Category Archives: Thoughts on Translation

Zur Übersetzung von Kaaron Warren’s Hive of Glass

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In einer Gruppe von sechs Personen gemeinsam zu übersetzen, bringt einige Herausforderungen mit sich. Nach der halbwegs gerechten Aufteilung der Übersetzungsabschnitte unseres vergleichsweise langen Texts unter Berücksichtigung persönlicher Präferenzen gilt es etwa, bestimmte Einzelbegriffe, beispielsweise fishwives oder bablies, konstant zu behandeln. Auch Stil und Ton der Übersetzung sollten kohärent gehalten werden, damit das finale Leseerlebnis ultimativ so klingt, als läge ein einziger, zusammenhängender Text und kein Flickenteppich aus sechs Einzelwerken vor der Leserschaft. Gemeinschaftliche Absprachen können sich ebenfalls als ganz schöne logistische Herausforderung erweisen, wenn nicht alle Teilnehmerinnen immer gleichzeitig verfügbar sind, um wichtige Fragen zu klären, unter anderem: Wie sollen wir mit lokal spezifischen Realia wie Lebensmitteln oder Feiertagsritualen umgehen? Und was machen wir mit der Überschrift? Hive of Glass kann mehrere mögliche Bezüge abdecken – Seans Körper als geschäftiger Hort der Geister, „gläsern“ vielleicht, weil den Leser*innen von außen Einblick gewährt wird? Oder die Dorfgemeinschaft, die wie emsige Bienen durcheinandersummen und sich überall einmischen, sodass Seans Privatsphäre immer durchsichtiger verschwimmt? Viele weitere Interpretationen, die einer einigermaßen treffenden Übersetzung vorausgehen sollten, sind sicherlich ebenfalls denkbar.

Es herrscht also reger E-Mail-Verkehr in alle Richtungen. Besonders knifflige Stellen müssen gesammelt und als Fragen an die Autorin formuliert werden, auf deren unschätzbares Expertenwissen wir dank des Kooperationsprojekts exklusiven Zugriff haben.

Die Vorteile der Schwarmintelligenz für unser Übersetzungsprojekt sind allerdings auch nicht von der Hand zu weisen. So genießen wir den Input von nicht nur einem, sondern mindestens fünf Lektor*innen mit tiefenscharfem Einblick in den Gesamttext, was bei Entscheidungsunsicherheiten (z.B. „Kam“ oder „war“ der Sturm „wie der Zorn Gottes“? Oder „brachte [er] den Zorn Gottes mit sich“? Oder „brach [er] wie der Zorn Gottes über sie herein“?) und Formulierungsproblemen (z.B. Welche Übersetzung von Maleachis Bibelzitat erzeugt auf Deutsch eine ähnlich humoristische Wirkung wie im englischen Original?), ebenso wie bei Verständnisschwierigkeiten (z.B. Warum „winkt“ Sean den Menschen am Seeufer zu, als er beinahe ertrinkt? Rechercheergebnis: In Australien gehört das zum Standardwissen über Surf Safety, was sicherlich auch Sean bei seinem unfreiwilligen Schwimmkurs in der Schule vermittelt wurde – wer zu ertrinken droht, hebt die Hand, um Hilfe anzufordern!).

In unserem Fall zumindest hat der Einsatz so vieler Übersetzerinnen an einem einzigen Text zwar sicherlich der Koordination etwas mehr abverlangt als eine „normale“ Übersetzung allein oder maximal zu zweit, dafür aber auch ein sehr lohnendes Gemeinschaftserlebnis ermöglicht, von dem wir alle sehr profitiert haben.

Kaaron Warrens Hive of Glass haben im Übrigen alle Gruppenmitglieder persönlich als favorisierten Übersetzungstext ausgewählt. Fasziniert haben uns daran besonders das mystische Setting des versunkenen Skelton, als Kontrast zu Seans aktueller Heimat im staubig-trockenen Howell, die faszinierenden Persönlichkeiten der Protagonisten, der ungebrochene Bann der alten Geistergeschichte und die durch und durch das Spekulativ-Fiktive des Genres verkörpernden Geister, die trotz aller kreativen (und teils auch für Außenstehende etwas abstoßenden) Gegenmaßnahmen Seans Leben zu vereinnahmen drohen, verwoben in Warrens mitreißend dichtem Stil, authentisch, humorvoll und vor allem vom Anfang bis zum Ende ungemein spannend.

Vielen Dank für diese exquisite Gelegenheit, wir haben unsere Mitarbeit an dem Projekt sehr genossen!

