Comments on: Once More, in English Please

By: Joelle Biele

Joelle Biele — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:05:20 +0000

Thanks for all this–fascinating. It’s suprising that more isn’t available in Europe–I would have thought more would be given the dominance of English as a means of communication in business, banking, travel, etc. The Polish translators I know translate literature in addition to teaching–they publish primiarily in the UK. If they wanted to make a living at translating, they would have to go into business, banking, etc. I agree, that American insularity & isolation play large roles in what is available here–it also makes me think about how the market place shapes culture.

By: Terreson

Terreson — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:05:03 +0000

Interesting and telling stats. Thanks for bundling it all up. Also interesting to speculate on what the changing circumstance means. I suppose it is possible that what has been taken for granted for maybe two generations, the flourishing art of translation, has been little more than a special circumstance. I’ve read more than one editor/translator to tip the hat to Pound in his capacity as translator or transliterator. It is probably true to say he has been like the patron saint of translators, and having opened up the field, taking it out of the hands of the experts. This is especially true of poetry. Certainly twenty years ago poets could make money by such work. So maybe we’ve just taken the art for granted. Something else has tickled the brain. The historical coincidence of the art of translation, viewed as commerce, and the rise in America’s imperialist ambitions and the Cold War. I have a brother, a historian, who, back in the sixties, got his doctorate in Russian Civ., paid for by none other than the Defense Dept. So the Cold War is long since over and perhaps the empire is starting to shut down or collapse. (Jeffers would be glad to hear that.) On the other hand maybe the falling off of interest in translation is an expression of a reemerging insularity, nationally speaking, what is always just below the surface of the national character. Call it nativism.

Then again who knows? Perhaps we will see a rise in the translations of works in Arabic and Farsi. Isn’t the U.S. Army spending big bucks teaching soldiers to speak Arabic?

Oh, and Wendy Babaic, you could start with flamenco poetry. If you can, find a copy of D.E. Pohren’s “The Art of Flamenco” first published in the early sixties. It is an encyclopedia of flamenco with a whole bunch of poetry included. Cante chico, cante intermedio, cante jondo. it is all represented. See if the stuff wets your whistle.

Terreson

By: Wendy Babiak

Wendy Babiak — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:49:16 +0000

I think it needs to be both.

Some of us are already bilingual (at least). I’m fluent in Spanish (lived in Valencia for a year as a high school student) and would love to translate, but I’m a bit at a loss as to where to begin. What most needs translating? There’s so much to read in my own language, so much work is being published, and much of it worthwhile. How would I begin to discover neglected writers in Spanish?

By: Glen

Glen — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:38:03 +0000

I wonder if maybe American English speakers should go on ahead and learn some other languages? Less translation and more education?

By: Miriam Levine

Miriam Levine — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:05:59 +0000

I agree. We need more work translated into English, but the four lines from Zia Hyder are banal. Is that the fault of the translator?