Fisher and Braslavsky: Translation Affinities

Fisher and Braslavsky: Translation Affinities

Dina Famin

 

Echoing many of our other speakers, C. Francis Fisher views translation as “interpretive work that foregrounds close reading.” “If someone wants to learn French and read Mansour, they can,” she says of close-minded readers who dismiss translators’ subjective choices (both the obvious and the hidden teeth marks), because “the translation doesn’t alter the original.” While I disagree with the idea that a translation has no effect on the original’s afterlife, and think that a multitude of translations should triangulate to a three-dimensional sense of the original, I appreciate this statement because Fisher is correct: the original text (or a text of the original) is almost always present and welcoming to another reader or translator.

This emphasis on celebration of translation was very enheartening. Translation is such a closed world: both Fisher and Braslavsky are published by World Poetry Books, which was founded by Peter Constantine, who spoke in last year’s series; Jee Leong Koh, through Singapore Unbound, has featured work by Jeremy Tiang, whose lecture we listened to for a different class this semester; Alex Braslavsky is translating Suzanna Ginzcanka, who is also translated by Alissa Valles, who is close friends with one of my family’s closest friends. In a world and academic field where competition is viewed as the norm, Fisher and Braslavsky emphasized that multiple people translating a single work is an asset, that most people and organizations want to help new translators gain a foothold. It’s one thing to hear reassuring things but not be sure about how true they are. It’s another to see it in action, with both translators’ examples of entering a field amass with “heavy-hitters.”

I also really enjoyed hearing about Braslavsky’s focus on age studies and how that was partially informed through careful studies of authors’ early and late works, which are two categories that I’m particularly interested in!

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