Zur Übersetzung von Kaaron Warren’s “The Revivalist”

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von Angela Agelopoulou, Laura Feiter, Jana Mankau

Laut dem Merriam Webster Wörterbuch (das Cambridge Wörterbuch scheint den Begriff nicht einmal zu kennen) ist ein Revivalist jemand, der religiöse Wiederbelebungen durchführt oder jemand, der etwas Unbenutztes wiederherstellt oder restauriert. In Kaaron Warrens Kurzgeschichte The Revivalist trifft Letzteres zu. Die Protagonistin Magda tut genau dies: Sie repariert ausgediente Roboter, die sie auf der Straße finden, um ihnen wieder einen Nutzen zu geben.

To revive als transitives Verb bedeutet:

1. Bewusstsein oder Leben wieder herstellen.

2. von einem heruntergekommenem, inaktiven oder unbenutzten Zustand zurückholen.

3. Etwas im Gedächtnis erneuern, Erinnerungen wieder herstellen.

Also im Grunde etwas oder jemanden wiederbeleben. In The Revivalist stellt Magda auch Erinnerungen, die letzten Worte längst verstorbener Menschen, wieder her. Allerdings holt sie diese Menschen nicht zurück ins Leben. Wie also übersetzen wir den Titel der Geschichte?

Im Deutschen gibt es diverse Möglichkeiten:

Die Wiederbeleberin

Die Restauratorin

Die Erweckerin

Schauen wir uns die genannten Übersetzungen genauer an. Wenn wir den Begriff Wiederbeleber/in hören oder lesen, denken wir an die Wiederbelebung eines Menschen. Diese Person hätte dann ein Bewusstsein. In The Revivalist jedoch werden die Roboter zwar mithilfe menschlicher DNA reaktiviert, allerdings haben sie kein menschliches Bewusstsein, da sie nur die allerletzten Worte der toten Person wiederholen. Des Weiteren müsste hier aber noch diskutiert werden, ob die Wiederherstellung von Erinnerungen gleichwertig mit der Wiederherstellung eines Bewusstseins wäre.

Der zweite Titel Die Restauratorin käme in Frage, da der Begriff Restauration auch im Kontext von Veränderung und Wiederherstellung verwendet werden kann. Allerdings wird der Begriff meist in Zusammenhang mit der Restaurierung von Kunst verwendet, wodurch der Titel falsche Assoziationen wecken würde. 

Die dritte Übersetzung, Die Erweckerin, ist durchaus passender, da dieser Begriff kein Bewusstsein des Erweckten impliziert. Für diesen Titel haben wir uns letztendlich entschieden.

Trotz des herausfordenden Titels machte uns die Arbeit an The Revivalist großen Spaß. Warrons Kurzgeschichte handelt von komplexen Thematiken (einschließlich der schweren ethischen Fragen die mit der schnellen Entwicklung von Technologien verbunden sind). Allerdings, dank des eleganten und schlichten Schreibstils ist die Geschichte leicht zu verstehen (im Gegensatz zu anderer australischer spekulativer Belletristik, mit der wir uns auseinandergesetzt haben). Im Verlauf der Geschichte fühlt man mit den Opfern mit, interessiert sich für die Umstände ihres Todes, und vollzieht ihren Schmerz (und den der Angehörigen) nach, so dass man sich Gerechtigkeit für sie wünscht. 

Die Handlung eignet sich perfekt für eine ethische Diskussion über das menschliche Eingreifen in die Natur. Obwohl die Geschichte fiktiv ist, ist die Idee der Wiederbelebung und der Einpflanzung menschlicher DNA in ein Objekt (insbesondere in Roboter/Androiden), um das Leben des Menschen zu verlängern, nicht so weit von der Realität entfernt, wie es erscheint.

Durch die spannende Thematik und relativ einfache Sprache ist die Geschichte perfekt für Einsteiger in australische spekulative Belletristik geeignet (und für solche, die sich allgemein für die Optimierung des Menschen interessieren).

According to Merriam Webster‘s Dictionary (Cambridge Dictionary apparently doesn‘t even know this word), a revivalist is someone „who conducts religious revivals“ or someone „who revives or restores something unused“. In Kaaron Warren‘s short story The Revivalist (published 2018)we are certainly talking about the latter. Our protagonist Magda does restore unused robots she finds on the streets, giving them a purpose, and a function.

To revive, as a transitive verb, means

1: to restore to consciousness or life

2: to restore from a depressed, inactive, or unused state: bring back

3: to renew in the mind or memory

So, essentially, it is about restoring something or someone. In the story, Magda also restores memories, the last words of people long dead. But she does not bring those people back to life. So, how are we to translate the title of this story?

