Anita Hotchkiss
November, 2019
Comment on “Translation as a Practice of Acceptance,” an article based on a lecture titled “La traduzione come pratica dell’accoglienza,” delivered by Anita Raja in 2015
In this article, itself a translation of a lecture delivered in Italian[i], Anita Raja speaks from the perspective of a long-time translator of literary works from German to Italian. Given her deep font of knowledge of this labor of love (for her), and my virtually total lack of experience in the field, it is difficult, and undeniably presumptuous of me, to question anything she says. However, although I do agree with much of what she says and will comment below, I do question, and indeed challenge, the “inequality” she uses to describe the respective roles of author and translator.
Raja’s own use of language is undeniably rich. Her comments that even common words are like books with many pages and one can ruffle through their meanings, and that “clothes cut from another language are always too tight” are marvelous. Moreover, it is inarguable that faithful translation requires far far more than simply looking up the meaning of a particular word in a dictionary and replacing it for the original. That is why “on-line” translations are, and will always, be woefully inadequate. A translator does not only bring her own historical context, knowledge, and emotion to bear but must enlarge that knowledge and develop a relationship with the author, the country, and the language of the original, through all manner of means, including research and resource to secondary sources, in order to fully understand the context and breadth of the original before even beginning the arduous but enjoyable and fulfilling task of translation. Certainly, as she notes, a translator learns more about one’s own language when deconstructing the original and then reconstructing it in another language, just as a teacher learns from her pupils.
However, I do challenge the “inequality” that Raja repeatedly posits between author and translator, and her comments that one’s own language must “creep up to the original,” that the translator has a “more modest linguistic capacity,” and that the author’s words are “stronger than one’s own.” Setting aside the role of publishers/editors in a commercial setting, I would argue that in some respects the translator has more power than the author, especially if the author is deceased. The translator is the ultimate arbiter of the final work presented to the target audience, and this is appropriate, given the presumed superior expertise of the translator in the target language.
In trying to conceptualize the relationship I see between author and translator, I think of a plane with a pilot, let’s say from Italy, and a co-pilot from Ecuador. Both are equally able to fly the plane and both want to land it in one piece at its destination with all passengers safe, but the pilot has never flown over the Andes to the dangerous airstrip at Quito, high in the mountains of Peru – an airport the co-pilot has flown into and out of all her life in all sorts of weather. On our hypothetical flight, the co-pilot is clearly superior – the most qualified of the two and the logical person to take over the controls, avoid all the treacherous peaks, and bring the plane down safely onto the tiny airstrip.
The analogy may not fit exactly but, to me, the translator – the co-pilot if you will – is not “unequal” or quite as subordinate to the author as Raja portrays. However, as I admitted at the outset, I am this point an untrained and inexperienced co-pilot with no hours of actual flight time, and my view of the experience of flight may be totally misguided.
[i] Taking to heart Raja’s comments concerning the loss inevitable in any translation, we must wonder what has been lost in this translation from Raja’s lecture.