Tag Archives: Translation

Mar 16 2021

Q&A with author-illustrator Jarod Roselló and translator Eva Ibarzabal

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Interview by Romy Natalia Goldberg

Please enjoy this interview with Jarod Roselló, the author and illustrator of the Red Panda & Moon Bear graphic novel series, and translator Eva Ibarzabal, who helped create the Spanish version, Panda Roja y Oso Lunar. 

Romy Natalia Goldberg: First of all, congratulations on both versions of Red Panda & Moon Bear! It’s exciting to have another Latinx graphic novel to add to our shelves, especially one with a Spanish translation.

Jarod Roselló: Thank you! I’m so excited to have it in the world. I immediately sent a copy to my abuela! 

The original English version, Red Panda & Moon Bear, was published in July 2019 and Panda Roja y Oso Lunar was published in July of 2020. What was the genesis of the Spanish translation? Was it in the works from the beginning or did the opportunity present itself further along in the process? 

Jarod: It wasn’t an original plan, or at least not one that was shared with me at the time I was working on the book. Shortly after Red Panda & Moon Bear was released, IDW Publishing (Top Shelf’s parent company) announced a new Spanish-language initiative, and then I got an email from my editor that my book had been selected by IDW to be translated as part of the first wave of Spanish-language books. 

Beforehand I said “original English version” but that begs the question – when you created these characters and wrote the original manuscript was it all in English in your head? Or were there some scenes or phrases that naturally popped into your head in Spanish first?

Jarod: English is my primary language, despite the fact I was raised in Miami by my Cuban family, and spoke Spanish with certain family members who didn’t speak English. We didn’t speak Spanish much in my house, with my siblings and parents, but still, there are certain words, expressions, and phrases that only exist in Spanish for us. I think it’s easy to explain that growing up bilingual or in a bilingual setting, means that you “switch” between languages. But when I use Spanish terms—in my books, or in real life with my own kids—it doesn’t necessarily feel like two separate languages. I wanted the English edition to feel that way as well, that when Spanish appeared it wasn’t a breach in the English, it’s just the way language developed and is used in these communities and families. That matched my own experience growing up and felt true for me.

I’m curious about the process for creating a translation. In addition to yourself, who else was involved? 

Jarod: It started with my editor letting me know they were looking for a translator. We decided early on, that someone else would translate it, and that we would look for someone who was either Cuban, Cuban American, or spoke a more Caribbean Spanish, so the setting would hold. 

Eva Ibarzabal: When they contacted me for the first time I had serious doubts. I had already translated fiction and biographies for young readers, but graphic novels were way beyond my comfort zone. The approach is completely different, you have space constraints and a unique style, but then I read the English version and fell in love with the characters and the story. I’m very happy with the outcome.

There are so many variations of Spanish out there. In Spanish translations, this is something that really comes through in figures of speech and exclamations. I learned some new ones reading Panda Roja y Oso Lunar, which I assume are specific to the Caribbean. Did everyone speak the same “type” of Spanish? If not were there particular scenes and word choices that generated debate?  

Eva: Jarod and I have something in common, we are both Cuban-Americans. I lived in Miami for a short period of time before moving to Puerto Rico, and my family was very attached to their roots and ancestry. I guess that helped me capture the essence of the characters and their way of speaking. I just had to dust off some memories of my own childhood and the comics I used to read back then. Other than that, some sounds and the use of onomatopoeia are the most difficult to translate because in Spanish we tend to use lengthy descriptions instead. 

Jarod: There were also some interesting conversations after we got Eva’s script, because we also had a Spanish-language editor working on it, and they had notes about some of the expressions and suggestions for changes. But sometimes, I’d never heard of the expression the editor wanted to use. In the end, my editor let me cast the tie-breaking vote on which one we would use. 

This book feels different from other translations I’ve read. It’s clear you had a specific goal in mind. 

Jarod: This stemmed from an early conversation with my editor that it shouldn’t just be a translated book, but that the Spanish edition should be a Spanish-language universe, and it should be read that way. 

Eva: I think the best compliment a translator can receive is that their work does not read as a translation. You have to digest all the ideas and convey the meaning in the most natural way possible; the text should flow. In the case of a graphic novel, an additional challenge is to be concise, because Spanish tends to be more wordy. I was counting words and measuring spaces all the time to be sure the new text would fit and not take space from the illustrations. It’s definitely like a parallel universe, as Jarod says.