The German language offers us various options:

Die Wiederbeleberin

Die Restauratorin

Die Erweckerin

Let us take a closer look at those possible translations. In German, when we come across the term Wiederbeleberin, we would think of someone bringing another person back to life. This person would then have a conscious self. However, in The Revivalist, the robots are revived but they do not have a consciousness as they only repeat the last words of the victims. Moreover, here we would have to discuss if restoring memories can have the same status as consciousness.

Die Restauratorin is another possible choice as it is frequently used in terms of change and revival. However, the term is most frequently associated with the restoration of artworks and therefore may not be a suitable translation.

The third translation, die Erweckerin, would work better as it does not necessarily imply a conscious self. This is the title we chose in the end.

Despite the difficulties in translating the title, working on The Revivalist has been great fun. Warren‘s short story deals with a complex topic (involving the power of technology and the ethical decisions that come with it), however, due to the author’s beautiful and simple writing style, the short story was easy to understand (unlike other Australian Speculative Fiction stories we have read). Throughout the story you start to get invested in the victims’ lives and deaths and you understand the pain they (and their loved ones) had been through, leaving you wanting justice for them.

The storyline is perfectly suitable for another ethical discussion about human intervention in the course of nature. Although it is a fictional story, the idea of “bringing someone back to life“ by planting a part of human DNA into an object (especially into robots or androids) in order to extend human life is not as far from reality as it might seem to be.

The interesting topic and the relatively easy language make it a perfect beginner story for everyone who is interested in Australian Speculative Fiction (and human enhancement in general).

Übersetzungskommentar zu “Das Dieselbecken”

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von Mandy Bartesch, Ava Braus und Lina Langpap

Eine junge Frau steht allein am Ufer einer Art unterirdischen Sees. Giftige Dämpfe wabern durch die Luft, sie kann kaum atmen. Die Oberfläche dessen, was Wasser sein sollte, aber keines ist, kräuselt sich, Tentakel tauchen aus den dunklen Tiefen empor, greifen nach ihr. Der Geruch von Diesel steigt ihr in die Nase.

Kaaron Warrens Kurzgeschichte „Das Dieselbecken“ baut stark auf Elementen des Lovecraftschen Horrors auf, der Furcht vor dem Unbekannten und dem, was wir nicht verstehen, um in den Lesenden ein Gefühl der Beklommenheit und des Schreckens hervorzurufen. Das Grauen steigert sich langsam, aber stetig, bis am Ende schließlich die abscheuliche Kreatur enthüllt wird, die den Kern der Geschichte ausmacht. Als Lesende verfolgen wir den Abstieg der Protagonistin in ein Tunnelsystem unter dem Old Parliament House in Canberra. Das Gebäude sieht nur noch wenige Touristen, seit das Gerücht die Runde macht, es sei asbestverseucht.

Die quasi-namenlose Protagonistin, die von ihrem verstorbenen Vater den Spitznamen Jenny Haniver bekommen hat, ist Sexarbeiterin, wohnt in ihrem Auto und besitzt die einzigartige Gabe, Geister wahrnehmen und mit ihnen kommunizieren zu können. Einer der Geister erzählt ihr, dass es in den Tunneln und Höhlen unter dem alten Regierungsgebäude Becken voller Diesel gäbe, Überbleibsel aus dem Krieg, aus denen sich Geld machen ließe. In Begleitung eines Mannes namens Lance, der im Old Parliament House arbeitet, folgt sie dieser Spur in die dunklen Tunnel hinab. Es stellt sich heraus, dass es tatsächlich ein Dieselbecken unter dem Gebäude gibt, aber das ist nicht das einzige, was Jenny dort findet. Das Becken wird von einem seltsamen Besucher bewohnt, einem, dem es nach frischer Luft giert, der jedoch nicht imstande ist, die dunkle Grotte zu verlassen, die über die Jahre zu seinem Gefängnis geworden ist …

Wie Lovecraft baut auch Warren die düstere Atmosphäre ihrer Geschichte nur langsam auf und steigert den Schrecken mit jedem Schritt, den Jenny tiefer in die Tunnel hinab steigt. Erst ganz am Ende enthüllt sie das ganze Ausmaß des Grauens, das dort unten lauert. Es ist eine existentielle Art des Horrors, die sich nicht auf blutiges Gemetzel oder billige Schockeffekte verlassen muss, um unheimlich zu sein. Diese dichte, spannungsgeladene Atmosphäre ins Deutsche zu übertragen, erwies sich als recht schwierig, denn sowohl als Lesende als auch als Übersetzende erleben wir die Ereignisse ausschließlich durch die Augen der Protagonistin: Wenn sie verwirrt ist, sind wir es ebenso, wenn sie Schwierigkeiten hat, zu unterscheiden, was echt ist und was nicht, geht es uns ebenso. Die Art, wie sie ihre Erlebnisse schildert, ist besonders oft durch Ellipsen geprägt, etwa wenn sie die Erinnerungen an ihren Vater völlig abrupt, sogar ohne Satzzeichen abbricht (Warren 74). Als Übersetzende müssen wir uns fragen, ob wir diese Leerstellen füllen oder doch lieber leer lassen sollen, und ob das etwas daran ändern würde, wie ein deutschsprachiges Lesepublikum die Geschichte wahrnähme.

