On the Other Side of the Language Divide (or How to Reinvent Stories for the English-speaking World)

It is a singular thing to see one’s writing entering new worlds and contexts in different languages. Part of the excitement, of course, lies in anticipating the kinds of responses and angles and dimensions that may be added by readers who bring to one’s work other sets of experiences and reading histories than the original readers.

(Finding the Words.)

Not everyone is so optimistic about this process. A South African academic in the UK, Carli Coetzee, once wrote about how the net flow of literary translation tends to be in one direction—towards metropoles in the north, and for English-speaking audiences. She pointed out that, given the history of Western involvement in Africa, writers who write in African languages may even want to interrupt that flow—withholding access to cultural goods, keeping their books for themselves. Or at least forcing those who want access to their writing to learn their language. An interesting idea, politically. But, for an author, not necessarily a practical approach. And although there are a few talented authors who insist on writing for themselves and their friends only—who may even write a novel for a single individual!—most authors want to maximize their readership.

This especially tends to be the case if one hails from the southern hemisphere, and from a country like South Africa where, despite there being a dedicated and loyal community of local fiction readers, that readership is small. Traditionally, writers in the northern hemisphere have written as if they are speaking in a nation-sized room. They could quite safely assume that they are primarily addressing their compatriots. Readers outside those countries, particularly ones emanating from the Global South and writing in small cultural or language communities, have always tended to be much more aware that they are also addressing an international audience.

I lived and worked in New York and London for a large part of my life, in a professional sphere far removed from writing literary fiction—working as a corporate lawyer—and then returned to South Africa to write fiction in Afrikaans. Here I found an appreciative and supportive local readership. Finding publishers outside South Africa who are interested in—and adept at—publishing translated fiction can however be challenging. The very issue of lives that are both global and hyperlocal, and of moving between languages, as well as the concomitant dislocation, is, ironically, one of my themes. 

My stories are restless in their shifts between settings, and none of my books is set in a single country. Fathers and Fugitives, for instance, veers between the bleakly beautiful rural heartland of South Africa, London, and Tokyo. It is great that my new novel has ended up in the hands of Europa Editions, who are more skilled—and braver—than most publishers at publishing translated fiction that is both compelling and pioneering, books that work on both a commercial and literary level.

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My first book, The Alphabet of Birds, was initially published in Afrikaans, and then, after enjoying success, was translated into English by myself. My next two books, The Third Reel and Mad Honey, were written in Afrikaans, translated into English by me and then simultaneously published in both languages. My own English translations, also published in the UK, subsequently served as the source for translation into other languages. Although self-translation had previously given me maximum control, I thought it might be interesting to experiment with third-party translation with my new novel—and US debut—Fathers and Fugitives. 

A fellow South African novelist and experienced translator, Michiel Heyns, did the translation. Another South African novelist, Henrietta Rose-Innes, did the copy editing. I was closely involved too; I found it a little hard to let go. This cooperation ultimately resulted in a tight, muscular translation that really does the original text justice. Literary translation is always, even when the text is quite faithful to the original, a job that requires imagination and creative thinking, as well as practical problem-solving. I think the problems here were solved elegantly, and a good balance of fidelity versus creative freedom was achieved.

There are, of course, strategic decisions to be made in every literary translation. One can either stay as faithful as possible to the original text, keeping the language close to the source language (rendering it strange) and avoiding elaboration on culturally complex concepts. On the other end of the spectrum, the translation can be made to sound as if it was written in the target language, and can elucidate culturally specific references. In the first instance, there is greater fidelity to the original, and more work is required from the reader, whereas the second approach entails greater freedom and a smoother text.

The ubiquity of literary translation into English has affected how some authors write in other languages. There are contemporary authors writing in European languages who anticipate such translation, and then genericise their language from the outset to render it translation-ready. The risk of this approach is that linguistic richness may be lost in the original. I prefer an approach that ignores the future translation of the book, flexing the muscles of the language optimally.

Whereas a novel requires consistency, I’ve previously sometimes followed different strategies for stories in the same collection—depending on the style of the original, some stories demanded a more direct translation, whereas others required a freer approach. On the whole, perhaps because I spent a large part of my life living in English in New York and London, my own translations are quite smooth, yielding a text that feels as if it was written in English. Except where essential for understanding, I tend not to elucidate cultural concepts too much; one should trust readers to figure out references within the context of the story. What you should never do, is underestimate or patronize your reader.

Ultimately, notwithstanding the various gains and losses that may result from translation, what is important is that the reader’s experience of the various cumulative effects of the text should remain comparable in different languages.

And now that the translation of Fathers and Fugitives will give it a new life in the English-speaking world, I am relieved to give the book a little push, like a kid’s go-kart, and watch it gain speed and meaning.