{"id":1288,"date":"2014-04-20T06:49:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-20T11:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2020-04-07T14:56:22","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T18:56:22","slug":"an-interview-with-gabriel-garcia-marquezs-translator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/an-interview-with-gabriel-garcia-marquezs-translator\/","title":{"rendered":"An interview with Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s translator"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post<\/a><\/p>\n

By Carlos Lozada<\/p>\n

As a translator, it may not get better \u2014 or more daunting \u2014 than bringing the work of Gabriel Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez to new audiences. Beginning with the 1985 novel \u201cLove in the Time of Cholera,\u201d Edith Grossman has rendered in English the Nobel laureate\u2019s work. In an e-mail exchange with Outlook editor Carlos Lozada following the writer\u2019s death on Thursday, Grossman reflects on the art of translation, Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s pet peeves and which of his novels was her favorite.<\/p>\n

When did you learn Spanish?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I first studied Spanish in high school, in Philadelphia. My family were not Spanish speakers.<\/p>\n

How did you become a translator?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A friend who edited a magazine asked me to translate a piece by the Argentine Macedonio Fern\u00e1ndez. When I said that I was a critic, not a translator, he said, \u201cYou can call yourself whatever you want; just translate the piece.\u201d I did, and the rest is history.<\/p>\n

How involved was Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez in the work of translation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was not particularly engaged in the process. On the other hand, I normally don\u2019t consult with an author until I\u2019ve finished the translation. I usually take about six months to do a novel, depending on its length and difficulty.<\/p>\n

Did he have any rules about how he wanted his work translated?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He did not like adverbs that ended in -mente (in Spanish; the English equivalent is -ly). I sometimes felt like a contortionist as I searched out alternatives.<\/p>\n

Which work of his did you find the hardest to translate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything he wrote was gold. They were all wonderful to work on; I can\u2019t say which was the most difficult.<\/p>\n

Do you regret not translating \u201cOne Hundred Years of Solitude\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, of course I wish I\u2019d translated \u201cOne Hundred Years.\u201d I wish I\u2019d translated everything he ever wrote.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that translation is not about creating an equivalent text from one language to another but that it is a \u201crewriting of the first text.\u201d What did you mean by that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Translating means expressing an idea or a concept in a way that\u2019s entirely different from the original, since each language is a separate system. And so, in fact, when I translate a book written in Spanish, I\u2019m actually writing another book in English.<\/p>\n

Did you feel you had to get into Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s head to understand what he meant to convey?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always felt that you get inside an author\u2019s head by translating his or her work and beginning to see the world through the writer\u2019s eyes. Everything you need to know about an author is in the writing.<\/p>\n

As a reader, do you have a favorite Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think my favorite may be \u201cLove in the Time of Cholera.\u201d<\/p>\n

You also translated his memoir, \u201cLiving to Tell the Tale.\u201d How different is it to translate fiction and memoir?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t approach the memoir differently from the fiction. He used to say that writing journalism and writing fiction are on the same continuum, and he didn\u2019t differentiate them in any hard-and-fast way.<\/p>\n

What do you make of the \u201cmagical realism\u201d label? Is that the right way to think of Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the term \u201cmagic realism\u201d is especially helpful. All fiction is make-believe that comes out of the imagination and fantasy of the writer. Fictional worlds may use elements of reality, but they are the products of an individual mind.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve also translated Cervantes\u2019s \u201cDon Quixote.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When [Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez] heard that I was going to translate \u201cDon Quixote,\u201d he said, \u201cDicen que me est\u00e1s poniendo cuernos con Cervantes\u201d \u2014 \u201cI hear you\u2019re two-timing me with Cervantes.\u201d Brilliant!<\/p>\n

Who are the young novelists writing in Spanish today that you most admire?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m very fond of the work of Santiago Roncagliolo, a Peruvian who currently lives in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

What do English speakers miss by reading Garc\u00eda M\u00e1rquez\u2019s work in English? What is lost in translation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I try not to think about what is lost but what is gained. For the reader who doesn\u2019t know Spanish, this is a chance to read books that otherwise would be out of reach; for English, translation adds to the expressive capability of the language by introducing elements that might not have been there otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post By Carlos Lozada As a translator, it may not get better \u2014 or more daunting \u2014 than bringing the work of Gabriel […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-en-los-medios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2457,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/2457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conalti.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}