A couple of years ago, at an online event about breaking into literary translation, the Q&A went off the rails for a reason I found wildly amusing. An attendee asked about “finding the right balance between literary and commercial translation.” The panelists then spoke about “finding the right balance between literary and commercial translation.” But the question and the answer did not match up.
Here's what happened. The panelists were academics, and their only translation experience was in the publishing world, which tends to categorize fiction as either “literary” (the sort of writing that might win a Pulitzer or Booker Prize) or “commercial” (the type of book you might buy at the airport). (These terms, incidentally, are vague, and there’s plenty of room for overlap.) So the panelists, reasonably enough, started talking about the relative value of translating a future Nobel laureate versus a prolific writer of romance or crime fiction.
But the person who asked the question earns most of their income from “commercial translation,” a term that has—you guessed it—multiple definitions. At its core, their question was about opportunity cost. They wanted advice about balancing time spent marketing their freelance translation business with time spent working on spec as an emerging literary translator. That’s an important question, although not one those particular panelists could answer from experience. And the use of the same terms in related fields but with different meanings caused confusion for everyone involved.
As I mentioned back in June, there is some overlap in the terms literary and commercial as they apply to translation, even without getting the publishing industry’s debatable categorizations of fiction involved. Let’s say you’re translating a nonfiction book in which a successful professional offers advice about career development or work-life balance. Is this project literary (because it’s a book) or commercial (because it’s about careers)? There’s an argument to be made that this hypothetical project leans commercial; it’s a mix of informative and persuasive writing, and it wouldn’t exactly qualify as creative nonfiction (although—brace yourselves for a shock here—that’s yet another term with a slippery definition). At the same time, though, this project requires the translator to recreate the specificity of an individual author’s voice in the target language, so it calls upon skills we more closely associate with literary translation.
I currently find myself in the position of defining these terms for purposes of a presentation I plan to give next month (more on that below). I made a brief attempt at using a Venn diagram to illustrate the concepts, but I just couldn’t make it work. I mean, if the lines are all squiggly, can you even call it a Venn diagram?
Self-Promotion Corner
As mentioned above, I’ll be presenting a session titled “First Steps in Literary Translation” at the annual conference of the Midwest Association of Translators & Interpreters on September 30 in Indianapolis. If you’re in the general vicinity and would like to spend International Translation Day in good company, check the MATI website for registration info (coming soon).
Looking a bit further ahead, I’m excited about the following events later this fall and winter:
· At ATA64, I’ll be speaking on Saturday afternoon on “Resources and Strategies for Translators of Historical Texts,” and you can generally find me hanging around at Literary Division events.
· If you’re registering for ALTA46, I hope you’ll consider joining the roundtable “Translating from ‘More Foreign’ Languages,” which I’m co-organizing with Lola Rogers and Subhashree Beeman. I’ll be sharing examples of translations from Irish into English, and I’m excited to learn from translators of languages with which I’m not familiar. I also look forward to sharing an excerpt from my translation of Prosper Mérimée’s Songs for the Gusle at one of the bilingual readings.
· Finally, I’ll be at AWP24, where I’ll be joining Yermiyahu Ahron Taub and Areg Azatyan—the translator and author, respectively, of upcoming releases from Frayed Edge Press, which published my Mérimée translation earlier this year—for a panel (“My Feet, Whose Shoes? Writing and Translating ‘The Other’”) and a reading (“Writing and Translating ‘The Other’: New Fiction from Frayed Edge Press”).
If you or your friends are planning to attend any of these conferences, let me know—I’m looking forward to seeing folks in person!
A Humble Suggestion
In each newsletter, I’ll offer at least one recommendation for your reading, watching, or listening pleasure. This time around: two great new films—one sublime and the other ridiculous—that might have slipped beneath your radar.
I love everything about Past Lives. I love the understated treatment of its melodramatic-sounding premise. I love the lead performance by Greta Lee (whom you may recognize as Maxine from Russian Doll). I love the depiction of bilingual characters naturally switching between languages. This is a devastatingly beautiful film. It’s available now for digital purchase on several platforms, and it should be streaming by the end of the year.
If you’re dehydrated from crying through Past Lives and could use a goofy pick-me-up, Theater Camp might be just the ticket. It’s a mock documentary about a New York State summer camp (the ingeniously named AdirondACTS) and its quirky staff members, most of whom are blissfully unaware that the place is teetering on the brink of financial ruin. It is still playing in some theaters and will be on Hulu as of September 14.
Here, Look at My Cats
The world is a mess, and you might welcome a pleasant distraction. For what it’s worth, here are my cats.
Until next time, wishing you all the best in your literary and/or commercial pursuits.
Laura