This week in the Granta blog, we hear from assistant editor Patrick Ryan as he finds himself chairing our translation event in New York.

As part of the week-long launch of our new issue, Granta 113: Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists, we held an event called Translating Culture: From Spanish to English at Columbia University in New York. The panel was impressive. Argentinean writer and translator Pola Oloixarac was there, along with legendary translators Alfred Mac Adam and Edith Grossman. I was to introduce the panel, and a moderator from the translation program was to facilitate the conversation.

Five minutes before we were to begin, the moderator got a call that her son was sick with the flu and, understandably, she had to leave. Which made me the moderator.

It’s a unique experience to guide a conversation in a field that isn’t your own. Needless to say, I was less than prepared; but I decided I could rise to the occasion. I would endeavour to inspire discussion while saying as little as possible, try not to throw sparks, and hope not to rattle any cages.

Edith Grossman has an expressive face, bright eyes, exuberant white hair and hands that grasp at the air when she talks. Alfred Mac Adam is a handsome, dapper man who exudes intelligence and calm. Pola Oloixarac is a stunning beauty who manages a perfect balance of diva-chic and self-possession. Here are some highlights of the discussion:

“So you’re given a novel written in Spanish to translate into English,” I chanced, once the conversation was underway. “Do you read the entire thing before translating a word, or do you start reading and translate as you go?”

Silence. My question had stunned them all with its blandness, I decided. But then Edith declared that she read a whole manuscript first; Alfred Mac Adam said he began translating not long after he began reading, and Pola said it depended on the text. And the three of them did what good panelists do: they began to play off one another; they began to talk amongst themselves.

“Do you ever show your work to the author during the process, to get feedback?” I asked a little while later.

Across the board, all three of them: no way.

I asked Pola if she preferred translating to writing. She preferred writing, she said, but emphasized that translating is a kind of writing. To which Edith added, “When I translate, I’m writing and my blank page is the manuscript in its original language.”

The audience of students seemed captivated.

I asked if any of the panellists had ever had an author come back to them disgruntled after reading a translation. Alfred said that he didn’t think most authors read their translations. Pola nodded in agreement, and Edith said that by the time you finish a translation, the author is well into his or her next project and is too preoccupied to care.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked.

Across the board, all three of them: yes.

My initial panic was beginning to abate. “On the level of language, Spanish versus English…” I began, not really sure where I was going – I was winging this, remember – but hoping one of them would jump in.

Alfred saved me. “What’s going on with those two languages is everything,” he said, and launched into a very intelligent and lengthy statement about the different nuances between Spanish and English, heady stuff about syntax and imperatives, and then Pola weighed in, and so did Edith. I was interested in what they were saying and felt more spectator than moderator. But I needed another question.

“Ever had a bad experience with an agent?” I asked.

“Please,” Edith replied. “I’ll only answer that if someone gets me another glass of wine.”

Someone in the audience did so, and she told an anecdote without naming names.

“How about dialogue?” I asked on impulse. “Dialogue is often straight-forward, unlike descriptive passages. Edith, do you ever find yourself meddling with dialogue?”

“Patrick!” she snapped. “I do not meddle.”

She was irked, I thought, I’d overstepped my bounds, rattled a cage.

“Make music is what I meant to say,” I back-pedalled. “Do you ever make music with dialogue?”

There was a pause, and then she burst into the throaty laugh of an ex-smoker, glanced at the audience and wagged her thumb toward me. “This one’s quick on his feet.”

The students laughed along with her, and it took me a few beats to realize the event was going well. A dynamic had been established, despite my feeling I was out of both their realm and mine. I felt a great affection for all three of them, for the audience, and for the circumstances that had brought us all together. In such a situation, the trick to faking it, I decided later, is to relax. And the trick to relaxing… is to fake it.

It also helps to have panellists who are not only smart but warm and indulgent.

Granta’s new issue is available in both
Spanish
and
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Previously on the Granta blog… Adam Thirlwell on lists of writers (why do we make them?), and Ollie Brock on found poetry, Nicaraguan street addresses, and Zoetrope: All-Story’s Latin American issue

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