more about being a translator ! Enjoy !
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m a performing artist whose love of books have always been stronger than her love of the stage. I started reading when I was 5 and never stopped, right up to the point when I finally got paid for it. I’ve been working as a reader for Hachette Jeunesse (French side of Little Brown YA) for 6 years now, and just started as a translator for them last year. I still dance on the side, but it is more out of passion than need for income, which suits me just fine.
As a child, I grew up in a castle, could control my dreams in my sleep and knew how to fly when the wind was just right. As an adult, I love words, am obsessed with truth, and make a mean chocolate cake.
As a child, I grew up in a castle, could control my dreams in my sleep and knew how to fly when the wind was just right. As an adult, I love words, am obsessed with truth, and make a mean chocolate cake.
On Being a Translator
Thank you Laure for answering my questions!
Next week she'll be talking about her experience as an interpreter... Stay tuned!
What do you do as a translator?
Hum… I try to magically transform a book to make it totally similar to the original despite being in a totally different language.
What do you like the most?
The challenge! And the responsibility… I like finding an idea for an untranslatable word or concept. It is very stimulating and forces me to work on my French (reading only English for 6 years has wreaked havoc with my French writing). I like the idea that I’m starting a new career, something I can get really good at in time. And of course, I like the fact that I am totally free to organize my time as I see fit (even if it sometimes means 14h straight in front of the computer or 3h sleep in the night!).
What is the biggest difficulty?
Staying faithful to the text while disassociating from it at the same time. You’ve got to maintain the perfect balance between wanting to translate everything word for word and straying far, far away from the original. For this, some days are better than others, and I couldn’t tell you why. Also, what’s difficult is that after a while you get stuck on the English and French words elude you. You (I!) have to take breaks regularly, otherwise my translation gets too literal. Also, I personally need at least 2 weeks between the moment where I translate a chapter and the moment where I go back to it and edit it… and that can make staying on deadline difficult!
How is your first novel’s translation going?
Not too bad so far… A little slow maybe, which probably means that August will be hectic… But it is a relief to be working on one big project instead of lots of different small ones. Less distracting. And of course it is delightful to be translating literature instead of just facts, as it adds a notion of creativity into the process. It is very much like re-writing the book.
Thank you Laure for answering my questions!
Next week she'll be talking about her experience as an interpreter... Stay tuned!
Awesome picture :)
ReplyDeleteWow! That is fascinating. I am so interested in the work of translators. It must be such a huge responsibility to transform a writer's masterpiece into another language and still keep it so masterpieceish. Wow!
ReplyDeleteHey! Thanks people! ;)
ReplyDelete