Translator, Text, and its Author: Distances to Negotiate

This panel will explore the concept of distance between the translator, a literary work, and its author, in order to shed light on the dual relationship we cope with.

Some key questions include: how do we decide on the degree of distance we maintain? Can we separate the living author from her text as a way of staying true to the original text, thus providing a translator’s version or interpretation? Or, should a translator work with the author to extend authorial agency to a new language? A workshop with an author may cause a different kind of communication gap when both translator and author are in the same room. How about the unreachable authors, and those from remote eras? The panel will discuss specific situations (workshop with the author, personal correspondence, independent research, etc.) in which these questions have arisen.

Click here for the PowerPoint for this event. (opens in new tab) Click here for accompanying text. (opens in new tab)

…

Moderator

Kyoko Yoshida has translated Kiwao Nomura and Yoshimasu Gozo with Forrest Gander, and Shu Matsui and others with Andy Bragen. Her translation of Hachikai Mimi’s poems appeared in Wasafiri and elsewhere. She also translates American novels into Japanese. Her story collection Disorientalism is available from Vagabond Press.

Presenters

Takako Lento translates poetry and prose from and into Japanese and English. She has published eight books of translations, including CollectedHaiku of Yosa Buson (with W. S. Merwin), and Pioneers of Modern Japanese Poetry. She holds an MFA in poetry and translation from the University ofIowa Writers’ Workshop. Adrienne Rose translates from Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classical Chinese, with a focus on experimental poetics of retranslation. Her writing appears most recently in Circumference, Ninth Letter, Ottawater, Konturen, and Intertexts. She edits Ancient Exchanges, a journal of translation. Nataša Ďurovičová divides her time between editing, teaching, scholarly work, and translating. She is the editor of the International Writing Program’s imprint 91st Meridian Books at Autumn Hill Books, and the IWP’s journal 91st Meridian, and the co-editor of the award-winning World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives (2010) and the essay collection At Translation’s Edge (2019).