I first heard about the article from my cousin, who teasingly told me about how 40% of the translations are reported to be riddled with mistranslations. Indeed, the article does say something to that effect:
Under the project initiated by the KLTI, Song led a team of 10 Korean professors specializing in English literature and four foreign scholars to review major English versions of Korean literature. They reviewed 72 works that were translated from about 1910 to 1999, and rated 29 of them - about 40 percent - at "C+" or "C." Only seven works got the top rating of "A.If the board's conclusion is that translators could have been more "faithful" to the original, they are probably right. The article writes that, "The most reliable translations came from joint work, which highlights the need to have more projects involving experts from Korea and English-speaking countries." Indeed, I produced my best translations when I worked in concert with qualified editors; the process took a long time and was often emotionally taxing, but the resulting product, in my opinion, made it worthwhile.
But the review process fails to call into question the institutional arrangement that has led to these translations. I am not just talking about time and money. The issue has to do with how majority of translation projects at KLTI are decided by committee. This means that KLTI, a state-funded institution gets to decide what Korean literature is on the global literary stage.
It's common for a literary translator in Seoul to hear his colleagues voice their frustration with Korean literature in general; this makes sense, if you think about the power relationship between KLTI and the translators it hires. Without going into specifics, I will say the complaint has the feel of off-the-record venting, common in most professions, and I sympathize with most of their grievances. But surely we began translating Korean literature because there was something in it that caught our attention, something in it that appealed to us. Why do we find ourselves criticizing works we're supposed to love?
If we sometimes act like disgruntled employees in the break room, maybe it's because we feel like employees to the institution of Korean literature (whatever that is). If we act like students in a cafeteria making fun of books they had to read and write a report on, maybe it's because something about the arrangement makes us feel like mere students. Of course, it's not just the translators who play into this role. KLTI seems to very unproblematically reinforce it. The following is a quote from the Korea Times article on the evaluation.
"Also, the quality of the translation is closely related to Korean literature critique which guides the right interpretation of the original meaning. [my emphasis] The poor translations are partly a result from a lack of understanding of the original works [my emphasis] ,'' Song said.Notice the phrase "right interpretation of the original meaning." Doesn't it sound like a teacher who teaches the student the "right interpretation"? It leaves no room for a model of reading as a synthetic product of a reader's encounter with a text. Readings aren't simply inherited, like a piece of land passed down from father to son; they are re-created and re-molded by the reader. The phrase "remaining loyal" is also a well-worn metaphor for understanding the relationship between the original text and translator; being "faithful" gets at the same idea. For me, these metaphors bring to mind the bond between master & slave, God & believer.
He said that the overall translated sentences sound natural, are easy to understand and show a good readability in general. "But many have a problem in remaining loyal to the original text [my emphasis], which fails to revive the literary beauty and meaning,'' said Song.
(On the other hand, we have "revive" which brings to mind, amusingly, patient & doctor dynamic, and--even more amusing--"keep alive" 살려주다--which I've heard several times--which points to something like a hostage & kidnapper relationship. These metaphors reverse the balance of power, but don't genuinely reflect the situation as I see it.)
Having said all this, I confess that I don't see myself as an authentic reader of Korean texts yet. I have been a literary translator for a little over a year now, and though Korean is technically my first language, I know I will have to keep working harder to get better. Furthermore, KLTI's current arrangement has, in fact, exposed me to more Korean literature than I've ever been before. Yet we can't forget that KLTI exists to claim institutional ownership over what Korean literature is abroad. As translators, we need to fight against the view that translation is merely a lesser copy, an inherently flawed reproduction that must be tolerated. If KLTI wants to nurture young translators, it shouldn't treat them as copy artists; it should help them become authentic readers of literature in the Korean language.
How to do this? When I was in Seoul, I took two different translation workshops. One was organized by KLTI and another by ICF (International Communication Foundation). Both allowed many translators with varying degrees of kinship with the Korean language to converse about common texts. In this way, various readings would emerge in class of the same work, all informed by the group conversations. Groups like KLTI and ICF should continue funding such events.
Furthermore, I am beginning to think we translators should focus on choosing literary works that mean something for us personally, rather than taking on projects just for the money, or because it's there. This also means searching out writers who haven't already won a dozen awards. One of the problems right now is that a small number of translators are picking from a fairly limited set of fashionable writers. In the end, I think the burden is on us translators to read widely and diversely, not reading simply to search out things to translate, so that our relationship with the text is less acquisitive and more reciprocal.
(Of course, this is a tall order. I often take on projects without knowing too much about the writer's work. I justify it by telling myself I still have much to learn; that I must be exposed to a wide variety of works; etc. But soon or later...)
2 comments:
This is a nice response to the article, and I agree with a lot of sentiments that you raise, esp. that feeling of scrambling for a small number of funded projects without the leisure to be able to step back and see the big picture.
I think part of it is that the people who promote translations are not only expecting translation to do more than it really can (i.e. convey all the beauty and soul of Korean culture without moving a single comma), they're also expecting Korean literature itself to do more than it really can.
Granted, I might just be hanging out with the wrong crowd, but when I talk about Korean literature with non-writers, they seem to focus more on what the story is saying about Korea, Korean society, Korean history, etc. Not to mention the fact that the stories selected for translation are often chosen for their "대표적"iness rather than, say, the author's attention to craft.
In other words, the concern seems to be, what does this story teach non-Koreans about Korea? Hence the discussions over things like lexical accuracy, explanatory translations vs. footnotes and glossaries, and the eternal question of what to do about dialect. But is it really the responsibility of authors and their individual works to essentially publicize and "brand" Korea, and to what purpose?
Thank your for your comment, Sora! I too have heard similar sentiments. It seems like the people you're describing are academics who want to make very specific *use* of literature -- i.e. as exhibits to teach literature and culture or Koreans who want non-Koreans to read their literature to know what Koreans (or Korea) are like.
For example, I remember attending a meeting at Seoul Selection, and I remember a young academic saying rather imperiously to the translators there, "Give us something we can use!" in class.
In terms of Koreans who want Korean literature to serve primarily as window into Korea, well, that actually serves the desires of the American mainstream readership pretty well, as I understand it. (I'm talking about the tendency of treating literature depicting lives of marginalized cultures as a piece of narrative anthropology.)
I agree with your point about craft. Though I must say, one of the things I found refreshing about being in Korea after the M.F.A. program was getting AWAY from all the talk about craft. Discourse about craft (like discourse about most things...) can feel inbred pretty fast, so that it actually muddles my thinking as I write. I really enjoyed the experience of reading some Korean stories and thinking, "Really? Is this a short story? Hell, why the fuck not!" It helped me bust out of something like a seal that had formed around my idea of what a story was (and can be).
I was going to make a similar point that you made about this perceived responsibility that Korean writers have to "publicize" and "brand" Korea. I rememer something that a guest author said at the ICF conference, that she hadn't really thought about the fact she was writing in Korean until somebody began showing interest in translating her work. Sure, there are writers like Kim Young-ha who envision themselves writing for a global audience, but there are writers who remain rather innocent about their place but then produce important and fresh work anyway responding honestly to their own experience and texts they have encountered throughout their reading.
My whole response earlier was trying to go against the idea of having a national literature, something that embodies Koreanness (as you say, 대표적), simply and perhaps erroneously assuming it's not soemthing that ordinary readers and writers would desire. But hey, if that's what they want...? Fuck.
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