A New Translation Paradigm? - Cheryl

The discourse around the issue of translator credentials with Deborah Smith and her translation of Han Kang's "The Vegetarian" reminded me of the uproar around Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier's selection as the translators of Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex," given their limited experience as literary translators and their main experience being in language instruction. Here critics pointed out that Deborah Smith had only been learning Korean for 6 years, and this might've been relevant to the "beginner" mistakes she made in her translation, but it begs the question, how long would ever be long enough? Is there a magic number of years after which your authority as a translator may not be questioned? (We all know that even the most experienced translators make mistakes.)

The idea of "fidelity" in translation has always been one that is so fraught, and ever so hard to pin down. On the sliding scale of "fidelity" what is the threshold for acceptability and how could it ever be measured? Both the New York Review of Books and the Los Angeles Times review point out that most anglophone readers will never know how much Smith had deviated from the original and that ultimately, it is her version that they relished, even as some might feel betrayed if they ever realised that the translation might not have been as close a reflection of the original as they were led to believe.

Sun Kyoung Yoon argues that Smith's translation is an act of creative and political writing and that it should be viewed as such. I personally like the idea of expanding the definition of what translation can be to give translators more creative license and in some cases, a political voice, but I think the crux of the matter is marketing and public reception. The average reader expects and assumes that in reading a translated text, they are sharing in the experience of the original audience and that this is possible in a complete and uncompromising way. I think this is why when a translated text is revealed to be "unfaithful" in any way, readers feel betrayed because this is not what they feel they were promised. 

In the three prefaces by David R. Slavitt, Mark Musa and David Young, each defends their own "infidelity" in translation:

To convey at least some suggestion of this in English, I think rhyme is necessary in translating them, even if the rhymes require some slight departure from the literal meaning of some of the sentences. I have taken further liberties, necessary because English is rhyme poor compared to Italian. - Slavitt

I have tried to be faithful to the poem's meaning without being too literal, and faithful to its sound and music without being archaic or restricting myself to a formal rhyme scheme. - Musa

My "liberties," where they occur, come from the constraints of meter and the desire to be clear and straightforward. - Young

To me, this suggests that the importance of faithfulness runs deep in translation theory and convention, even in forms as elusive and fluid as poetry. 

I'm interested to see how paradigms in translation might be stretched and shifted, but I can see that translation as a purely creative act might be some time away.