Jarod: And you did such a fabulous job with that, Eva. I loved how you were able to preserve the puns and references, and still capture the spirit and energy of the book. 

It sounds like there were two different processes you had to go through – translating the copy and adjusting the content. Let’s talk about the copy first. For a panel where you had a basic sentence that needed to go from Spanish to English, what did you do? I assume it wasn’t as easy as just copying text from a Spanish script and plunking it into your text bubbles. 

Jarod: As Eva mentioned, Spanish tends to be longer, not just in the construction of sentences, but individual words can be very long, which created some visual challenges fitting them into the existing word balloons. 

One benefit to being both the letterer and the original artist was that I could adjust the word balloons to accommodate the Spanish, just how I write out the English first, then draw the word balloon around it. It’s not quite that simple, either, though, because the word balloons take up visual space in the panel. So, often, I had to redraw certain panels so that relevant imagery wasn’t being blocked or so the visual composition still looked the way I would want it to look. 

I wanted to put the same care and attention to detail in the Spanish edition. And I also really love that the English and Spanish editions are not exactly the same: some drawings are new, some panels are modified, and even corrected a few tiny mistakes I found along the way!

Now let’s talk about what sounds like a much more complex process – altering content, both the text and actual images, that simply would not make sense if translated directly into Spanish. 

Jarod: A good example of this was in chapter 7. The kids and the dogs head to the library. The kids are reading a picture book in Spanish and the dogs are curious because they don’t know Spanish. There’s a brief conversation about how the kids’ Spanish is a little rusty, and that they need to practice more. In the Spanish edition, though, it’s a Spanish-speaking world, so this conversation wouldn’t have made any sense, because the dogs are speaking Spanish. 

So, I rewrote the opening pages to that chapter so that the characters are talking about how comics are real books, and reading comics counts as reading. I redrew a few of the panels as well and edited the others. And we sent that scene separately to Eva to be translated, and then we went back in and swapped pages to put it all together. 

Eva: And I was glad of that decision because I already had a big question mark on that page! That’s the advantage of all the team working together and communicating all along. I think the solution was perfect.

Red Panda & Moon Bear: The Curse of The Evil Eye is slated for January 2022. Will there be a Spanish translation as well? Did the experience of translating the first book alter the way you’re writing and drawing the second installment at all? 

Jarod: I don’t know if they’re planning a Spanish translation of The Curse of the Evil Eye, but I really hope so! The experience of relettering and sitting with my book in Spanish definitely affected how I approached book 2. The Spanish and Cuban roots of the setting are more visible, there’s a lot more Spanish, too. I feel like reading Eva’s translation taught me what this world looks like in Spanish, and even gave me a little confidence to use more of it. I feel like I can hear the character’s voices more clearly, and that’s helped me understand them and their world better. 

Eva: From my point of view, it was a great learning experience which I really enjoyed. So I hope to be part of the team again if the decision to have a Spanish version is made. How about a simultaneous launching? That would be awesome!  

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Jarod Roselló is a Cuban American writer, cartoonist, and teacher. He is the author of the middle-grade graphic novel Red Panda & Moon Bear, a Chicago Public Library and New York Public Library 2019 best book for young readers, and a 2019 Nerdy Award winner for graphic novels. Jarod holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction, both from The Pennsylvania State University. Originally from Miami, he now lives in Tampa, Florida, with his wife, kids, and dogs, and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of South Florida. You can reach him at http://www.jarodrosello.com and @jarodrosello (Twitter & Instagram)

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Eva Ibarzabal is a Cuban-Puerto Rican translator, writer and media and language consultant. After completing a BA in Modern Languages and a MA in Translation, Eva worked in print media and television for 20 years, winning multiple accolades for the production of Special News Programs. A few years ago, her love for Literature made her switch to Literary Translation. Her works include biographies, fiction and children books. Her English to Spanish Translation of El mundo adorado de Sonia Sotomayor won the International Latino Book Award in 2020.