Darüber hinaus stellt sich die Frage, ob wir während des Übersetzungsprozesses Erklärungen für Kulturspezifika einfügen sollten oder nicht. So finden sich im Ausgangstext Textelemente wie Old Parliament House, tent-embassy, oder Summernats, die in der Kultur von Australien, speziell von Canberra eingebettet sind und bei denen wir als Übersetzer erwägen müssen, inwieweit wir als Kulturmittler agieren sollen.  Etwa der Begriff Summernats, ein in Canberra jährlich stattfindendes Autofestival, bedarf in der Übersetzung eine zusätzlichen Erklärung. Ein weiteres Beispiel: gibt man beispielsweise den Begriff tent-embassy bei Google ein, so lässt sich leicht feststellen, dass es hierfür eine feststehende deutsche Übersetzung gibt, und zwar Zelt-Botschaft. Jedoch gehört dieser Begriff und der damit zusammenhängende kulturelle Kontext nicht zum Allgemeinwissen deutscher LeserInnen. Daher haben wir uns dazu entschlossen, eine Fußnote einzufügen.

Weitere Übersetzungsprobleme, auf die wir gestoßen sind, waren die Nachbildung der eigenen Stimmen der Figuren und die mit dem Genre des Kosmischen Horrors zusammenhängende Schwierigkeit der Erschaffung einer spannungsgeladenen Atmosphäre und eines Gefühls des Unbehagens, das bei H.P. Lovecraft mit der Furcht vor dem Unbekannten verbunden ist. Warren‘s Kurzgeschichte baut dieses Unbehagen langsam auf, enthält mehrere Plot-Twists und endet mit einer schrecklichen Enthüllung, die in der Übersetzung genauso schockierend sein musste, damit der Horror-Aspekt der Geschichte funktioniert. Während die Sprache bei Lovecraft mit seinen langen Schachtelsätzen etwas altmodisch und fast schon gestelzt wirkt, spricht die Protagonistin Jenny in „Das Dieselbecken“eher einfach, direkt und umgangssprachlich. Doch auch hier finden sich einige Bilder, die schon ins Absurde gehen, etwa wenn Jenny den Geruch der unterirdischen Grotte mit dem eines im Dunkeln vor sich hintrocknenden Spüllappens vergleicht (Warren 75). Dann ist da noch Lance, der in sehr ominösem Ton spricht, aber auch manchmal absurde Lächerlichkeiten von sich gibt. Diese Eigenheiten der Figuren sollten auch in der Übersetzung nicht verloren gehen.

Wir hoffen, diese Besonderheiten von Genre, Figuren und unserer Übersetzung gerecht geworden zu sein und wünschen allen LeserInnen viel Spaß mit der Geschichte! Ihr findet sie hier.

A young woman standing alone on the shore of what seems to be an underground lake. Toxic fumes waft through the air, she can barely breathe. The surface of what should be water but isn’t ripples; tentacles emerge from the murky depths, reaching out for her. The smell of diesel fills her nose.

Kaaron Warren’s short story “The Diesel Pool” heavily draws on elements of Lovecraftian horror, on the fear of that which is unknown, that which we do not understand, in order to invoke uneasiness and dread in the reader, building up to the grand reveal of the abominable creature at the heart of the story. As readers, we follow the protagonist’s journey into the underground beneath Canberra’s Old Parliament House, a building mostly abandoned by tourists since the rumor of asbestos in the walls made its rounds.

