The Beautiful Dance of Literary Translation

"Translation makes me rediscover language..."

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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At a recent translation slam, three translators read their remarkably different translations of the same passage of prose in Ukrainian, each explaining their process and choices. All three were faithful to the original. None made anything up. And yet each translation had a distinct sound, rhythm, and feel. Prompted by a question from the audience, one translator likened the practice of translation to a dance. The voice of the text, she explained, is what activates the emotion, energy, and movement of words and sentences in translation, what guides her in delivering the author’s intention and text’s meaning.

The audience of translators, writers, and readers nodded in unison and for me, as a bit of all three plus a social salsa dancer, her analogy had special resonance. It echoed the playful negotiation between rules and artistry, the formal steps and the ways dancing bodies interpret them. Though the translator was speaking about what it feels like to translate, the metaphor applied just as well to the experience of reading translated literature. Reading a story in translation is like being pulled into a dance by a poised, mysterious stranger—the translator—inviting us to follow their lead into an unknown.

When I first moved from the drills of salsa class onto a real dance floor—loud music, no talking, no step-count chants—I could only surrender to the rhythm and attune to my partner’s cues. To enjoy the dance I had to both pay attention and give into abandon. Neither myself nor my partner knew ahead of time how the dance would go, but we were willing to be in it together, trusting that wherever it took us—whether seamless compatibility or, more likely, awkward steps salvaged from a mortifying fall by clumsy grasps at each other’s bodies—it would be an adventure.

Translated literature guides me into inhabiting not only inner worlds of people, places, and cultures I know little or nothing about, but different ways of organizing thoughts and ideas. It makes me experience the words of a language I know—its order, sounds, and textures—in unfamiliar ways I might otherwise overlook when reading the smooth, intuitive syntax of a native speaker.

Asked in The Paris Review interview about his translation of Brecht’s poem “Of Poor B.B.” that has pine trees “piss,” translator Michael Hoffman shared why he chose the word “micturate” instead: “If something travels further, it will be better. ‘Pissing’ is actually less shocking in English. Don’t accept legs up from the original. All friends are false friends.”

Reading a story in translation is like being pulled into a dance by a kind, poised, mysterious stranger—the translator—inviting us to follow their lead into an unknown.

As a native Croatian speaker and a fiction writer in English, I, as most writers working in their second language, live with the joys and frustrations of knowing the better word or expression in one language but not the other. When I helped translate some of my own stories into Croatian, a co-translator remarked my revision made sense and felt true, even though it wasn’t what I wrote in English.

Curious to see how far I’d ventured from my own original text, I went back to translating my English sentences word-for-word. Predictably, it didn’t work. The prose sounded stodgy and uptight. I had to let go of entire words and idioms in order to carry over the narrator’s snappy character and outraged tone. The narrator’s Croatian voice needed to be more informal. “Understood” got closest to the intended effect in Croatian as “got it;” “betrayed” became “fell for it;” “fine” worked best when translated as “sure.” Funny enough, even the words I use here to illustrate my point in all English are approximations!

And even after all the shifts and adjustments, something in the translation remained slightly off—not in a disappointing, but intriguing way. A tickle that made me appreciate both languages more deeply and take neither for granted. I felt affirmed later in a class on a translated memoir, when the instructor noted that a translation doesn’t have to make us forget it’s a translation to be accomplished; in fact, the “off-ness,” the slight disorientation, is what’s exhilarating.

There is ease in reading original writing in a familiar or native language, just as there is pleasure in deep knowing, safety, delicious predictability of dancing with a longtime partner. But the downside lies in becoming too comfortable, lulled into formulaic habits of creating and consuming stories. When indulged exclusively, those beaten paths can flatten language and thwart novel possibilities for its expression.

Translation makes me rediscover language, see and hear it with fresh eyes and ears. It awakens my senses. It unsettles me. Not with panic, but with wonder. Attentive reading is never passive, but reading translated work heightens that activation. In an introduction to St. Augustine’s “Confessions,” translator Sarah Ruden explains her decision to translate Latin dominus as “Master,” not as a more common, “Lord:”

The latter suggests a ruler, a nobleman, or another political authority, or the enthroned God of imagery starting in the Hebrew Bible. The Latin Bible’s dominus, however, was far different in its contemporary associations. Stemming from the word for ‘house’ or ‘home,’ domus, dominus primarily and ordinarily refers to that home’s head and the owner of its slaves, who would address him with this title. The unavoidable English translation seems to be ‘Master’.

Like a skilled salsa lead, the translator applies pressure that is light but confident. It doesn’t dictate, it suggests. It leads us toward turns we didn’t know our bodies, or minds, could make, beyond elegance and mastery, into surprise. Translation intensifies noticing, so the effects of reading linger. Whether or not I “liked” the story, reading translation extends an invitation into uncertainty and rewards the plunge with delight and intimacy.

Translators are both dance leads and follows, fluent in both the science of steps and the boundless possibilities of creative expression. They honor both the original text and the translated one, both the author and the reader, the dance partner and the dance. What may be lost in immediacy of reading the original is replaced by the unfiltered high of imagination and playfulness. The trust in the fruit of translator’s deep care for language and stories of others compel us to do the same—to pause, make space for the thrill of unpredictability and enjoy the ride replete with unforeseen dividends.

Tongue graphic

As all of us reading Lit Mag News, I love literary magazines. Those dedicated to translation—Asymptote, Words Without Borders, tr. review of translations—and all the others that include translated works, have immeasurably enriched my reading and writing life. After listening to Becky’s interview with translators and editors—Sacha Idell’s closing remark “read more, write more, translate more,” reverberating in my head—I wanted to contribute to this ecosystem of attention to language and the pleasure of being happily unsettled by it through translation. Luckily, I wasn’t alone in my excitement: other writers, artists, and language enthusiasts joined me in starting Tongue, a new magazine of fiction and creative non-fiction in translation.

While Tongue welcomes translated stories from any language, as editor and a native speaker of a language spoken by a relatively small population, I’m especially sensitive and committed to spotlighting endangered, indigenous, and minority languages, as well as those widely-spoken but similarly underrepresented in the literary landscape, along with the extraordinary writers working in them.

To ensure no story or language gets overlooked in the bustle of this language dance party, Tongue publishes one story at a time, in both original language and English translation. We hope you’ll join us as contributors and readers on the dance floor.

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