For fans of foreign literature, nothing kills the joy of reading more than knowing that the translated book which you are reading contains wrong meanings and phonetic mistakes — the names of people and places that are unrecognisable when you repeat them to native speakers.
Of course, the translator does his or her job in giving you the basic and necessary information such as the names of the country, a general understanding of why A loves or hates B and getting inside the intrigue of the character’s emotions, such as love (of course), hate and other forms of emotional disenfranchisement.
But how can bookworms be satisfied when the aesthetic beauty and sensibility in the sounds of names, as well as the cultural content, are diminished, or at least watered down during the translation process?
Unfortunately, those mistakes are almost inevitable when translating a book from one language to another. The faux pas are likely to increase when the book is translated from an already translated version. Indeed, most translated books of non-English writers in Thailand are indirect translations from the English versions.
“Ideally, the book translator should translate directly from the original language of the book and the translator should at least have consulted native speakers about the names, the culture and cultural context of the book,” said Asst Prof Pasuree Luesakul, director of the Centre of Latin America Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Arts.
Pasuree is a recipient of this year’s Phraya Anuman Rajadhon’s Award, the prestigious prize received by book translators, as a result of her work Sood Korb Loek (The Edge of The World). The original name of the book was Finisterre. It was translated into Thai from the original Spanish version and addresses the history of Argentina. It was penned by the esteemed Argentine writer María Rosa Lojo. The translation project received support from a translation fund provided by the Argentinian embassy in Thailand.
Finisterre is a showcase of ideal translation as the translator works from the original language and has a chance to consult with the author. Fluent in the Spanish language, Pasuree received her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Salamanca, the oldest varsity in Spain. At master’s level, she studied the anthropology of Latin American culture and for her doctoral degree she did a thesis on the historical context of Latin American literature. The topic of her thesis, La Visión De Los Otros: Mujer, Historia Y Poder En La Narrativa De María Rosa Lojo, is based on the books of Rosa Lojo.
During the translation of Finisterre, Pasuree travelled to Buenos Aires to meet the writer and ended up staying at Rosa Lojo’s home for weeks. The writer did not only treat Pasuree as a member of the family, she also made sure that Pasuree understood the book and the historical and cultural context of Argentina inside and out. Pasuree was sent to Buenos Aires’ heritage museums just to see the carts and other objects from the 19th century which were described in the book.
Finisterre is about the Spanish immigrants who fled the Spanish-Franco War and moved to the “New World” in the 19th century. Like all imperialists, Spain expanded her territory in the same manner as the others did by purging the local indigenous people and having the new land repopulated by “white” Westerners.
“The book is a question about real civilisation and who indeed is the barbaric one? Is it the local indigenous people in this book who are barbaric, or is it Western civilisation?”
Needless to say that Pasuree, amicably called “Ajarn Mai” by her students, is a connoisseur of Latin American culture — literature, history, the local indigenous way of life, its social and economic background and even where to get real authentic Mexican food or exotic Peruvian cuisine in Bangkok. Her coming across Latin America reads like fate. As a student of the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University, she took a Spanish major as she felt it was similar to French, but finally fell in love with Castilian Spanish, a language which is spoken by 400 million people and known to be one of the United Nations’ and European Union’s official languages. It is however Latin American culture that caught her attention.
“It is bizarre that we tend to relate the Spanish language with Spain, which only comprises about 10% of the language’s speakers. Spanish is used much more and has been popularised by the Latin American countries, yet we know very little about this continent. Latin America is a real melting pot. Each country is so rich in its traditional culture, with the local indigenous people and their own cultures, imbued with superstition animism that are indeed similar to our Thai culture.”
Despite Thais and Latin Americans both being superstitious, both countries are nonetheless different. The Western cultures of Spain and Portugal became ingrained in the indigenous people of the South Americas during colonisation. Evidence of this can be found in the renowned term “magical realism”, coined by book critics to describe the quirky collision between the local animism and Western scientific practices that underscored the renowned book, One Hundred Years Of Solitude, by Nobel laureate Colombian writer, the late Gabriel García Márquez. The influence of this book is beyond our imagination. It catapulted Latin American literature to the world. In Thailand, many renowned writers say the book is their all time favourite.
“It is no doubt that Latin America’s magical realism is appealing to Thai readers. In fact, magical realism is the animism, witchcraft, spirits and superstitious beliefs that Thai people are so familiar with. The context of the book is about political dissidents and this fight against dictatorship is appealing to Thai writers.”
But as an ardent fan of Latin American literature, it was not exactly magical realism that she fell in love with, but the narrative prowess and inventiveness of writers.
“Latin American writers are likely to remove all story elements, almost as if they shatter the glass completely and reinvent a new narrative structure. It is just a plain story but they shuffle the sequence, move and play with the storyline and always manage to come up with a story that makes me marvel at their imagination. They did not intend to make the story complex but it so happens that life is too complex for a linear narrative to do justice to telling the story.”
Translating is hard because the bridging of two languages and two cultures is never a walk in the park. Even as Thai readers’ appetite for Latin American literature grows, the number of direct translations from the Spanish language into Thai is still a fraction and of course the books which are translated from English versions fall prey to being lost in translation.
Despite her demanding duties as a lecturer, Pasuree already has a few gems of book translation under her belt. One among them is the translation of the poem by the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, a Nobel laureate. The book is supported by the Chilean embassy in Thailand to mark the centennial of the esteemed poet. She also co-edited the translation of a poem by the late renowned Peruvian poet César Vallejo. The project received support from the Embassy of Peru in Thailand. She had an interview with the Peruvian Nobel laureate writer Mario Vargas Llosa, which is published in Writer, a Thai literary magazine. Her latest translation of the famous children’s books Papelucho by the Chilean writer Marcela Paz is being edited and is expected to be released in the near future.
Assistant Professor Pasuree Luesakul.