The kind-of-nameless protagonist, nicknamed Jenny Haniver by her late father, is a sex worker operating from her car, who possesses the unique ability to see and communicate with ghosts. One of the ghosts leads her to believe that in the tunnels and caverns beneath the old government building, there are pools of diesel, remnants of the war from which she could potentially make money. She follows this lead into the dark tunnels, accompanied by Lance, a man working at Old Parliament House. As it turns out, there is a diesel pool beneath the building, but that is not the only thing Jenny finds there. The pool is occupied by a strange visitor, one that is hungry for fresh air but unable to leave the dark cavern that has become his prison over the years …

Like Lovecraft, Warren builds her atmosphere of terror slowly, raising the level of dread with every step Jenny takes further down the tunnels, only revealing the full scale of horrors lurking down there at the very end of the story. It’s an existential kind of horror that does not need to rely on gore or cheap thrills to be scary. Translating this dense atmosphere of suspense into German proved to be difficult, since we, as readers and translators, experience the story exclusively through the eyes of the protagonist – when she is confused, so are we, when she has difficulty discerning what is real or not, then so do we. The way she narrates her experience for us is especially often characterized by ellipses, for example when her memories of her father get interrupted abruptly (Warren 74). As translators we have to ask ourselves whether to fill those blank spots or leave them blank and whether that would change how German readers would then perceive the story.

There is also the question as to whether we should include explanations for culturally specific elements of the story. The story contains concepts specific to Australian, specifically Canberran, culture. As translators, we had to decide how much of it to explain to readers. There is, for example, Summernats, the name of an annual car festival held in Canberra, that needs explanation. Another example: If you search up the term tent-embassy on Google, you easily find the German term for it: Zelt-Botschaft. But it is not that simple, since most German readers won‘t be familiar with the cultural and political context of the term — the tent-embassy means a tent erected by Indigenous Australians to symbolize their protest against injustice and violence perpetrated against them by the European settlers. So we decided to add an explanatory footnote.  Attention should also be paid to finding respectful, appropriate terms when mentioning Indigenous people in the translation.

Another translation difficulty was recreating the the characters‘ voices and the sense of dread and tense atmosphere of the Cosmic Horror genre, which is connected to the fear of the strange and unknown in Lovecraft‘s writing. Warren‘s story slowly builds up the dread, contains several plot twists, and ends with a horrific revelation that needed to be just as hard-hitting in German as in the original to make the translation work. While Lovecraft‘s syntax is old-fashioned and sometimes stilted, the voice of Warren‘s narrator is direct and colloquial. Still, some of her descriptions seem almost absurd, like her comparison of the monster‘s smell to an „an old dishrag left to dry in the dark“ (Warren, 75). Then there is Lance, whose tone is ominous, coupled with occasional absurdities. We tried to not let these aspects of the characters to get lost in the translation

All in all, we hope to have done justice to these specifics of genre, characters and Australian culture in our translation and wish all readers of „Das Dieselbecken“ a great time with the story! Here it is!

Translating Laila Lalami

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by Emire Gül Yildiz

As a group, we chose the translatory strategy of foreignization to translate the excerpts from The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami because we wanted to retain the source text’s information without changing the meaning (cf. Bassnett 2014, 47). For example, the novel has many Spanish and Arabic words. Therefore there was no intention to translate them into German, like the word Señor (Lalami 2014, 47).

Each of the group members took over a specific part of the text and first translated this excerpt individually, which is the part of our translation that I am going to focus on in this post:

During the translation process, I didn’t encounter significant difficulties. However, due to our decision to stay close to the original text, we had to find the balance between maintaining the original meaning and writing a grammatically correct German translation. Sometimes this was not as easy as it seemed.

Furthermore, another problem was the grammar, primarily because of the different sentence structures. When I began translating in the same sentence order as the English text, the result showed that the German text was full of grammatical errors and changed the meaning of the source text. Consequently, I had to find different approaches to modify the sentences until the syntax and meaning were both accurate, which took some time.

All in all, I can say that I had much fun translating my text excerpt. I learned a lot during the translation process, especially the importance of deciding which translation method to choose for the text. The procedure demands an understanding of the cultural references of the source text because we choose how to connect the author and the readers. By deciding on foreignization, we ensure the author can deliver her message without distorting the meaning.


Works Cited
Bassnett, Susan. Translation. London / New York: Routledge, 2014.
Lalami, Laila. The Moor’s Account. New York: Vintage, 2014.

Translation: A Constant Act of Balancing Words

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by Lea-Marie Schneider

Translation can be done in several ways with different emphases and different theories in mind. The focus we had was based on one of Walkowitz’s theories about the Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (Walkowitz 2015) which critically engages with the global dominance of English written novels. Born translated novels are written to be translated or even as if they are already translated. Those texts are treated either “as medium and origin rather than as afterthought” (Walkowitz 3-4) translations and mostly “pretend[…] to take place in a language other than the one in which they have been composed” (Walkowitz 4). The focus of the seminar was to engage with the Anglophone Arab Novel and how the authors managed to write their stories in English with contexts and plots that are tied to another culture. Those various forms of translation that happened in the process of writing of the authors are impacting the understanding of a potential readership who possibly do not have knowledge about the Arabic cultures, values, or habits.