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ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER: Romy Natalia Goldberg is a Paraguayan-American travel and kid lit author with a love for stories about culture and communication. Her guidebook to Paraguay, Other Places Travel Guide to Paraguay, was published in 2012 and 2017 and led to work with “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” and The Guardian. She is an active SCBWI member and co-runs Kidlit Latinx, a Facebook support group for Latinx children’s book authors and illustrators.

Oct 15 2018

Bilingual Border Kids: The Dilemma of Translating Summer of the Mariposas into Spanish

By David Bowles

Pretty soon after Summer of the Mariposas was published by Tu Books in 2012, teachers in the US started asking for a Spanish translation. This story of Mexican-American sisters who go on an odyssey into Mexico, confronting obstacles both supernatural and all-too-human, resonated with Latinx readers, and teachers especially wanted immigrant children and other Spanish-dominant ELLs to have full access to the narrative.

But author Guadalupe García McCall (and editor Stacy Whitman) had a very specific vision for the translation. The novel is narrated by Odilia Garza, oldest of the sisters, and it was important that her voice stay true to that of border girls like Guadalupe, even in Spanish.

Ideally, that vision meant hiring a Mexican-American from the Texas-Mexico border to translate the novel.

Five years later, Stacy approached me (full disclosure: she’s publishing a graphic novel that Raúl the Third and I created, Clockwork Curandera). I was excited at the chance to translate a book that I loved and had been teaching at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley, one written by a great friend, to boot!

Guadalupe and I dug in at once. As I translated, she was always available as a sounding board. I’ve discussed the particulars of our collaborative process on the Lee and Low Blog as well as in the journal Bookbird, but here I want to focus on a particular post-publication issue.

Some people just don’t like the translation.

Specifically, a couple of reviews—in Kirkus and elsewhere—fault the Spanish used in the translation as occasionally a “word-for-word” echo of the English, replete with Anglicisms.

Fair enough. I’m not going to actually claim there’s no truth to the critique. But there are some things you should definitely know before you leap to judgment.

The most important one is … most of that English flavor? It’s on purpose.

Quick digression. When I hear these sorts of complaints, they feel to me like code for one or more of the following: 1) this doesn’t read like typical juvenile literature written in Spanish; 2) this isn’t a recognizable Latin-American dialect of Spanish; 3) this feels too English-y in its syntax (though not ungrammatical); and 4) this has been clearly translated by someone who grew up in the US and was schooled primarily in English.

What none of those points takes into account is an obvious and pivotal fact. This book is a first-person narrative, by a Mexican-American teen. The strange Spanish? It’s how she sounds.

Guadalupe Garcia McCall and David Bowles

Let’s talk for a minute about Guadalupe García McCall and David Bowles. Both Mexican-American (yes, I’m half Anglo, but my family is Mexican-American and I identify as such). Both from the border (Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras versus McAllen/Reynosa). Both schooled EXCLUSIVELY in English (no bilingual education, no early efforts to promote our Spanish literacy). Both of us were robbed of that linguistic heritage. Both of us went on to earn degrees in English that we used to teach middle- and high-school English courses.

Our native dialect is border Spanish. Pocho Spanish, some would rudely put it. Rife with English syntax and borrowings, centuries-old forms and words that the rest of Latin-American might giggle or roll their collective eyes at. But it’s Spanish, yes it is. Aunque no te guste.

Now, I started studying formal Spanish in high school, then went on to minor in it for my BA and MA. I ended up teaching AP Spanish Literature for a time, etc. This process gave me a second, formal, literary dialect. I also have lived in Mexico, and I married a woman born in Monterrey. That’s where my third dialect arises, a version of Northern Mexican Spanish.

So, when I set out with Guadalupe to craft the voice of a border kid who loves to read and still has roots in Mexico, this mestizaje of Spanish dialects is what we hit upon.

It amazes me to no end that writers can do odd and/or regional dialogues all the time in English, but a similar attempt in Spanish elicits disapproving frowns.

I’m sorry, but not all books need to be translated into some neutral, RAE-approved literary Spanish. Some are so deeply rooted in a place, in a community, that we have to insist on breaking “the rules.”

To wrap this apologia up, I’ll just toss out two excerpts from chapter 8. No critic has added specifics to their negative reviews, but I will.

As a counter to the implication that the translation is too word-for-word, let’s look at this passage.

