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FEBRUARY/MARCH The Linguist 23
The closing statement posed a different
problem. Mujica ended abruptly, saying his
thanks before storming off, leaving listeners
to grapple with his parting words: Cuando
luchamos por el medio ambiente, el primer
elemento del medio ambiente se llama la
felicidad humana. Having already planted the
notion of happiness for all humanity, we
shaped this into 'If we appreciate the beauty
of nature and life itself and care for our world,
we will be able to live well as humans on this
planet.' This ties up the various ends of his
argument for reining in over-consumption to
protect the environment.
Working with pictures
The text works with Gaku Nakagawa's
illustrations to interpret Mujica's ideas. My
favourite spread is the baby in the cosmos.
Mujica's brief mention of how life passes
in a blink of an eye and how nothing is
more valuable was reorganised and
expanded to convey the sense of being
born into this world to find happiness.
This then turns straight into a picture of an
adult frantically pedalling away on the gears
of the economy, trying to escape the
menacing claws of a monster; no hint of
happiness there.
There was also some visual adaptation, as
Enchanted Lion and I identified some
problematic representations. For example,
the image of traffic had only scowling men at
the wheel. Nakagawa readily changed this to
include women driving, smiling faces and
children too. The latest editions of the
Japanese version have adopted these new
images, with the picture of the happy family
near the end symbolic of happiness for
humanity in the text.
Mujica's unifying message and humbling
view of human existence first kindled
Japanese editor Yoshimi Kusaba's desire to
share the speech with children, which in turn
sparked my desire to share his vision with
English readers. More than just a job, I
believe it contains a meaningful and
important message for posterity. As the
pandemic exposes social inequities, it is time
to talk about a system that lets us be guided
by a new approach to happiness.
This article was adapted from a presentation
for SCBWI Japan Translation Days 2020
(japan.scbwi.org).
ILLUMINATING THE TEXT
The traffic picture was amended for the translation
(main image). An urban nightscape (right) follows
the spread of a wise man atop a pile of rubbish (left),
inviting the reader to rethink the causes of poverty
