Thirteen translators of Ryszard Kapuściński contributed their stories to a book that came out last year. It was to have been birthday present, but Kapuściński died before it appeared. The contributions vary widely in subject matter, some not referring at all to translation making it less than essential reading for the student of the subject. But for the student of colourisation there are some pearls. Consider the Albanian translator. He claims to be a hard man to contact. He does not use the internet (like Kapuściński) and as for phones… Well, and what of phones? He claims to have had seven mobile phones. (He has so far lost six of them). It seems to me that anyone who has taken the trouble to replace a mobile phone six times is very much concerned indeed that he should be accessible.
William Brand describes the difficulties in getting Kapuściński published into English. (It seems hard to believe now that someone such as Kapuściński should have had difficulties but American publishers can be conservative – a Pole writing about an Ethiopian???) Brand gives the impression that he “stumbled” over the name of one Helen Wolff while reading a magazine. She was responsible for publishing many English translations, so he goes and looks her up in order to find the publishing house she worked for. The name of that obscure publishing house was Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, which even I, a primitive muck savage from Ireland, have heard of. In fairness, Brand doesn’t go so far as to suggest that HBJ was obscure but he gives the impression that this was a chance find, even though he had already pored through publishing directories and sent the manuscript to a dozen or more of the “best publishers.”
An aside: did you know that the German translation of Cesarz (The Emperor) is König der Könige (King of Kings)? I mention this because Kapuściński also wrote a book – you might have heard of it – called Szachinszach (The Shah of Shahs – or in other words: the King of Kings).
The Bulgarian translator was even worse than the American. In telling her story she is careful to state that she did not belong to the “guild” of translators. Like all self-respecting artists, then, she was an outsider. But read on: it turns out that a personal friend of hers is the director of a large publishing house. If we are to believe her, she only thought of contacting him two years after deciding to translate Ryszard Kapuściński and after he (the director) had repeatedly asked her to recommend good Polish translators – the very circle of people she claims to have been excluded from. Also, an old college friend works in the same publishing house – in fact she has contacts all over the place, including a well-known poet and translator and deputy director of another publishing company.
The Finnish translator recalls his nervousness at first contacting Kapuściński. He is nervous because he has to cheekily ask the writer for the finished manuscript of his latest book in a hurry because he (the Finn) is leaving Warsaw. Why? This is 1992. Why could the manuscript not be posted?
And finally, I would like to state that I have never read a book straight through in one sitting.