“Yup. According to this, the National Center for Missing and Exploded Children is looking for us,” Velia continued reading on.

“Exploited,” I corrected.

“What?” Velia asked, looking at me like I was confusing her.

“Exploi-t-ed, not exploded,” I explained. “The National Center for Missing and Exploi-t-ed Children.”

“Whatever,” Velia said.

Here’s the Spanish version.

—Pos, sí. Según esto, el Centro Nacional de Niños Desaparecidos y Explotados nos está buscando —continuó Velia—. Qué bueno que en nuestro caso no hay bombas.

—Claro que no hay bombas, mensa —corregí.

—¿Cómo? —preguntó Velia, mirándome como si la confundiera.

—Explotados en el sentido de “usados para cosas malas”, no explotados como “volados en pedazos por una bomba” —expliqué—. Ese centro busca a niños secuestrados, esclavizados, etcétera.

—Ah, órale —dijo Velia.

With the exception of “mirándome como si la confundiera” (someone else might’ve said “con una mirada confundida” or some other less English-y variation), the passage doesn’t ape the English at all. Sure, I can see some Spanish speakers objecting to “como si la confundiera,” expecting it to be followed by “con X cosa” (confusing her with X thing). But, yikes, this is pretty much the way lots of border folks would say it.

The other example is from the first paragraph of the chapter:

After I got back to the dead man’s house, I told Inés they were all out of newspapers, then we ate breakfast in record time.

Cuando volví a la casa del difunto, le dije a Inés que ya se habían agotado los periódicos y luego desayunamos en tiempo récord.

Yes. Each part of that Spanish sentence is a (grammatically correct) mirror of its English equivalent.

Yes. There are multiple ways to have translated it more freely so that it doesn’t echo the original as much.

Yes. There are more “Mexican” ways of saying “in record time” than the (still pretty common) Anglicism “en tiempo récord.”

But that’s not what we were going for here. As a result, some people are going to not like my translation, just like some editors don’t like the peculiar voices of writers of color in English, with their code-switching and so on.

There are gatekeepers everywhere. Pero me vale.

ABOUT THE WRITER-TRANSLATOR: A Mexican-American author from deep South Texas, David Bowles is an assistant professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Recipient of awards from the American Library Association, Texas Institute of Letters and Texas Associated Press, he has written thirteen titles, most notably the Pura Belpré Honor Book The Smoking Mirror and the critically acclaimed Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky: Mexican Myths, and They Call Me Güero: A Border Kid’s Poems. In 2019, Penguin will publish The Chupacabras of the Rio Grande, co-written with Adam Gidwitz as part of The Unicorn Rescue Society series, and Tu Books will release his steampunk graphic novel Clockwork Curandera. His work has also appeared in multiple venues such as Journal of Children’s Literature, Rattle, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, Translation Review, and Southwestern American Literature.

Jan 23 2017

Del inglés al español: entrevista con Teresa Mlawer

 

Readers, this is a first for us–a complete article in Spanish! We are delighted to present this guest post, an interview with the translator Teresa Mlawer, originally published on the blog Lapl en español, a service of the Los Angeles Public Library. We are reprinting it with their permission. 

blog-post-cover-teresa-mlawerby Patricia Tarango, Multilingual Collections Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library

Introduction: A recipient of the nation’s highest honor for library service—the National Medal from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Los Angeles Public Library serves the largest and most diverse urban population of any library in the nation. Its Central Library, 72 branch libraries, collection of more than 6 million books, state-of-the-art technology accessible at www.lapl.org, and more than 18,000 public programs a year provide everyone with free and easy access to information and the opportunity for lifelong learning. Lapl en español is the Spanish language blog written by library staff.

Del inglés al español: entrevista con Teresa Mlawer

Desde que tradujo Silvestre y la piedrecita mágica en 1980, Teresa Mlawer ha completado más de 500 traducciones de libros del inglés al español. Muchos de los libros que ha traducido son considerados clásicos universales de la literatura infantil y juvenil. Teresa fue pionera en este campo, y hoy continúa haciendo posible que niños tengan acceso a maravillosas historias en su idioma, el español. Tuvimos la dicha y el honor de conversar con Teresa y de preguntarle sobre su experiencia como traductora, editora y experta en libros infantiles.

