If you’ve fallen in love with an translated piece of literature, you’ve probably wondered what it would be like to read the work in the original language. My fellow bookseller, Kelly, wrote a blog piece on the translation of literature in July 2009 after the second Stieg Larsson book (written in Swedish) had been released. She gave examples of how difficult it is translate poetry, and being a fan of Gabriel García Márquez, I appreciated her questions about the translation of his work:
“Gabriel García Márquez’s novels have been praised for, among other things, their beautiful language. But can we really say it’s his language that’s so lovely? Isn’t it more accurate to say that his novel’s translator painstakingly pored over each sentence until it most closely resembled Marquez’s aim and cadence in Spanish?”
Since I have been reading 1Q84, I began to wonder about Haruki Murakami’s translators. In an effort to release the English edition in a timely manner, two of Murakami’s translators took on the work: Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. (Alfred Birnbaum has translated A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Underground and others.) As 1Q84 was released in three volumes in Japan, Rubin set to work on the first two. Once the third volume was ready, Gabriel began working on it while Rubin continued working on volume two.
Jay Rubin & Haruki Murakami, photo from The University Bookstore Blog in Seattle
In September 2011 Blake Eskin, editor of New Yorker.com, interviewed Jay Rubin about translating Murakami’s 1Q84 for The New Yorker Out Loud series.
Jay Rubin explains that he first read Murakami not by choice. It all came about when an American publisher needed an opinion of Murakami just to see if they wanted to have a Murakami work translated. Rubin had no idea what to expect and “figured he was just another pop writer.”
But Rubin was greatly surprised and begged the American publisher to print Murakami and let him translate the work. They rejected the recommendation to publish Murakami. However, about a year later, a translation of Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland translated by Alfred Birnbaum came out. Eventually, Rubin is asked to translate and his name now accompanies Haruki Murakami’s on several of his novels.
Griffin, a lover of Japanese literature and blogger for The University Bookstore in Seattle, was invited to a May 2010 lecture given by Jay Rubin. Griffin shares Rubin’s translation challenge in his blog piece:
“Professor Rubin shared one anecdote that involved his current project translating the first two volumes of 1Q84 for Haruki Murakami. He assured us that this isn’t a spoiler, but some of the characters see two moons in the sky. These folks are in the minority, as everyone else sees a single moon. But in Japanese, there is no distinction between plural and singular nouns. So the struggle, for him, has become sorting out how many moons each character sees.”
In the Eskin interview, Rubin comments on how authors are truly at the mercy of the translator and that the process of translation is very subjective. All three translators of Murakami have their own recognizable styles, says Rubin, and adds that Murakami has felt that it is he, Rubin, who sticks the closest to the original.
In an interview with The Paris Review Murakami was asked how he chose his translators:
“I have three—Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, Jay Rubin—and the rule is “first come, first get.” We’re friends, so they are very honest. They read my books and one of them thinks, That’s great! I’d like to do that. So he takes it. As a translator myself, I know that to be enthusiastic is the main part of a good translation. If someone is a good translator but doesn’t like a book so much, that’s the end of the story. Translation is very hard work, and it takes time.”
Back to Kelly’s blog piece in which she considers the translation of Gabriel García Márquez and Stieg Larsson: She was fortunate to get a comment from Larsson’s translator, Reg Keeland. Here’s what he had to say:
“Once, through the translator grapevine, I heard that Gabriel García Márquez had told his translator Gregory Rabassa that the English version sounded better than his own original Spanish. Now that’s a compliment! I hope Americans are finally getting over their fear of translations. Compared to the 80s and 90s, we’re experiencing a mini-boom in translated fiction. Publishers are not going to incur extra expense to publish a translation if it’s not excellent, and the quality of translations in general has gone up considerably since their fall in status in the 70s-80s. I still recall the golden age of translated fiction in the 60s, when I could go to the library and find a new author from any number of countries — the way I discovered Jorge Amado from Brazil through his novella “The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell.” Let’s face it, reading good fiction from other countries is a fantastic way to learn about other cultures without leaving your armchair.”
In my unquenchable thirst for all things Murakami, I found out about an entire symposium devoted to translating and reading his work. When us book/language nerds begin to think about the 40+ languages into which Murakami has been translated, we can imagine the discussion. The book to commemorate the symposium is aptly entitled A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World
As we appreciate the work of translators, what’s left to do but enjoy the fruits of their labor? It also leads me to peruse all of the beautiful covers around the world. Our former bookseller and Murakami fan Kaycie photographed these books in a Paris bookshop.
Blake Eskin’s interview is a pleasure. Listen to the entire interview here.
1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.
Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.
Click here to see other blog posts on Murakami.
hmhm
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