Daniel Kehlmann

[hdw]

There's a mini-interview with German author Daniel Kehlmann, author of Measuring the World, in today's Observer -

You're taking part in the World Literature Weekend which celebrates literature in translation. How do you feel about having your novels translated?

It's a great honour. The idea that there are publishing houses in other countries that pay people to translate my books, and that those people take time to do so, is very flattering. With most translations, though, I have no idea how well they work because I can't read or understand the language.

What about in English?

In English, I work with Carol Janeway who is also a friend and the senior vice-president of my publishing house in America. She was born in Scotland but lives in the US. She does 'transatlantic translation' so that it works in both the US and in Britain. We work very closely together and we have a lot of fun. She captures my tone very well.

Kehlmann is rather naïve if he thinks that publishing houses, at least in the UK, will pay for a translation. No way. The author and/or translator have to find some other way of funding the translator's work, either by tapping some governmental source of grants or by the author dipping into his/her own pocket.

Harry

 

[Eric]

Kehlmaan may be a little blue-eyed. But he is at least enthusiastic about the fact that his books will appear in English. Working closely with the translator also shows an awareness of the process involved.

My funding has usually come recently from the Estonian state grants fund (Traducta),a nd as quite a few countries in Europe have similar funds, translators do at least have one state source to turn to if they want to translate from, for example, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, etc., into English. I'm not sure of the situation with French, German and Spanish.

I think the greater hill to climb is the sheer apathy of publishers. You notice that Kehlmann is being translated by someone originally Scottish - but for the American market. As I've said elsewhere, four of the last five books I've translated have been for American publishers. Britain likes to start all sorts of schemes and projects involving aspects of translation, but I don't feel that there are prose publishers in the UK that are as enthusiastic about European literature as are Dalkey, Open Letter Books, Northwestern, and several other presses in the USA. Why is Britain, which is right next to Europe, lagging behind and focusing on things such as Scandinavian crime novels, instead of having things translated from the rest of Europe?

So I wish Kehlmann luck with English, but as Harry suggests, he has a few things to learn.

 

[hdw]

but I don't feel that there are prose publishers in the UK that are as enthusiastic about European literature as are Dalkey, Open Letter Books, Northwestern, and several other presses in the USA. Why is Britain, which is right next to Europe, lagging behind and focusing on things such as Scandinavian crime novels, instead of having things translated from the rest of Europe?

The Elia Barceló novel I posted about at European Literature is published by MacLehose Press. They do crime fiction, e.g. Stieg Larsson, but presumably the income from those books enables them to publish less commercial literature in translation.

http://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/about/maclehose-press/

Harry

 

[Mirabell]

Kehlmann is rather naïve if he thinks that publishing houses ... will pay for a translation. No way. The author and/or translator have to find some other way of funding the translator's work, either by tapping some governmental source of grants or by the author dipping into his/her own pocket.

Harry

So people like Eric live off grants alone? And the generous pocketbooks of Estonian novelists, of course?

 

[hdw]

So people like Eric live off grants alone? And the generous pocketbooks of Estonian novelists, of course?

I was talking about the UK. British publishers will definitely not pay for a translation, so for example if you were going to translate a Swedish novel into English, you would try to get the Swedish cultural authorities to pay for it, in the interests of making Swedish literature accessible to the wider world. I think the Swedish bureaucrats in question would be the Kulturråd people.

Harry

 

[Eric]

Mirabell, where are your translations financed from? Who pays for yours? Or your study and upkeep, for that matter?

I get money from funds, public or private, but up to now, no one individual has paid me privately for a translation, as people can't usually afford that sort of thing. Estonian novelists are the last people on Earth that would be able to afford the promotion of their books. They are the idealists that didn't join lucrative companies after 1991.

Do you reckon Daniel Kehlmann bribes people to publish his books, or do publishing houses do so because they like them?

Not everyone in the world of translation and publishing is corrupt.

 

[Stiffelio]

My funding has usually come recently from the Estonian state grants fund (Traducta),a nd as quite a few countries in Europe have similar funds, translators do at least have one state source to turn to if they want to translate from, for example, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, etc., into English. I'm not sure of the situation with French, German and Spanish.

I think the greater hill to climb is the sheer apathy of publishers. You notice that Kehlmann is being translated by someone originally Scottish - but for the American market. As I've said elsewhere, four of the last five books I've translated have been for American publishers. Britain likes to start all sorts of schemes and projects involving aspects of translation, but I don't feel that there are prose publishers in the UK that are as enthusiastic about European literature as are Dalkey, Open Letter Books, Northwestern, and several other presses in the USA. Why is Britain, which is right next to Europe, lagging behind and focusing on things such as Scandinavian crime novels, instead of having things translated from the rest of Europe?

So I wish Kehlmann luck with English, but as Harry suggests, he has a few things to learn.