1 – ¿Qué tan importante ha sido para usted traducir al español libros clásicos como Silvestre y la piedrecita mágica, Buenas noches luna y Donde viven los monstruos?

En 1975 comencé a distribuir libros en español. En aquel entonces, la mayoría de los libros infantiles venían de España, y unos pocos de México y Argentina. Muchos eran libros de autores de esos países o traducciones de otros idiomas, pero no necesariamente de libros publicados en Estados Unidos. Como vendíamos principalmente los libros infantiles a las escuelas, los maestros empezaron a pedir traducciones de libros en inglés como Silvestre y la piedrecita mágica, Donde viven los monstruos y Buenas noches luna. Entonces empezamos a publicar algunos libros bajo el sello de Lectorum y a recomendarles a las editoriales americanas que publicaran ediciones en español de sus clásicos. Fue así como muchas editoriales americanas me contrataron para que yo hiciera estas traducciones.

Por ejemplo, traducciones como Buenas noches luna, Harold y el lápiz color morado y Donde viven los monstruos, las hice para HarperCollins. Cuando no lograba que las editoriales de Estados Unidos publicaran ediciones en español de sus libros, le recomendaba los libros a las editoriales españolas con miras a vender en este mercado y muchas empezaron a aceptar mis sugerencias, ya que era importante que los niños hispanohablantes pudieran leer traducciones al español de algunos de estos magníficos libros que sus compañeros de clase podían leer y disfrutar de su lectura en inglés. Esto tuvo una gran aceptación en los años 80 cuando la educación bilingüe tuvo un gran auge, especialmente en California.

De hecho, casi todos los libros en español que yo le recomendé a HarperCollins siguen en prensa después de más de 25 años. Son clásicos que nunca mueren.

2 – ¿Cuál es su proceso para traducir un libro en español? ¿Cómo decide cuál es el vocabulario indicado?

Cuando yo traduzco para editoriales norteamericanas o para una editorial mexicana, uso un vocabulario neutral, del español de Latinoamérica. Un vocabulario neutral que lo entienda todo el mundo. Sin embargo, si traduzco una historia que tiene lugar, por ejemplo, en la República Dominicana o que tiene lugar en Puerto Rico, y hay alguna palabra que es indígena de ese país, la utilizo porque considero que es importante respetar la voz del autor y el vocablo de ese país.

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3 – Yo leí uno de los blogs de Meg Medina y ella dijo como le gustó que usted fuera la traductora de su libro Mango, abuela y yo, porque usted le puso el sabor indicado al dialecto de Cuba.

Exactamente. A eso es lo que me refería anteriormente. Lo mismo sucedió cuando hice la traducción de Yaqui Delgado quiere darte una paliza porque en esta historia hay varias voces. Voces cubanas, puertorriqueñas, voces dominicanas. A Meg Medina le gustó mucho, por ejemplo, que en el libro de Mango, abuela y yo en lugar de usar la palabra cajones (común en México), elegí la palabra gavetas (común en Cuba) para traducir la palabra “drawers”. La voz de Meg, aunque universal es cubana, y especialmente en esta historia. Por encima de todo, yo siempre respecto la voz del autor/autora en mis traducciones.

Acabo de traducir el libro que ganó el premio Newbery este año, Última parada de la calle Market (Last Stop on Market Street), publicado por Corimbo, en España. Soy muy cuidadosa y tuve un par de dudas al traducir unas partes del libro. Como conozco a Matt de la Peña le escribí y le pregunté: Matt, tengo un problema. No estoy segura si interpreto bien lo que tú tratas de decir. ¿Me puedes ayudar? Era una cosa muy sencilla y todavía me pregunto ¿cómo pude haber sido tan tonta? En una de las páginas, el niño se sube al autobús con la abuela. Entonces, la abuela le dice al niño: “Boy, what do we need a car for? We got a bus that breathes fire”. Y yo me preguntaba ¿cómo yo voy a traducir eso? ¿Cómo que el autobús echa fuego?

last-stop-on-market-street-interior2Llamé a Matt y él me dijo: “abre el libro y mira las ilustraciones con cuidado”. Abro el libro y miro el dibujo de la página y no veo que el autobús eche fuego. Entonces le dije: Lo siento Matt, pero no veo nada y Matt me contestó: “Teresa, mira al dragón que echa fuego”. Caigo en cuenta y le pregunto: Matt ¿crees que debo especificar que el autobús tiene un dragón pintado en un costado? Pero él me dijo: “No, no Teresa, los niños ven las cosas que no vemos los adultos y se darán cuenta de que se refiere al dibujo del dragón, y verán el fuego que sale de su boca.”

