Anatol Stefanowitsch reports that he is moving from Bremer Sprachblog (where he was virtually the only contributor, but this was not so intended) to wissenslogs at the scilogs portal: scilogs. The entry is also a report on the history of the blog.
I haven’t had a working ceiling light in my living room for nearly two weeks now, since I hadn’t really cleared it up enough to let an electrician in (I live above an electrician’s shop) and there were other minor distractions. The wiring is old and there was a flash followed by darkness when a bulb blew. Last week, the ceiling light in my office went too, or rather the light switch did. Today I had an electrician up and discovered that the small fuse container in the switch was slightly displaced here, so it just needed pushing in, and the large German fuse for the living room looked deceptively dead but was actually half-in, so it too just needed pushing in properly.
(It’s rather good that Germans have huge fuses that you can just push back in, rather than having to dismantle a plug)
So I recognized this description:
That woman is Meike Urbanski though, his German translator. And let me tell you, her character is brilliantly drawn. I happen to know a couple of translators, and they’re an odd breed. Nit-pickers, know-it-alls, socially incompetent, permanently broke, and incapable of performing the simplest of domestic tasks. Meike is all this and more: she’s also obsessed with Henry LaMarck’s writing and spots even the tiniest logical or factual mistake as she translates it. And of course when the manuscript isn’t forthcoming she fears for her income and jumps on a plane, convinced she can find the author in Chicago.
(Katy Derbyshire at love german books, on Kristof Magnusson, Das war ich nicht)
Nicky Harman teaches technical translation at Imperial College, London, and translates modern Chinese novels in her spare time.
There is a video interview with her at Jostrans.
See also Paper Republic, a site of resources on Chinese literature for publishers and translators, which I believe she helped seet up.
Last year I read a novel translated by Nicky and published by the University of Hawaii Press, Banished! by Han Dong. Google Books has a bit on it.
I was persuaded to buy it at Arthur Probsthain last year by Mr Probsthain when I was stocking up on translations of classical Chinese novels. Banished! is a partly autobiographical account of banishment to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. It is not strictly chronological. It starts with the family’s journey to the countryside and ends with what happened some years later, but in between the earlier story of the family is sketched in, and a number of thematically arranged chapters move from the more straightforward elements such as the choice of a village to go to, the journey to the village, and life there, to a variety of difficulties.
On the Google Books page, you can see the Notes on Translation, where Harman explains the use of terms like CultRev for the Cultural Revolution – which I found odd. I also wondered about using an exclamation mark in the title.
The novel gives a very detailed account of what the village was like, how the family planned to survive (the father’s first plan was to Strike Root, to settle the family in the village as that might be the best they could hope, and Strike Root was the meaning of the original Chinese title). It also describes the various ways people had of dealing with the Cultural Revolution and banishment, whatever their position in society. One chapter traces the history of the family’s four dogs, at least three of whom were eaten by the villagers, partly because they were better fed than most dogs. The author does not condemn the characters. He gives a rather descriptive view of life during the Cultural Revolution, through which the suffering gradually appears.
The villagers were consumed with envy at first when they saw the Taos feeding meat to their dog. Then they relaxed. They actually hoped that the Taos would fatten him up even more, into delicious dog meat. Patch was converting the Taos’ meals into food that they could eat. They had already found out that the Taos did not eat dog meat, especially not Patch’s meat (they quite understood this). But dogs were there to be eaten. If he were not, it would be a waste of a nice, fat dog.
Anyway, Google Books now allows you to read the beginning.
I had also read K – The Art of Love by Hong Ying, which I didn’t realize till now that Harman had translated. It was based on Julian Bell’s relationship with a married Chinese woman in the 1930s – see Wikipedia.
ALTA, apparently a US translation company, reports in its blog on How not to flirt in German. I can see more than one reason why not.
Kann ich dir meine Handynummer geben, gerade falls Hälle über einfriert?
Can I give you my cell number in case Hell freezes over?
(Via Musings from an overworked translator)
LATER NOTE: The texts have been changed – better German, but the humour is missing. They can be found here too.
My original German header was a bit ruder than even I intended. I tend not to use my middle initial A. but it’s there!
I suspect the Rosamunde Pilcher collection (Link removed) is a German phenomenon.