The excerpt that was translated by us as a group was taken from the novel The Moor’s Account (2015) written by the author Laila Lalami. Our translation was mainly informed by Rebecca Walkowitz’s Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature (2015). The novel is a historical fictional narrative and tells the story of Mustafa ibn Muhammad, a Moroccan slave who explores La Florida with a Castilian exploration crew and his owner. First, we agreed to stay as close to the original text as possible and tried to keep the meaning and the mood the source text conveys. This required us to consider the overall context of the novel and the context of the particular part that was to be translated. The fact that the novel’s genre is that of historical fiction was also a big part of the translation in terms of word choices. For example, the word “treasurer” (Lalami 47) can be translated into the word “Kämmerer” or “Schatzmeister”. The second possibility seemed more natural as a word choice because the novel is a historical fictional narrative and therefore ancient terminology fits more into the overall context. We also decided to keep the Spanish words and names as they are without translating them into German. For example, the Spanish word “Señor” (Lalami 47) was kept and was not translated into the German version Senior. This reminds the potential reader of other languages and places and possibly expands the view of the superiority of a language. As translators we always had to be aware of the grammar of both languages, the target and the source language. Changing the word order sometimes caused problems and changed the whole meaning. The sense was sometimes lost in translation but could be restored by the position of several words. Sometimes even the usage of metaphorical sentences is problematic and could cause misunderstandings. Therefore, we agreed upon a less metaphorical style and translated “he never said it to the treasurers face” (Lalami 47) into “in Abwesenheit des Schatzmeisters”.

The process of translation was a permanent balance of what makes the most sense and what keeps the implied mood of the novel. Even if in the position of the translator one tries to preserve as much meaning as possible with the willingness to keep the sentence structure, there are always compromises and decisions to be made. It is surprising how much one person can think about the choice of a word out of five options and how much time one paragraph can consume. Even though you are not the writer of the novel the decisions that you make can affect the novel and the meaning of the whole translation.

Works Cited

Lalami, Laila. The Moor’s Account. Vintage; Reprint Edition, 2015.
Walkowitz, Rebecca. Born Translated: The Contemporary Novel in an Age of World Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Language and Form

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by Selina Kraft, Anna Herkelmann, Laura Zimmermann and Sarah Riedel

While translating “Oil”, not only the correctness of the translation was a problem we had to face in the process. “Oil”, a poem by Fatimah Asghar, is about a teenage girl with diverse identities, among them Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern, facing an existential crisis following the events of 9/11, using oil as a metaphor to link the events with the speaker’s crisis. The poem is one of many from Asghar’s collection If They Come for Us (2018). The form of the poem is closely connected to the content, so we had to be careful to keep an eye on that while translating. This led to choices such as rearranging German sentences and leaving out obligatory punctuation. The tone of the poem was a task we had to face as well.

While reading Asghar’s poem “Oil”, we noticed the unusual form. While the text needed six pages in total, it could have been printed onto half of the pages by looking at the lines. One part of the text even is upside-down and written almost without spaces between words. In our first meeting, we as a group decided immediately that we wanted to keep the form of the poem since we thought that Asghar wrote it intentionally in that form. It could be because of the torn feelings of the speaker or because of other things; ours is just one of a million ways to interpret the form. We tried to keep the form as close to the original as possible, including learning from fellow students from our group on how to turn a text upside-down in Microsoft Word.

Sometimes this was not as easy as it seems. To keep the translation grammatically correct in German, the line breaks could not be kept word by word. This means that we weren’t always able to break the line at the same words as in the original, e.g. one of the lines breaks at the word “doctor” but due to German grammar, we were only able to break the line at the word sagt because the object could not stand before the verb.

By switching words and lines for the purpose of maintaining formal integrity, we also had to be aware that the German language needs more words to form a correct sentence than English. To keep the form, we had to rearrange the longer German sentences. While writing down the translation, we also had to be aware of the legibility. This was one of the biggest problems to tackle because the English original in some instances only needed half the words to form a proper sentence than our translation. We tried to write in a non-halting German so that the reader could read the translation in a flow, just like the original.

The last important thing while we were thinking about how to manage our translation was word choice and punctuation.

We read through “Oil” again and again, looking at our notes from the session on the poem. We asked ourselves “Who is the speaker in the poem?” The speaker, we agreed, had to be a teenage girl in Middle School or High School. This was crucial for some choices on the language of the translation. We decided to keep an informal style for the translation, appropriate for a teenager. This led to choices like translating “my people” not as “mein Volk” (which also had a slightly strange overtone for us) but as “meine Leute”.

