How did you begin translating?

I started translating Chinese fiction in about 2000, combining it with various part-time jobs which culminated in a lectureship teaching translation at Imperial College London. My first “real” piece of work was K — The Art of Love by Hong Ying. This was a very good experience because I really liked the novel — and it sold! This was a joint translation, in that Hong Ying’s husband arranged for me to submit it to him chapter by chapter for correction. One interesting issue that arose was that the novel fictionalised historical events and “quoted” the words of real people, e.g. Virginia Woolf. I grappled with the problem of how to deal with text/conversations which verifiably first existed in English.

…my only real wish is that the work should be well written, and I can honestly say I’ve been very lucky in that respect with almost everything I’ve translated.

My next work was China Along the Yellow River. This was nonfiction (sociology) and I did it, again with the aid of a Chinese friend who checked for accuracy, without having found a publisher… When we did find one, they did not pay us for the translation, and sales have been disappointing (typical, I think, of many academic publishers). All the same, I don’t regret it. It’s a magnificent piece of writing, and — who knows — it may have a brighter future as it’s still very relevant.

I continued to teach part-time. This at least kept the wolf from the door as it was quite a while before my next work was published — Han Dong’s first novel. By now I had gained a lot of confidence and was doing whole works without a Chinese collaborator. Of course, it’s always good for Chinese native speakers to check one’s work. Ideally this will be the author, and I’m happy to say I’ve had many fruitful working relationships with “my” authors… That novel was long-listed for the Man Asian Prize… I enjoy translating both fiction and nonfiction. I suppose my only real wish is that the work should be well written, and I can honestly say I’ve been very lucky in that respect with almost everything I’ve translated.

Do you have a personal approach — or agenda — when it comes to literary translation? How does it differ when you translate novels as opposed to poetry (or any other genres of writing)?

I think my personal approach is governed primarily by the source text, and that applies whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, prose or poetry. I’m a bit of chameleon, I suppose, in that I feel that I take on the colouring, or the mood, of the text. That’s part of my identity as a translator and it’s something that happens subconsciously, not consciously. So I would prefer to talk about how I feel about a text, rather than the approach I take to it. As for my different feelings vis à vis prose or poetry, I’m really a newcomer to poetry, but in my limited experience translating poetry gives me a feeling of concentration which is almost meditative. I love the luxury of being able to focus myself on just a few words, the layers of meaning and the rhythm.

How has your relationship with the Chinese language evolved over the years?

I never stop learning new words and new ways of saying things in Chinese. I’m a bit of a magpie about collecting new language, or language which is new to me (not necessarily the same thing). I never stop being fascinated by the language in all its manifestations, old and new, and all its registers, from elegant to slang.

In what way(s) is that intimacy different from your relationship with the English language?

… a text which is rich stylistically and in content can be interpreted in different ways in translation… each translator needs to make choices, and those choices make up her/his own ‘voice.’

I think I “notice” Chinese much more consciously when I read, than I do English. I collect words and expressions I hear and read in English too, and store them up for later use! I actually like English grammar because it’s both precise and rhythmic. I was lucky to get a good grounding in grammar at school. I also have a sense of style. I used to think that was enough to be a good translator. But I find as I go on that translating a good Chinese writer stretches my English as much as my Chinese. I keep a pen handy in case I hear something that strikes me, on the radio, in conversation. I sometimes wake up in the night with le mot juste banging around in my head!

Do you believe in the “voice” (or space) of a translator?

Yes, I do. The same text rendered by different translators will sound and read differently. Every translator’s choice of language is unique (and that’s without considering the differences between the different Englishes, Australian, British, American…). And a text which is rich stylistically and in content can be interpreted in different ways in translation. Even at the most basic level, the differences in syntax between Chinese and English mean that each translator needs to make choices, and those choices make up her/his own “voice.”

Translating is not, and can never be, a form of authorship. Why do you think translators today may breech invisibility, or advocate translating as a form of “rewriting”?

There are an awful lot of assumptions contained in this question. People have written whole books about the concepts of “invisibility” and “re–writing” in translation. Actually I feel that these concepts are much misunderstood (pace Lawrence Venuti). Invisibility is usually taken to mean the creation of a translation so fluent in the target language that it reads as if that were the source text and no translator had been involved (hence s/he is “invisible”). The theory goes that if the translator deliberately attempts to allow the character of the (foreign) original to shine through, then s/he breeches his/her invisibility, something that Venuti regards as a political choice. But “foreignness” in a translation comes not just from the language but from the concepts, the objects and story-lines contained in the text, so a translation from Chinese often feels “foreign” just because the story has come from a foreign culture.

In short, the concept of invisibility seems to me absurd in the context of translating languages and cultures very different from English, such as Chinese. In order to get a natural effect in English, the translator has to do things like gloss cultural references, re-order sentences within a paragraph or clauses within a sentence. That makes the translator an active re-writer. Most readers and publishers would think that Venuti’s view that the translator should consciously and publically breech invisibility by sticking closer to the original text, was off-the-wall. But the idea did not originate with him. It is fascinating to discover that the writer Virginia Woolf actually urged her woman writer friend Ling Shu-hua, in 1938 “…Do not mind how directly you translate the Chinese into English… come as close to the Chinese both in style and meaning as you can… [then, if the grammar is corrected] it might be possible to keep the Chinese flavor and make it both understandable yet strange for the English.”^[1]

Coming back to your first comment in this question, of course translation IS a form of authorship, as anyone who has translated from Chinese will know in their bones/guts/heart. And the better and richer the original work, the greater the obligation on the translator to “author” its complexity into English.

What difficulties — or challenges — does a translator face when it comes to authenticating a text?

As a translator, I find that I often have to adopt different language styles/registers within the same text, to match what the author has done. For instance, in Gold Mountain Blues, Zhang Ling’s chief hero and heroine write rather formal letters to each other in nineteenth-century Chinese style. The labourers talk to each other using Cantonese slang and swearwords. And the Canadian-Chinese descendant speaks contemporary Chinese and Canadian English. I had to find a range of English to make the whole family saga sound authentic.

Sometimes you have to hope that the reader will get the overall effect from the whole translation, even if they haven’t taken in every detail…

There’s another aspect of the “authentic” issue: in translations from Chinese, there are likely to be terms, describing anything from objects of daily use to culturally-specific concepts, which need to be made clear so that the translation sounds authentic. Anthony Pym has a nice phrase to describe these unknowns: “culture-bumps.” The reader will find the translation a bumpy ride if there are too many unknowns or if, conversely, the unknowns are explained at too much length. Sometimes you have to hope that the reader will get the overall effect from the whole translation, even if they haven’t taken in every detail of, for instance, village architecture or the village Party structure.