The Weight of Words: Why Translators Deserve Front Cover Recognition.

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Translators have changed your life. Why? Because even if you've never sampled a translated tale such as Cinderella, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Inkheart, the world around you is certainly to product of stories such as these! Translators bring us out of our childhood bubbles to inform us of thoughts and ideas from across the globe, acting as the bridges towards languages and cultures we have never experienced. Yet, the names of those who have guided us through international novels are often hidden amongst the back pages, or in small print on the inside cover of hardbacks. Rather than celebrating their translated identities, translated novels are often judged as if any differentiation from the original makes them inadequet. This is why 'd love to see translators elevated to the front covers and recognised for the impossible tasks they perform. But why does this even matter to the world as a whole?

Deciding whether a translator is worthy of being placed onto a front cover matters because it isn't just a question of placing a name on an unimportant sheet of paper. The front cover of a book is a summary of the people who have influenced the novel the most, but also a snapshot of facotrs which the oublisher believes will encourage sales figures. When we place the name of an author, publisher or illustrator on a book's cover, we are therefore both celebrating their skill in creating the work, ans advertising their skills to the public as reasons why they may want to read that book. As readers, however, the translator's name could equally lead to assumptions about the quality of the translated text. When I read the French translation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (translated by Jean Privat) I enjoyed it more than the translation of Pride and Prejudice because, like an author's creative voice, a translator's intervention has the power the influence our experience of the text. The texts of two competant translators may therefore attract different readers and present different perspectives on the same tales. For me, the translator is a valuable critic of the text whose invisability (www.jstor.org/stable/23110425) or prominence can change our views and judgements.

One of the key arguments in this debate relates to the skill of the translator: on one hand, some would argue that the translator is too constrainted by the author's text to be considered a creatively skilled influence. On the other, some highlight the subjectivity of translation, and the need to choose between translation techniques such as foreignisation (which aims to include foreign references even if they are unfamiliar to the new target audience) or domestication (which aims to help new audiences understand by changing cultural references to the audience's context) which can impact how a text is understood. Although I sympathise with the first perspective, since a translator has to translate the same colours, for instance, as the author uses, I also find this quite a simplified perspective. After all, the translation of a colour such as 'blue' in English might mean that the translator has to decide between several adjectives that could mean 'blue' in English, but which have different meanigns and connotations in the second language. In short, translation into another language has to produce a text that a new culture can understand, meaning that a translator's creative skill comes from placing new ideas into comprehensive contexts. As Kadieu says, '[translation] requires decision-making - that is, the aptitude to choose beyond existing propositions'(www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6q53159.). To me, this creative input certainly merits a front-cover acknowledgement.

However, we can't deny that acknowledging the translator in this way would disrupt the impression of reading an unchanged, untranslated original text. Many readers believe that the phenomenon that Ventui calls the translator's 'invisability' (www.jstor.org/stable/23110425) protects the text's integrity and reduces the chance of translators altering the texts that they would be putting their names clearly onto. But in the modern age this second fear has never been so unlikely, the scrutiny of critics and publishers and sometimes even billingual authors leaving little to no room for textual alterations. Furthermore, our ideology of 'invisable' translatorship means that it can be easy to forget that a text is a translation and that that translation process may have adapted the text. Celebrating the translator on the cover could therefore heighten the integrity of the original text by acknowledging its difference from translations, without devaluing the translated texts themselves.

So what do you think? Do you agree that translators should be credited on the cover of novels, or would you preserve their position beneath the blurb? In such a debate it would be impossible to cover every argument, but I hope I've given you insight into the world of translation ethics and the questions about integrity, creativity and purpose which it brings to light.

Happy translating!

Bibliography/ Recommended Reading:

AGEE, JOEL. "The Author as Translator." Agni, no. 85 (2017): 78-83. Accessed June 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/44984093.

Freely, Maureen. "A Translator's Tale." World Literature Today 80, no. 6 (2006): 30-33. Accessed June 30, 2020. doi:10.2307/40159241.

Kadiu, Silvia. "Human vs. Machine Translation: Henri Meschonnic’s Poetics of Translating." In Reflexive Translation Studies: Translation as Critical Reflection, 71-94. London: UCL Press, 2019. Accessed June 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6q5315.9.

Ray, Lila. "THE TRANSLATOR : HIS TRIPLE ROLE." Indian Literature 15, no. 3 (1972): 28-33. Accessed June 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23330737.

Thiem, Jon. "The Translator as Hero in Postmodern Fiction." Translation and Literature 4, no. 2 (1995): 207-18. Accessed June 29, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40339710.

VENUTI, LAWRENCE. "The Translator's Invisibility." Criticism 28, no. 2 (1986): 179-212. Accessed June 28, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23110425.