While reading through the first draft of the translation, we noticed something the German grammar loves to bits: commas. Our translation had lots of commas that were necessary for being grammatically correct. That interrupted the reading and poetic flow we tried to keep. We were worried that the poem could be interpreted differently because the reading flow was stopped more often than in the original poem. For keeping this very flow, we decided to leave out some commas. In particular when the thinking speed of the speaker seemed to be faster in our interpretation, we left commas out so the reader can read faster and therefore can understand and feel the speaker’s stress and distress throughout the poem.

The bridge between languages is built by every translation of a text. However, not only the choice of words and the correctness of the translation are important. It is also important to look at the outside form, putting aside syntactical and grammatical correctness. Looking at a poem can have its own effects without reading it. When the work is then read, little things like commas can be changing the whole meaning and the interpretation. If a translator looks at a work to translate, these little details have to be transported from the original to the translation as well.

  • Asghar, Fatimah. If They Come For Us. One World, 2018.

Translating and Keeping the Respect

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by Annalena Steffens, Renee Czyganowski, Michelle Chiru and Audrey Heimann

Translating a piece of writing from one language to another can lead to several difficulties, many of which we encountered during our project with Fatimah Asghar’s “Oil”, a poem in Asghar’s poem collection If They Come For Us (2018). “Oil” deals with a speaker with diverse affiliation, among them them Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern, who struggles with their cultural identity, both socially and politically, particularly in the wake of 9/11 and uses oil as a metaphor that brings their identity together.

As we set out to translate “Oil”  from English to German, we came across problems concerning foreign expressions, metaphors and underlying meanings.

How does one handle non-English words in a multilingual text? When looking at “Oil”, we decided to stay as close to the original as possible, and thus keep foreign words as written in the original. While translating a word such as badam, a tropical tree known as country almond, Indian almond, Malabar almond, as well as  a few other names in English and Katappenbaum in German, would make it easier for the reader, the author had an intent in intertwining languages, and thus cultures. An intent that we, as translators, decided to keep in order not to change future interaction with the poem.

However, sometimes we were forced to intervene in this relationship between the original and the reader of the translation.

One difficulty we came across was the difference in grammar between English and German, especially when the grammar includes meaning. While “no one heard” is grammatically correct in English, the German language forces you to include an object, and thus we had to deviate from the original and write down an interpretation of who or what could have been meant, instead of sticking to the openness of the original.

Mixing interpretation into translation doesn’t stop there, but continues throughout the entire process. Especially in a genre such as poetry, where literal and metaphoric meaning are woven together, one cannot bypass making interpretational decisions in the translation. Very few words have the exact same meaning in two, or more, languages. Those cases become even rarer upon trying to navigate metaphors and double-meanings and in the end the translation shows our interpretation of what we have found in the original.

Upon starting this project, we set ourselves the task to be mindful of the original, not to change words and meaning if we didn’t have to. And while we managed to do so for the most part (or at least we hope we did), there are always instances in translating where the translator has to step into the role of the interpreter as well, changing the original a little to bridge the gap between languages.

  • Asghar, Fatimah. If They Come For Us. One World, 2018.

Lost in Translation? Interpreting and Identity in Suki Kim’s The Interpreter

Posted on by anikaklose
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The Interpreter (2003) is the first novel by Suki Kim, who was born in Korea and immigrated to the US with her parents at the age of thirteen. The plot revolves around the interpreter Suzy Park, also born in Korea and immigrated to America, who lost contact to her parents after she ran away with a married man. She later finds out her parents were murdered, but the case is not solved, which leads Suzy to investigate the murder herself. Aside from the murder mystery, Kim’s novel touches upon themes like depression, hybridity and multiculturalism.

The character of the interpreter in any kind of fiction certainly became more prominent in recent years, especially in Speculative Fiction. Examples include Ted Chiang’s Arrival, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as Samantha Shannon’s The Priory of the Orange Tree. However, interpreters are also often used in crime fiction, which is the case in Suki Kim’s novel. Just like the name of the novel’s title already suggests, interpreting is one of the central issues of Kim’s work. The question of what interpreting has to do with detective narratives and its use might arise if you are, just like I was, unfamiliar with the concept. Is interpreting a mere plot device? Is it of any significance at all to the character of Suzy? If you want to find out, please do keep on reading!

As Suzy narrates the story, her profession as an interpreter is of high relevance time and time again. So let’s take a look at how and why Suzy uses her interpreting skills throughout the novel. When Suzy first mentions her job, she says: “The interpreter, however, is the shadow. The key is to be invisible. She is the only one in the room who knows the truth, a keeper of secrets” (Kim12). Invisibility and the illusion of transparency is also discussed in Lawrence Venuti’s The Translator’s Invisibility and underlines the translator’s ability to intervene (1).

