Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in ‘Peripheral’ Cultures

Last year, I translated a piece from French to English for Literary Translation and Cultural Mediators in 'Peripheral' Cultures by Diana Roig-Sanz and Reine Meylaerts published by Springer. It's wonderful to see the translation in print along with the contributions from other authors.

Residency at the Vertalershuis Amsterdam

As a translator, you constantly have to make decisions on what to do about these little things. Do you just translate them as they are and preserve the Belgian-ness of the book? Or do you convert them into something more familiar for your target readership? If you translate "hostie" to "satellite wafer", are you then obliged to explain that it is a sort of puffy sugary disk with candy beads rattling inside? Would Americans appreciate encountering a "Rubbermaid" in a book they chose specifically for its foreign-ness?...

Translating The Chronicles

"Language is my way of getting a grip on things, of maintaining control in certain situations. Your body is bombarded with zillions of sensory impressions, and by giving them a name, you make them one-dimensional again, manageable," wrote best-selling Belgian author Lize Spit in her second blog post for The Chronicles. Actually, this is my translation of what she wrote. What she wrote was this...

Tolk- en Vertaalcongres 2016: Hilversum

At one point, a translator took the mic and encouraged the audience not to think of each other as competition, but rather as colleagues - that we are all in this together. I really took this to heart. Not only do I find friends in the people who love languages as much as I do, but I find that I can lean on them for support. We can pass each other projects, share insight, discuss "untranslateables" and roll our eyes at all the nonsense that is bouncing around out there in the translation world.

Notes from International Translation Day 2015 at The British Library

Oh what a day Friday was! What a day. I hopped a 45 minute flight across the Channel from Amsterdam for the annual International Translation Day conference at The British Library hosted by FreeWord, English Pen and my new favorite online circle, the Emerging Translator's Network. All about translating literature, the conference brought together a small crowd of literary translators, booksellers, publishers, editors and writers to talk frankly about translating books: what it means, how it happens and why it matters. I can only comment on the panels that I was able to attend, so any feedback from the other ones would be greatly appreciated in the comments!