A L D U S , A J O U R N A L O F T R A N S L AT I O N
A Conversation about Literary Translation by Stephen T. Murray & Tiina Nunnally
Tiina Nunnally: Recently you were invited to our local Costco store to sign copies of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. You said that lots of people stopped by to chat with you about the books, but you told me that the most memorable encounter was with a teenage girl. She planted herself in front of the table where you were sitting behind stacks of books, gave you a defiant look, and said: “The author is dead. So who are you?” That’s such a valid question! What did you say to her? Steven T. Murray: I told her I was the translator--and without my work she couldn’t have read those books. Or maybe I just wished that I’d said that last part. . .
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T: Plenty of Americans don’t realize that they’re reading a translated work, especially if the book has become a bestseller, like the Millennium trilogy. There’s still a common perception that a translated book will sound clumsy and awkward. And besides, the last translated novel to make such a big splash on the American market was Umberto Eco’s The Name of
Murray N unnall y the Rose, translated into English by William Weaver in 1983. But it’s also partly because in the past translators have often been truly invisible. This is especially true of many early translations of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. The illustrator is frequently given credit, while the name of the translator doesn’t appear anywhere--not even on the copyright page. These days publishers still seem reluctant to acknowledge the role of the translator. It’s rare for a translator’s name to appear on the front cover of a book. I’ve been lucky enough to have my name on the cover of the classics that I’ve translated, but not on the covers of so-called commercial novels. S: Well, I’ve never had my name on the front cover of any book from a big publisher--only those we published at our small Fjord Press in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But one New York publisher recently asked if they could use “Reg Keeland” on the front of a German novel I was doing for them. I said: “Sorry, that’s one of my British pseudonyms for UK use only.” Besides, it was a protest name. I’m holding out for my name on the front cover of one of my translations--and in embossed type! T: I do think some readers are becoming more savvy about translation--I’ve noticed this especially on blogs devoted to crime fiction. Certain translators, such as Don Bartlett (the translator of the Jo Nesbø books), have developed a real fan base on blogs. And there are literary prizes that recognize that translations are collaborative efforts. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shares the award equally between the author and translator. 135