22 The Linguist DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015
www.ciol.org.uk
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When Deborah Langton got her first full literary
translation she realised she'd have to change the rules
T
here is a Jules Feiffer cartoon of a
woman leaping excitedly around the
room, almost airborne in celebration,
shouting over and over, "I got the job! I got
the job!", only to come to land, in a pose
so apprehensive as to be almost mournful,
saying in quiet awe, "And now I've got to
do the job!"
Being awarded the contract to translate
Christoph Fromm's second novel was a joy,
as it is my first book-length work after nearly
four years of very varied translation
experience. It is a professional, and personal,
milestone. Yet moving from good, solid,
bread-and-butter commercial work of a
mostly non-literary nature to the different
challenges of a 500-page novel means taking
stock of fairly sober stuff, such as your
approach and working methods.
My early jottings to accompany the
translation show a transition in themselves.
The first day, my notebook read 'excitement,
sense of responsibility to the author, feeling of
awe in face of the task'; on day two it read
'methods, systems'. I had been translating
literary extracts, writing reader reports and
pitching suitable books to publishers in a
small way since completing the DipTrans in
2011, at first while also teaching/lecturing at
the LMU Munich full-time. But more than that,
I had been translating commercially, learning
the craft and getting established.
I attended the summer 2011 Emerging
Translators Programme run by Charlotte
Ryland, Editor at New Books in German; the
2013 residential Summer School at the British
Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT), where I
was fortunate to be in Katy Derbyshire's
group; and the 2013 London Review of
Books (LRB) masterclasses. An ongoing
support and source of information is the
Emerging Translators Network (ETN), as well
as individual colleagues from the ETN,
Summer School and LMU. So, while my
background had, by design, prepared me
linguistically for the work, what I needed to
review were my working methods and
systems in order to manage the change.
From short hop to long-haul
It's a privilege to have the chance to 'do a
book'. You may have heard that only 3% of
published books in the UK and Ireland are
translated works. Although the Literature
Across Frontiers (LAF) report
1
indicates that
the figure is 'consistently greater than 4%',
that's still small. Knowing you've succeeded,
or are starting to succeed, in literary
translation therefore gives a sense of good
fortune, which combines with your own
enthusiasm to drive you forward – even when
the novel is on a very difficult topic (in my
case, events in Stalingrad 1942).
My non-literary commercial work is often a
five-day turnaround or faster, and comes in at
short notice. If you thrive on deadlines, it is a
great way of working. My new project spans
six months from commission to submission;
then there will be a further three months
before it appears in English: March 2015.
At the time of agreeing the contract, the
publisher/author and I also agreed some
interim submission dates. The novel is 500
pages and I am submitting in four chunks,
each of more or less the same length. As I
write, the first has already been submitted.
As you read, I will have completed the
second. This means there are four weeks for
each new translation, during which I gather
any queries for the author into one little
'bundle', so there is no irritating to-ing and
fro-ing for him.
Page, screen or multiscreens?
There were all sorts of operational decisions
to be made in just the first week. Some
literary translators like to work from a hard
copy of the source text. There's something
about having the book on your desk.
Rewriting the book
• British Centre for Literary Translation:
www.bclt.org.uk
• Emerging Translators Network:
www.emergingtranslatorsnetwork.
wordpress.com
• New Books in German:
www.new-books-in-german.com
• Translate in the City: www.city.ac.uk
• Words Without Borders:
www.wordswithoutborders.org
• English PEN and the Global Translation
Initiative: www.englishpen.org/
translation/global-translation-initiative/
• The Society of Authors:
www.societyofauthors.org
USEFUL LINKS
Moving from good,
solid, bread-and-butter
commercial work…
means taking stock of
fairly sober stuff