I'm a bit confused (not knowing much about the translation industry) but do firms like Dalkey, Open Letter Books and Northwestern also refuse to pay for translations? What about bigger firms? For instance, is Knopf not paying Jay Rubin or Philip Gabriel for their transkations of Murakami's 1Q84?

 

[Mirabell]

I'm a bit confused (not knowing much about the translation industry) but do firms like Dalkey, Open Letter Books and Northwestern also refuse to pay for translations? What about bigger firms? For instance, is Knopf not paying Jay Rubin or Philip Gabriel for their transkations of Murakami's 1Q84?

that was my question exactly.

 

[Eric]

I have translated three books now for Dalkey, all from Estonian. Two are in print, one forthcoming. In all three cases I have signed a contract with Dalkey. This contract is then submitted to the Traducta translation fund in Tallinn. So the Estonians pay the translator, but the publishing house, Dalkey in this case, pay for publishing the book (marketing, printing, editing, etc.).

In my opinion, this is an excellent arrangement as it takes some of the financial burden off the publisher. Dalkey is in effect a university press, not a multinational conglomerate like Random House. So cost-spreading means that Dalkey's books, some of which are quite weird by mainstream book standards, get onto the market in the United States and, to an extent, in the UK as well.

So it isn't a question of these presses refusing to pay. It is merely a method whereby the country where the book is originally published can also get the satisfaction of feeling that among all the costs of book promotion, e.g. sending officials to endless book fairs, they are also paying the translator, who gets the money directly from the fund, so that the publishing house is not tempted to cream off amounts for extra expenses.

*

Now, Mirabell, come clean, where do you get your money from? I have set out my case. It is courteous to reciprocate.

 

[Mirabell]

Now, Mirabell, come clean, where do you get your money from? I have set out my case. It is courteous to reciprocate.

I am not a professional translator and make no money at all from translations. See, easy enough to answer.

 

[hdw]

I get money from funds, public or private, but up to now, no one individual has paid me privately for a translation, as people can't usually afford that sort of thing.

I'm lucky in that several individuals have at different times paid me out of their own pockets for a translation, usually saying they would try to claw the money back from some cultural fund.

A lot of smaller countries are very keen to have their literature publicised in the wider world and will have some kind of scheme to help defray the cost of a translation into English, but when there are so many writers in the English-speaking world with a MS to publish which is already in English, you can see why British (I can't speak for American) publishers are reluctant to shell out the extra money for a translation into English. Never mind translations, most publishers these days, also newspapers, have done away with proper editors, hence all the typos you find in books and papers.

Harry

 

[Eric]

Mirabell said the following in #4:

So people like Eric live off grants alone? And the generous pocketbooks of Estonian novelists, of course?

I have no objections whatsoever to receiving money from private individuals if they happen to be rich. But rich people that want to subsidise postmodernist novels or Estonian literature are few and far between. I'm sure I could find a person or two in Sweden who could pay me out of his own pocket and then get the money back from a fund. Because Sweden has masses of funds if you know how to play the system.

But in lieu of that, I am certainly happy to accept money from state funds, especially ones set up to promote the national literature. When you compare the translator's fee (£87 per one thousand words translated is the Society of Authors' recommended fee) with what these state funds pay by way of hotel & travel costs for cultural bureaucrats to travel all over the world, the translator's fee is peanuts by comparison.

We translators, whether in-house, tithed or freelance, are paid very badly when you consider the sheer amount of erudition and experience that is expected of us. We have to know the country whose literature we translate to the same level as university librarians and lecturers, but we are often treated like Mr or Ms Quick-Fix for other people who are out to promote themselves, but forget those who helped them get to where they are.

 

[Eric]

To return to Daniel Kehlmann, a writer like him will no doubt get a substantial advance (payment before the work is finished) directly from the publisher. But translators are often considered a financial burden in the English-speaking countries, countries that are dazzled by their own success selling books to non-English-speaking countries. Where exactly does Kehlmann get paid from, as a writer? Why is it that writers and translators are not considered as equals for payment?

 

[hdw]

We translators, whether in-house, tithed or freelance, are paid very badly when you consider the sheer amount of erudition and experience that is expected of us.

Which is my cue to tell you about the latest little problem this translator has just run into. As of last night, to be precise, when I came across this passage in the novel about the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnæus which I am currently translating (so far, just for fun, without any promise of money or publication!).

Linnæus is prowling in the garden, when he hears strange sounds coming from the gardener's shed. The gardener is in there with some of his cronies, and they are all taking it in turns to yell out strange expressions. It's Swedish, but not as we know it, Jim. If Linnæus, a native speaker of Swedish, can't understand what they are on about, what hope for the poor translator?

"Hosso ger hugg!
Koko står!
Värdshus förbi!
Husar ger hugg!
Kavall förbi!"

