Tucson in November?
Yesterday I was asking a literary translator friend of mine about a few weird things that were mentioned in the translation textbook I’m reading for my translation/interpreting class. I think it’s fair to say the she really enjoyed being a resource for my questions and this morning I woke up with a text from her letting me know about a literary translators conference coming up in November and that I might want to consider applying for a scholarship to attend. Reading works in translation has been a passion of mine from an early age. One of my favorite books as a kid was Stories that Must Not Die. The book was both in Spanish and English both languages contained in the same volume. I remember reading both parts and trying to figure out which one was the original especially since the book takes the form of a false oral history. Even now when I read books in translation if an unusual word or phrase pops up I’ll try and find the original work (if it was Spanish) and try to see how it compares to what the translator came up with. This all came up again a few years ago when I was a reading a review for a book I was filing and wanted to know more about. The review tore the translation to shreds. It was very uncompromising including several sections from the original work and then it’s translation as comparison. The reviewer even went so far as to question whether the translator who was from Australia had had any real opportunity to engage with Spanish for an extended period of time. It was my first time reading a book review that had so openly criticized the translation and I was fascinated all over again. If I’m going to apply for the scholarship I need to find Spanish literary text to translate and I need to prepare myself to read both of them aloud at the conference if I’m chosen as a winner. Things to think about for the future.