Para mí fue un libro muy especial de traducir porque es muy sencillo pero muy poético. Con pocas palabras Matt descubre todo un mundo en este libro.

Una traducción que me dio mucho trabajo fue la de Yaqui Delgado quiere darte una paliza porque Meg Medina tiene el don de la palabra y expresar sus palabras en otro idioma y a la vez mantener la fuerza que encierran sus palabras fue definitivamente un reto para mí. Meg me envió una carta que una profesora de una universidad que enseña un curso de traducción le escribió. En la carta, la profesora decía que había encontrado la traducción tan buena que la iba a usar en clase para que sus estudiantes examinaran este trabajo de traducción a fondo. Eso fue muy halagador.

Otra traducción que nos dio bastante trabajo fue la traducción de El Gato ensombrerado (The Cat in the Hat) de Dr. Seuss, que hice en colaboración con Georgina Lázaro. En este libro mantuvimos no solo la rima sino la métrica que es muy importante especialmente en las obras de Dr. Seuss. Traducir los libros con rima no es nada fácil. Hay quien traduce los libros con rima y no le presta atención a la métrica, o sea, el número de sílabas de cada estrofa, lo cual es muy importante en la rima. Esto es algo que aprendí de mi buena amiga y colega Georgina Lázaro. Ambas estamos muy orgullosas del resultado de nuestra colaboración.

Debo hacer hincapié que toda persona que escribe o traduce necesita la ayuda de un buen editor y corrector de pruebas. Yo personalmente nunca he publicado un libro o una traducción que no haya sido revisada antes. En España tengo una editora que tiene un gran dominio de la gramática, y ella revisa todas mis traducciones.

 4 – ¿Qué tan importante es la diversidad cultural en los libros para niños?

Esa respuesta la conoces tú mejor que nadie. Yo creo que es muy importante que los niños se vean reflejados en los libros. Todavía queda mucho camino por recorrer, pero creo que hemos avanzado un poco y que honestamente las editoriales norteamericanas están poniendo de su parte para que haya más diversidad en los libros que publican. Pero también tenemos que pensar, que con tantos millones de hispanos en este país, es un número reducido de escritores que escriben literatura infantil y juvenil. Necesitamos que más autores latinos escriban para niños.

5 – En su opinión ¿qué importancia tienen los libros bilingües en Estados Unidos y especialmente en una ciudad como Los Ángeles?

Existen muchas opiniones al respecto, pero yo te voy a dar mi opinión personal, basada en lo que yo he podido observar en el mercado durante todos estos años. Hay mucho interés por parte de los editores, de los bibliotecarios y de las librerías porque se publiquen más libros bilingües. Ahora, cuando yo hago una traducción de un libro que es bilingüe, de alguna forma, al tratar de seguir el texto lo más fielmente posible, uno de los dos idiomas no fluye natural. Por eso yo personalmente prefiero dos ediciones separadas: una en inglés y otra en español. Aunque no dejo de ver las ventajas de algunos libros, como poco texto, en ambos idiomas.

Es importante que cualquier libro bilingüe sea escrito por un autor que domine ambos idiomas. Si esto no es posible, se debe contratar a un traductor para el español o el inglés cuya lengua materna sea a la que va a traducir. Hay que respetar ambos idiomas: el inglés y el español y que ambos sean totalmente correctos y que fluyan bien.

6 – ¿Está trabajando en algunas traducciones ahora?

Traduje hace poco la historia Esperando (Waiting) de Kevin Henkes. También acabo de terminar la traducción al español de Ladder to the Moon (Escalera a la Luna) que escribió hace ya algún tiempo la hermana de Barack Obama y que fue ilustrado por la increíble ilustradora Yuyi Morales.

También recientemente traduje un libro que me encantó. Un libro que tiene rima, métrica y un mensaje muy especial, El pez pucheros (The Pout-Pout Fish). Traducir este ingenioso libro, lograr la rima, la métrica y el mensaje de la autora, me tomó mucho tiempo, pero quedé muy complacida con el resultado final.