I immediately emailed the author, who knows I am doing this and has given me his imprimatur, and I asked, "Is this by any chance a card game, and they're calling out as they slap their cards on the table!"

I'm pleased to say I was spot-on. The author found details of this abstruse card game played with a special deck of cards in a booklet published by the National Museums of Sweden, and he has given me links to a couple of websites. It belongs to a group of card games called Kille (Harlequin). Knowing that, I can now make a tentative effort to find English equivalents.

This is the kind of thing that makes translation such a fun thing to do, apart from the monetary aspect. And any translator appreciates a like-minded author who is happy to collaborate and who responds speedily to queries.

http://user.it.uu.se/~joachim/kille.html

Harry

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Why is it that writers and translators are not considered as equals for payment?

Why should they? I fully agree with you guys that the translators should get much, much more attention and better payment. In Germany I got the impression (but I am only an average reader without any real insights into the business, maybe Mirabell knows more) that things improve a bit, for example there are prizes/scholarships specifically for translations or translators. And as much as you can argue against all those literature prizes, they are definitely helpful to raise some attention (if there are not too many of them, which is not the case for translations). But would it not be hopelessly naive to hope for equal treatment of writers and translators? I mean, without the writer the translator would not have a job, right?

 

[hdw]

Mirabell said the following in #4:
We translators, whether in-house, tithed or freelance, are paid very badly when you consider the sheer amount of erudition and experience that is expected of us.

As there seems to be a bit of interest in this thread at the moment, let me tell you about a problem I ran into last night in the Swedish novel about the naturalist Linnæus that I'm trying to translate. This is the kind of thing that makes translation interesting, apart from any monetary aspect. Incidentally, I'm doing this translation purely out of interest, without any current prospect of being paid or finding a British publisher. Translators sometimes do this with a book they're keen on, although of course it's easier for someone like me who isn't doing it as a full-time occupation like Eric does.

At this point in the story, Linnæus is prowling in the garden when he hears strange noises coming from the gardener's shed. The gardener is in there with some of his cronies and they're taking turns to shout out strange expressions. If I say that Linnæus, a native speaker of Swedish, can't understand what they're on about, you can appreciate the problem for a translator, trying to understand it and turn it into a comparable passage of English. It's Swedish, Jim, but not as we know it -

"Hosso ger hugg!
Koko står!
Värdshus förbi!
Husar ger hugg!
Kavall förbi!"

I emailed the author, and asked if by any chance they were playing a card game, and each man was shouting something out as he slammed his card down?

Well, I was spot on. My author, like the good man he is, got back to me immediately and told me he found the rules of this game in a little booklet published by the National Museums of Sweden. The game is one of a group of card games called in Swedish Kille (Harlequin), and he gave me links to a couple of useful Swedish websites. Here's an English-language one I found for myself, once I knew what to look for -

http://user.it.uu.se/~joachim/kille.html

As I said, this kind of thing makes translation interesting, and of course it helps when you have a co-operative and involved author who responds promptly to your queries.

Harry

 

[Eric]

Apfelwurm, you didn't get my meaning. I mean that in relative terms, a translator should be treated as a writer both in terms of money and status. I am not suggesting that star translators should start appearing on TV and boasting about their fabulous profession. I've seen enough of that at conferences. What I mean is that the craft of translation should be recognised for what it is, and that we translators shouldn't be either the lackeys of publishers, or have to go cap-in-hand to people for fees for the work we do, as if we were beggars.

I don't think we need argue about "without writers, translators would be nothing". That is so obvious. It's like saying that "without composers, musicians would be nothing". These are not amazing statements. But we translators do need years to build up a facility for translation, a wide vocabulary and so on. A 22-year-old straight out of his or her MA in Translation Studies still needs a decade or two to pick up the rest. But then they find out that translation is not a career, but a kind of hobby that is paid now and again. So they become lecturers and librarians, only having time for translation when they are retired. This is counterproductive.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Yes, absolutely right. Ok. I am 100% behind you on this.

 

[Verkhovensky]

There was talk about his work elsewhere, especially about Tyll, but no one wrote in this thread for more than a decade. Anyway, after finishing Tyll I can give my personal ranking of Kehlmanns work I've read

I tried to summ up the main 'genre' of each book. Note that almost every work of his (maybe except You Should Have Left) has some elements of humor.


1. Tyll - historical
2. Measuring the World - historical
3. F - family novel/comic novel
4. Beerholms Vorstellung - coming of age
5. Me and Kaminsky - comic novel/satire
6. Fame - postmodern/satire
7. You Should Have Left - thriller/horror
8. Mahler's Zeit - philosophical

4. and 8. I think aren't translated into English, those are his first two novels.
Recommendations for everything basically except the last two, but on the other hand both are just novellas so if you happen upon them you won't lose much time.