These aspects of intervention and manipulation can also be found in Suzy’s interpretations, which is why she can be called an untrustworthy interpreter. Ingrid Kurz, a scholar researching infidel interpreters in fiction, clarifies that the first and most important task of an interpreter is conveying the speaker’s message as truthfully and clearly as possible (206). Any other possible outcomes caused by the interpreter are generally considered as infidelity – regardless of intention. Examples include wilful manipulation or betrayal, a lack of skills, or siding with an underprivileged speaker (cf. Kurz). In Suzy’s case, she herself says she often “finds herself cheating” (Kim 15). In a flashback, Suzy interprets for the first time in the novel and sides with a Korean man who fell victim to a cultural misunderstanding: 

“[…]‘Surely,’ the lawyer insists, ‘the injury must not have been severe if you even refused medical attention!’ But Suzy knows that it is a cultural misunderstanding. It is the Korean way always to underplay the situation, to declare one is fine even when suffering from pain or ravenous hunger. This might stem from their Confucian or even Buddhist tradition, but the lawyers don’t care about that. […] The witness gets all nervous and stammers something about how he’s not a liar, and Suzy puts on a steel face to hide her anger and translates, ‘I was in shock, and the pain was not obvious to me until I got home and collapsed.’”

Kim 15f.

Suzy is well aware of the controversy attached to her decision, because a revelation would very likely cost her her job(16). What this scene very well illustrates, is how Suzy is caught between her professional/legal commitment and her personal/moral commitment. Kurz underlines this with the common observation of people with the same ethnic heritage viewing the other as an ally, just as it happens here.

But this is not Suzy’s only intention, as she also willingly misinterprets at court to gain information about her parents: “’Can you describe to me again the ways in which you hire and fire your workers?’ […] Five years ago, you said, you worked for people who are dead. Can you describe to me what happened to them?” (Kim 95). In this situation, she is not helping the underprivileged, but she is manipulating the testimony in order to investigate her parents’ murder further. This demonstrates a usurpation and abuse of power that clearly violates the law and emphasises Suzy’s infidelity. Lastly, it also underlines how Suzy’s need for personal gain leads to her unreliability and therefore connects to her parents’ decision to provide information about fellow Koreans to save their own necks.

Even though interpreting is certainly a tool for Suzy’s detective work, another concept that is central to my argumentation is that of hybridity. Very roughly speaking, the idea of hybridity deals with the “merging of disparate identities” (cf. Burger and Mattila). In relation to Suzy and her actions throughout the novel, one could consider her a hybrid detective, as she is not only the investigator, but is to an extend invested in criminal activity herself. Furthermore, she is also frequently moving between a privileged and poor life, which is by her immigrant parents and her simultaneously going to an Ivy League college (and then dropping out of it). However, the idea of disparate identities also shows in her interpreting skills, since Suzy is constantly torn between to languages or two identities, which connects back to her multicultural upbringing.  As Eco puts is, “translation is always a shift, not between two languages, but between two cultures” (192). This impression can be backed up by Suzy:

“Being bilingual, being multicultural should have brought two worlds into one heart, and yet for Suzy, it meant a persistent hollowness. It seems that she needed to love one culture to be able to love the other. Piling up cultural references led to no further identification. […] She was stuck in a vacuum where neither culture moved nor owned her. Deep inside, she felt no connection […].”

Kim 166.

As underlined by the quote, Suzy’s sense of identity is constantly challenged, which leads to her identity crisis caused by a missing sense of belonging. Therefore, her skills as an interpreter are not only a mere plot device to help her investigate her parents’ murder, but are also crucial to her character as a whole, as interpreting offers an intro-perspective into her mind and the issue of multiculturalism. Just as Suzy links the job of the interpreter to invisibility, she and her cultural understanding of herself become invisible and hollow. In the end, interpreting is essential to protagonist and plot and the key to Suki Kim’s work.

Works Cited

Burger, Bettina and Lucas Mattila: “Hybridity and Doubling in Suki Kim’s The Interpreter.” YouTube, uploaded by Lucas Mattila, 25 November 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw93CsFBNuI.

Eco, Umberto: Experiences in Translation. University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Kim, Suki. The Interpreter. Picador, 2003.

Kurz, Ingrid. “On the (In)fidelity of (Fictional) Interpreters.” Transfiction. Research into the Realities of Translation Fiction, edited by Klaus Kaindl and Karlheinz Spitzl, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014, pp. 205-220.

Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation. Second Edition. Routledge, 2008.