translator, author share Man Booker prize

General discussion about learning languages
mcthulhu
Orange Belt
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:01 pm
Languages: English (native); strong reading skills - Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Slovene, Farsi; fair reading skills - Polish, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Portuguese; beginner/rusty - Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
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translator, author share Man Booker prize

Postby mcthulhu » Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:12 pm

http://themanbookerprize.com/news/horse ... prize-2017

Denver-based Hebrew-English literary translator Jessica Cohen split a 50,000 pound prize with David Grossman, the author of A Horse Walks into a Bar, a novel about a stand-up comedian's final performance. I also found this interview with her about the translation: http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/disp ... m-b-becker. Also https://www.92y.org/uptown-microsites/p ... onado.aspx.

I can't imagine the challenge of translating numerous jokes into another language, and doing it well. The translation blog where I originally heard about this highlighted how unusual it was for a translator to get equal billing with a work's original author, and it's good to see that credit is given. I think the Man Booker Prize just started doing it this way last year.

There was one somewhat depressing note in the second interview above - she observes that "authors and their agents are struggling to find US publishers willing to publish translations. This is frustrating because there is so much good writing coming out of Israel now..." Maybe the U.S. market for literary translations is particularly tough (I'm not sure); but I'm pretty sure that only a small fraction of any country's literature will ever be available in translation - always a good motivation to become able to read the original books on your own. Still, it's great to see that someone can make a living translating contemporary fiction; that seems like an incredibly enjoyable profession.
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