Avoiding a loss in translation

IN THE original French story, it is said that Cinderella's slippers were made of vaire, a kind of leather from a grey squirrel, but the similarity in sound to verre, or "glass" in English, resulted in a mistranslation.

The error, however, allowed the slippers to adopt a more mysterious and beautiful image, and thus spread the tale of Cinderella's glass slippers, not squirrel-leather ones.

With this story, Lee O-young, Korea's First Minister for Culture, began the third international translators' conference at the COEX centre in Seoul on Wednesday.

The two-day event was organised by the Korea Literature Translation Institute to discuss the difficulties of translating cultural discrepancies in literary works.

The conference's efforts to amalgamate theoretical and practical discourses of translation were successful, particularly in portraying the meticulous workings behind and between an editor and a translator.

Among the many speakers, Jenna Johnson, senior editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, spoke on "the cultural ambassadorship of an editor and translator".

"Translators must act as representatives of the author's intentions, language and style, but they must also be sensitive to the needs of readers in the target language.

"Editors here act as both the first reader and the first critic, working with translators to balance readability and integrity, fluidity of the new text and fidelity to the original," said Johnson.

The importance of collaboration between editor and translator was also stressed. Using her relationship with translator Kim Chi-young on the publication of Kim Young-ha's I have the right to destroy myself (2007) as an example, Johnson underlined her desire for a translator "with a shared philosophy, one who approaches the problems and possibilities of translation with the same considerations that I do".

Johnson also spoke on the process behind choosing foreign books.

A work's role in broadening cultural understanding, a book's existing importance within its original culture's literary history and present, or simply an astounding literary quality were among the many considerations discussed.

ANN/Korea Herald