For nearly twenty years, the International Booker Prize has been celebrating the very best of
literature translated into English. This week the Edinburgh International Book Festival hosted a thoughtful conversation on the act – and art – of translation.
The panel was lead by Fiammetta Rocco, the administrator of the International Booker Prize, in conversation with Romesh Gunesekera, a prolific author and judge on this year’s Prize panel and Iona Macintyre, an award-winning translator of Latin American literature and a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Rounding out the panel was translator Michael
Hofmann, the joint winner of the 2024 Prize for his translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos, a saga about a young woman and her relationship with a much older, married man during the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The discussion began with an overview of the International Booker Prize itself. Last year, the
judging panel read 149 books translated from 32 languages before deliberating and deciding on Kairos as the winner. Romesh Gunesekera reflected on the inherent challenges of making such deliberations. Judges have no idea whether the translation is faithful or accurate, because they cannot read the original. Instead, they must select the novel that contains the strongest prose, whether that strength comes from the skill of the author or the skill of the translation itself. Hofmann, often described as one of the world’s most influential translators of German into English, confessed in the discussion that he was “not a happy translator,” citing a lack of autonomy in the work. Indeed, the contested relationship between author, translator, and editor was explored in-depth by the panel. Iona Macintyre described translation as an “act of faith” for those involved. Translators face constant dilemmas as they do their work. Is it better to accurately translate the author’s words as they were written, or to try to make the prose more fluid? A bad translation can ruin a book compared to the original, but can a great translation transform even a mediocre original into something fantastic?
For his part, Hofmann said, he tries to only translate books he truly feels are worthy. He
described the process of translating Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos as full of “territorial disputes”
between the two. He spoke of trying to communicate East German culture to Anglophone
audiences in his translation of Kairos. East Germany was not a youth-driven society, Hofmann explained – it was run by and for old men. In making small translation decisions, like omitting any mention of ‘blue jeans’ or other hallmarks of youth culture, Hofmann successfully translated the culture of Kairos as well as its words.
The panel discussion concluded with advice for aspiring young translators and languages
students. Rocco began by relaying an anecdote about translator Deborah Smith. Smith studied
English literature at university and graduated into the Great Recession, finding herself living on unemployment with few job prospects. She decided she wanted to become a literary translator and opted on a whim to learn Korean because of the lack of English translators for the language. Seven years later, she won the International Booker Prize for her work on The
Vegetarian by Han King.
In this vain, Iona Macintyre encouraged aspiring translators not to “do what you think is
attainable” but to aim even higher and push yourself to go after it. Hofmann described how he
translates literature “for the hell of it,” working on projects because he feels the original source material is deserving, not necessarily because there is a commercial or capitalist demand for the translation.
The panel served as a fantastic reminder of how important it is to read translated fiction. These works give monolingual readers the opportunity to explore and literary and social cultures, and any discussion of the ‘best’ books must surely include those not originally published in English. Groundbreaking independent presses like Edinburgh’s own Charco Press are making translated fiction more accessible than ever before, whilst initiatives like the International Booker Prize provide key support for translators and translated fiction. This thought-provoking panel and its rapturous audience indicate that the future of translation is very, very bright.
Image by Katherine Coble