7 – ¿Hay algún libro (o libros) que le recuerde su infancia o que a usted le haya impactado?

Un libro que me impactó mucho y que traduje hace 25 años fue Los cien vestidos (The Hundred Dresses). Cada vez que pienso en la historia o la leo, me entran ganas de llorar. Otro libro que también me impacto mucho fue Sadako y las mil grullas de papel (Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes).

8- ¿Qué le diría usted a los padres, maestros y tutores para motivarlos a inculcar en los niños el amor por la lectura y la importancia de que mantengan el idioma suyo o de sus padres mediante la lectura de buenos libros en español?

Yo creo que los maestros y los bibliotecarios son los mejores promotores de la literatura infantil y de que los niños lean. Sé que es importante que los niños aprendan inglés y que lean en inglés, pero también es importante que no pierdan su idioma, o el de sus padres o abuelos. Es importante que los niños se sientan orgullosos de sus raíces. Yo llevo 56 años en Estados Unidos y aprendí inglés, pero cada vez mi español es mejor porque hago uso del español constantemente.

Yo creo que el trabajo comienza desde el hogar. Cuando yo era pequeña, mis padres siempre el Día de Reyes me dejaban juguetes, pero también me dejaban libros, dejando bien claro la importancia que para ellos tenían los libros en casa. Mi madre trabajó en una librería antes de casarse y el amor por los libros y la lectura nos lo inculcó desde pequeñas a mi hermana y a mí. Los padres son los primeros maestros de sus hijos y de ellos los niños aprenden con el ejemplo. Hay que darle a los libros y a la lectura la importancia que merecen en el hogar.

Lista de libros: Del inglés al español: libros traducidos por Teresa Mlawer

May 18 2016

Found in Translation: A Guest Chat by Author Laura Shovan & Translator Patricia Bejarano Fisher

Today we bring you insights from a pair of guest bloggers, Laura Shovan, the author of a new middle-grade novel in verse, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, and Patricia Bejarano Fisher, the translator who helped bring authenticity to one of the novel’s Spanish-speaking characters. In the future, we hope to present more of the angles involved in publishing translated or bilingual books. 

 

Last Fifth Grade cover (2)By Laura Shovan and Patricia Bejarano Fisher

Laura introduces the story: My new middle grade novel in verse, The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary, is set in where Pat and I both live — Howard County, Maryland, right between Washington, DC and Baltimore. People, including immigrants to the U.S., are drawn here by community resources and the strong reputation of public schools. Often, when I’m guest teaching at a local school, there will be several ESL students, speaking a variety of home languages, in each class.

Two of the eighteen students in Ms. Hill’s fictional fifth grade are Spanish speakers. One of those characters, Gaby Vargas, writes her poems in Spanish and then works with her friend to translate them into English. In order to get Gaby’s voice right, I asked Pat to translate the character’s poems from my English into Spanish, but that wasn’t the end of the collaboration.

Laura to Pat: One of my favorite parts of this process was when we collaborated on back-translating Gaby’s poems from Spanish to English. Could you describe what that was like?

Pat: I also enjoyed this part of the translation process. I had your original English poems. I was to be the voice of Gaby, a young native speaker of Spanish who is beginning to develop her English language skills. She has learned quite a bit but is not yet able to express herself fully in English. She still has to look up words in the dictionary, which she finds frustrating.

My first task was to translate the poems into Spanish, taking care to not make it my own Spanish. It had to be the Spanish of an elementary school girl who is learning English. Gaby’s Spanish is clear and direct. It is also colloquial in places, as it usually is in children that age. The second task was for us to work together from a literal reading of the Spanish poems and translate them back into English. The goal was to introduce a couple of lexical or structural inaccuracies, and unidiomatic phrases here and there that would reflect an intermediate stage of fluency where there is some transfer between the two languages. We took special care to respect the children and to avoid stereotyping them.

Laura: I visited an Emerson Elementary in Albuquerque recently. There was a 4/5th grade bilingual class. When I spoke, children in the audience were translating my English to Spanish for their classmates. And we had a chance to read Gaby’s poems in both languages. That was wonderful. You’re an accomplished poet and translator. How was the experience of working on a children’s novel in verse different from other translation work you’ve done?

