Just one more note following yesterday’s post about the book “Shen Congwen’s Xiangxi”. As a translator, I cannot help but noticing the “translator’s note” in this book: “The excerpts that accompany the photographs in this book have been taken from a wide selection of Shen Congwen’s writings. Since the time to complete this assignment did not allow for translating all of Shen’s writings, I may not have included all of the nuances and hidden meanings in his writing. My apologies. Should a reader who is more familiar with Shen’s stories and writings uncover a passage where I have missed the point, please forgive me.”
This is a professional translator’s note and has shed light on the problem commonly faced by many translators. There is never enough time to pursue perfection because your client always wants things to have been done yesterday and would never pay enough to make it worth your time and efforts to properly convey a writer’s “voice” from one language/culture to another.
(With that said, professional translators always point out, factually, the issues they faced throughout the translation process and how these have impacted on the quality of their translation, and if they think they themselves might have been at fault, they would say so.)
I wonder who was in charge of selecting the bits and pieces of Shen’s writings to accompany the images in this book? And I wonder how this translator was found for this whole project?
A bit of research revealed that the translator is originally from Britain and had lived in and travelled around China for decades. He left that country a very grumpy man because his “state-owned competitors (enemy is more accurate)” seized what business he had established and “proceeded to do everything in their power to destroy (him)”. Interesting story here.
Note: The image above came from Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation
(Day 23 #WarmWinterRead #WWR25 via @librarieschangelives)
Voices under the Sun 陽光下的聲音 