S3E09: Manik Sarkar "Translators need to read, read, and read"

But I wanted to know, I ask often to people, translators and also regular readers.

What makes a translation a good translation? You know, when you are, in my case, sometimes I choose a book because of the author, of course, but also because of the translator.

And in your view, why we do this, and what do you pay special attention to? Is it the dialogue? Is it the, if the language is archaic or more modern? What is it that you think makes an outstanding translation?

It is a very difficult question.

I think what you said about, for example, is the language archaic or not? For example, the Argentinian writer Borges, I have an old translation from him.

I don't, I have to say, I don't know who the translator is.

and I read that book maybe four or five times in the span of a few years when I was younger because I just adored it.

And then a new translation came out, which was much more modern, and the language was probably, I don't know, it was more of this time.

It was by Barbara van der Poel, a famous translator.

And I bought that because I thought, yes, a new translation.

And I just couldn't get used to it because I had grown to love the quirkiness even of the words of the old translation.

So what I think for me is important is this is, of course, an unusual case.

But consistency is important.

I don't mind archaic language, for example, but it has to be consistent.

It has to be with a reason.

It has to be consciously used, that language, that kind of language.

And more generally speaking, I mean, I think a lot of translators will have this, that when you read a book in translation... you will be conscious of the translation.

And to me, that stands sometimes in the way of my enjoyment of the book.

So what I personally often find a good translation is when I forget that it's translated.

And that is more rare than you would think, especially for trained readers like translators who know what to look for in a translation.

Indeed.

Yeah.

So that makes me happy if I can forget that I'm reading a translated book.

Yeah, and this reminds me, I was reading a book by Gogol translated into Catalan by a very good translator, Arnau Barrios, and he, at points, and I know it's a Russian novel, right? And at points I was going, Jesus, this sounds so Catalan, right? Like it could be happening in Catalonia.

Yeah.