Pat: My experience translating Gaby’s poems was new and refreshing, and really a lot of fun. I had finished revising some translations into Spanish I had been working on for some time, so I found the idea of translating a few poems for a book about children very appealing, especially since my youngest grandson had been born a few weeks before.  Children were once again my joy and my focus at that time, so I felt this translation effort would be a special treat for me.

It would also be very different: one of the poetry collections I co-translated tells a personal story of familial love, resentment, and forgiveness; another speaks of the dehumanizing effects of absolute power; yet another recalls vivid memories of war, loss, and hope. All are reflections of adult feelings and experiences turned into beautiful, moving poems.

Gaby’s poems expressed just as much feeling with the clarity and spontaneity with which children communicate. I could just see her struggling to express her thoughts and her feelings in her new language, trying to find the right words and then deciding to use the universal language of music instead. And then, to witness the miracle that only children can perform: becoming a proficient speaker of the new language in a short time and later attaining native proficiency at record speed. Gaby brought memories of my own challenges with English when I first came to the U.S.

Laura: I’d shared Gaby’s poems — in English — with a few Spanish-speakers, but wanted an experienced translator to prepare them for publication. What does a translator bring to a poem that a native speaker might not?

Pat: To me, reading and translation go hand in hand, and the better one understands a text through a close reading, the better the chances are of producing a translation that reflects the intent and the meaning of the original. By “understanding” a text, whether prose or poem, I mean “getting it” at the textual level in its own social and cultural context, as well as at the interpreting level in the context of both the source and the target cultures. In my experience, fluency in a language is necessary but not sufficient to achieve a full understanding of all the linguistic, social, cultural, figurative and other elements present in a text [and then] transfer them effectively into the receiving language. In poetry, the sounds, the rhythms, the syllable counts, the rhymes, the images have to be felt and understood in the original and reflected in the translation.

Pat to Laura: The 18 children who appear in your book come from different backgrounds and have different life stories. How did you choose your characters and how did you develop their relationships? I’m interested in how kids choose their friends and role models.

Laura: My first draft had 30 students and 30 poems, one in each voice. As the book grew from a collection of poems into a novel, some characters were cut and others grew in depth. I made a seating chart for them, so I could see what their classroom relationships might be like. It’s a mystery, sometimes, how children choose their friends. In the development of the book, some friendships didn’t appear until very late in the process. Gaby’s relationship with Mark Fernandez is an example of that. The two of them connect through language.

Fifth-Grade spread

The Last Fifth Grade is set in Columbia, Maryland, where you live and where I often teach. How do you think the book reflects our community in particular and today’s schools in general?

Pat: The children in the book are like the kids I see walking to school in the morning or waiting at the bus stop here in Columbia. We take pride in being an inclusive community where diversity is respected and welcome. Access to education for all has always been a guiding principle. My daughters went to school here some years ago. The events in the life of the school and of the children in The Last Fifth Grade could have taken place in any elementary school in Columbia or Howard County. I really felt I knew Gaby, Edgar Lee Jones, George Furst, Norah Hassan, and their classmates. I felt sad about their school… Any such loss is hard; it feels like someone is taking way the heart of the community.

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PatPatricia Bejarano Fisher was born in Bogotá, Colombia. A language and linguistics graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo, she has lived in Columbia, MD for 33 years. She has worked as a Spanish teacher, translator and language-learning materials developer for many years but she now focuses exclusively on poetry translation. Her work includes South Pole/Polo Sur (Settlement House, 2012) and From the Diary of Mme Mao (publisher TBD), both poem collections by Venezuelan poet Maria Teresa Ogliastri, which she co-translated with Yvette Neisser Moreno. She’s an avid reader of Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese literatures and of all languages in translation. More poems translated by Pat can be found here.

DSC_5914Laura Shovan is former editor of Little Patuxent Review and editor of two poetry anthologies. Her chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, won the inaugural Harriss Poetry Prize. Laura works with children as a poet-in-the-schools and was Howard County Poetry and Literary Society’s 2015-2016 Writer in Residence. The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary is her debut novel-in-verse for children (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House). Learn more at Laura’s website.