Though Asymptote has made it a point to celebrate literary translation no matter the time of year, we’re still pretty thrilled that there’s a whole month dedicated to the cause. As we draw towards the end of National Translation Month, Asymptote is taking the opportunity to bring together essential components that complete the cycle of literature as it travels from one language to the next, with the intention of recognizing the meticulous, purposeful, and intimate labour invested into a text during this peregrination—from conception to publication. We have asked four valued members of the literary community, spanning the globe, to bring us their take on translation and its gifts.
In this third feature, we are delighted to present an original essay by Ümit Hussein, an award-winning translator (and past Asymptote Book Club contributor!), who translates from the Turkish to the English. Her translation of Burhan Sönmez’s Istanbul Istanbul won the EBRD prize in 2018 and her translation of Nermin Yıldırım’s Secret Dreams in Istanbul is forthcoming from Anthem Press. Born and raised in North London in an extended Turkish Cypriot family, Hussein sees her role as translator reaching beyond the linguistic, in order to act as a cultural ambassador and elucidate a different cultural context for English readers. Here, she explains her own response to the question of why translation is essential to promoting literature and bringing about change.
When I was asked to write this article, my brief was to make it about any aspect of translation I thought was important. Unaccustomed to so much freedom, I set about wracking my brain. One of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was, why do we translate at all? Given that it is widely believed that a translation can never be equal to the original; that a good translator is one that is completely invisible; that the translation must read as though written in the target language; that we are branded with the label traduttore traditore; that it is so poorly paid; and that, harshest of all, a certain award-winning writer, who translated fiction before she became a novelist, said in an interview, “For me it’s a waste of time . . . I want to write, not waste time with translations.” (Fortunately for this author, her translator, whose translation won her the prize, does not share her views.) What, then, motivates us to lavish so much love, care, time, and energy on what is frequently treated as the poor relative of “real” writing?
The question is a complex one. Firstly, translators are not frustrated writers—they are writers. We in the know are of course well acquainted with that fact. Ours is a highly skilled, very creative, extremely gratifying craft, requiring patience, tenacity, intellect, and considerable resourcefulness. Far from being “a waste of time,” translation is a necessary service that we render art, culture, and society. And, smacking of hyperbole as it might be, I stand by my choice of the word necessary. Our task is not restricted to giving readers access to literature originally written in a language they don’t understand; by doing so we also perform the role of cultural ambassadors. In other words, we are their doorway into a foreign culture, and thereby into a whole new world hitherto unknown to them. When we undertake a literary translation, our job is not limited to providing a platform for the work alone, we also have a duty to transmit the cultural context that gave birth to that work. Consequently, it is in our hands to influence attitudes to, and perceptions of, the culture in question. That gives us a great deal of power, but also places a big responsibility on our shoulders. The reader’s experience of that particular culture, those customs, those proverbs, those anecdotes, those aromatic local dishes, largely depends on our handling of it, and we have a moral duty to ensure their experience is an authentic one.
For that reason I do not subscribe to the view that a translation needs to read as though it were written in the target language. If that is the aim then there seems little point in reading a translation; the reader may as well stick to their mother tongue. It’s comparable to British holidaymakers who travel to sunny overseas climes but expect to behave exactly as they do at home. A translated text is not merely a story that began life in another language; it should take the reader on a journey beyond their comfort zone and exude an otherness that they need to embrace. Otherness need not be alienating, but rather enlightening, enriching, exotic. An invisible translator is counter-productive to the achievement of this effect. A translated text has two authors, and both need to assert their presence. The source author writes the words, while the translator’s duty is to shed light on what lies behind those words. In other words, to exercise their role as a cultural ambassador.
For me personally, it is this aspect of literary translation that best answers the question, why do we translate? The joy of playing with words, that glow of triumph after hitting on the perfect solution do, of course, have their own, not inconsiderable, appeal. Directing a work successfully from one geographical and mental location to another gives me a great deal of satisfaction and is something I am passionate about. There is, however, an even bigger driving force for me, and that is the determination to give a voice to the literature of the language of my origin. Put another way, to play the part of a cultural spokesperson.
I am British, North London born and bred, with Turkish Cypriot parents. I grew up bilingual in Turkish and English, and later learned French, Italian, and Spanish. I have already mentioned that literary translation is not the most lucrative of professions—most of us need to supplement our incomes with other jobs and, in my case, I do so by translating commercial texts and interpreting. I do non-literary translations and interpret in a variety of language combinations but, to date, my literary translations have been exclusively from Turkish into English. That has been largely the work of fate, as I am by no means averse to translating from other languages, but it was while I was still an MA student in Literary Translation at UEA that I made up my mind that, independently of whatever else I did, I would make it my mission to promote Turkish literature, and all that it entails.
My background and my origins were instrumental in that decision. I grew up in Tottenham, where there was a large, close-knit mainland Turkish and Cypriot community. Not only was it not usual to go to university in that environment in the mid eighties, but, if you were a girl, it was tacitly frowned upon, especially if it involved leaving home and living away from parental control. Graduates earned less than kebab shop and factory owners and, the more years a girl frittered away at university, the more likely it was that all the most eligible husbands would be snapped up during her absence, or worse, that a girl would consider herself out of the league of the husbands on offer. That was my experience of Turkish (Cypriot—at that time it was all rolled into one) culture during my formative years. For me Turkishness stood out for its lack of prominence. Which is why I now use translation as a means of casting some glory on, or, at the very least, giving visibility to what was largely an under-achieving, under-represented community.
I have a passion for translating literature for its own sake and for making reading accessible to those who would not otherwise have been able to enjoy foreign works. But, for me, the pleasure of translating Turkish literature in particular goes beyond rendering a work in one language into a completely different one in (ideally) seamless, elegant prose. That aspect of my craft satisfies my creative needs and would bring me joy no matter which language I translated from. But the translation of Turkish literature has a different place in my heart; it is not just a craft, but a vocation, a statement, a way of putting Turkish literature on the map, of making it accessible to non Turkish speakers, but also, and very importantly, to second and third generation Turks and Cypriots, who may well speak, but not read Turkish. In short, it is a tool for bringing about change.
Ümit Hussein was born and raised in North London, in an extended Turkish Cypriot family. She spoke only Turkish until the age of four, but her elder sisters and school quickly made English her second mother tongue. A passion for languages led her to study Italian and French, and then move to Spain, where she still lives. After several years teaching English, she completed an MA in Literary Translation and has since translated prominent Turkish authors, such as Ahmet Altan, Burhan Sönmez, Yavuz Ekinci, Sine Ergün, and Nermin Yıldırım. In 2018 she and Burhan Sönmez won the inaugural EBRD Literature Prize for the novel Istanbul Istanbul. When she is not translating fiction she works as a professional translator and interpreter.
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