 Alright, so I'm Minna Proctor, I'm the editor of the Literary Review, I also translate from Italian and have been reviewed both kindly and cruelly, and I also write reviews and frequently review books and translation kindly and cruelly, so I'm actually wearing five different Devil's Advocate hats as well as moderating this panel. The Literary Review is a literary quarterly, we publish a lot of works in translation, we've been running since 1957 out of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, and our panelists today are Michelle Johnson, she's managing editor of World Literature and Translation. World Literature Today. But I like the new title because we feature a lot of books in translation, so that could be our subtitle. It's a good one. Just so everybody's prepared, I had to present the translator award, the Penn Awards a couple of years ago, they called on me to just present and read the names of all of the translators, and I don't know what they were thinking because I have all sorts of verbal quirks, and in particular, kind of syllabic dyslexia, and so when they presented me with all of these really exciting names that I had, just like 20 names that I just had to go through, and every syllable was up for grabs, it was chaos. I'm taking yours back to our next editorial meeting, it's really a good title. Katerine Jensen, who is the editor of the asymptote blog, and a translator from Danish. She's got a book of poems coming out next year, which will be reviewed kindly. Kindly, and truly. In World Literature and Translation. Correct, yes. And Mark, just do your name for me, so I don't have to. Athatakus. Athatakus. Mark Athatakus, who is a book reviewer. He's here as our kind of, like, I just write a lot of book reviews, and often they're books in translation, but you don't come from a translation background. I do not. Much to my parents' disappointment, I never picked up Greek, and I don't do any translation. I don't have anything that's been in translation. So he's an official interloper in the Aalto community, and so that's interesting. It's always nice to have somebody who doesn't see the world the way we do. Talking to us about how we see the world. So this subject, I've got to go over to my Brandy Sifter of Iced Tea. So this topic is, we have done this panel several times at Aalto. It comes up a lot, and there are a couple of topics that we like to touch on for people who've never been to this panel or earlier iterations of this panel, but one of the things I did want to say before we started with questions about how do reviewers get chosen for books in translation? How do book editors pick books they want to review? Who has the right to review a book in translation? What if you don't speak any languages? Who are you to know, etc.? I did want to say that we have this panel every year. We talk about this material a lot. The subject matter. Six months shy of 20 years ago, I was the official office person for the Penn Translation Committee. I forget what my title was. I was like the coordinator in the Penn offices for the translation committee. And so 20 years ago what the Penn Translation Committee did was we had a watchdog campaign where every time a review appeared in a publication, usually a major publication, and the publication neglected to put the translator's name in the top matter, the headline. You know, it just said the name of the rose by Enverto Echo. See, I'm going back in time. The name of the rose by Enverto Echo, and it magically appeared in English. And then there would be a long review, and it might talk about the language. And there was no mention of the translator at all. 20 years ago at Penn, what we were so focused and dogged about, we would then write a very formal and aggressive letter to the New York Times book review and say, you must mention the translator's name. And it was the substance of our work. And to a large extent, I think those efforts were successful. They went on for a while, and I think Margaret might correct me. But I think most of the major publications now list the translator's name. Am I saying a malarkey? For the most part, like the New York Times does it. Let's just say letters are still being written. Letters are still being written. But it is significant. This was my full-time job back at Penn 20 years ago. That's all I did was write letters to people about the translator's name. So now it's not necessarily a full-time job. We come a long way about that. Efforts went then to talking about mentioning that the book was in translation and reviews. And so what's happened over the last few, over the last 15 years is that we've come, as a group of translators, to wondering how we feel about being noted in a side mention. The book was aptly translated by Minna Proctor in the course of the 700-word review, a 2000-word review, ably translated by smooth prose by dreadful, clunky hard stuff by. But just like a little line there, and then the rest of the review has nothing else. So it's almost like a nod to the translation. And I think the consensus among most translators is, is that necessarily better than being ignored. It's terrible to be ignored. It's kind of not satisfactory to be just nodded to, but it's better than being ignored. So the conversation, I think, has become more nuanced. Now what we're talking about is whether we're being ignored, whether the, and whether we're being, or whether we're being discussed adequately. And then I think one of the things that it's now time to talk about, again, and none of these discussions are new, but one of the things that are worth being talking about is when the reviewers are talking about translations, how well are they doing it? And when reviewers are focusing on translations, when there are reviews about several different books and translations, are the reviewers behaving in the capacity of translation police, which is a coinage that refers to people who happen to know the, the source language and will review an entire book and criticize a translation because there was one word they would have translated differently. And so the review becomes kind of a corrective. Like the substance of the review becomes, well, if I'd translated the book, I would have done it this way, which is not exactly as book critics. I think we would all agree. We never review, like if you're reading a, if you're reviewing a book in English, you never say, if I'd written that book, I would have written it this way. Why would that conversation be a legitimate one for translation either? So I think that we are arriving at a much more complex moment when we're thinking about what do we as translators, what, what is our ideal? What do we really want from reviewers? And what's, what's, what also a fair point? What is fair to, to expect in the book review world in the commercial marketplace? In the case of a book where the translation might be excellent, but there's something else going on in the book that dominates the sub, the interest of the reviewer. So that's a really long preamble. I think what I'm trying to say is I think the conversation has gotten more nuanced and interesting at this point. That said, let's go back to basics. Let's go back to the basics. One of the things Chad said that we, that people do like to know is, you know, how do Mark is, has no experience with translation, but frequently is asked to review books for translation. Mark, can you talk about where you review for a little bit and how it is that you get asked to review the translation? Sure, I've been doing this, not full time, but pretty about half time for about the past five, six years now. And I've written for New York Times, Washington Post, Barnes and Noble reviews, some fairly substantive places that do longer reviews. But the place where I most regularly review works in translation is for a Kirkus reviews. Is anybody here in the audience, I'm completely unfamiliar with Kirkus. Kirkus is what's known as a prepo. So the before the book is going to be reviewed by the New York Times or the major outlets closer to publication date. There are reviews of books that have come out about three to six months before that actually happens. And that is a way to inform booksellers about books that might be of interest or to help people who run larger book reviews to make selections about what's of interest. You're not allowed to tell anybody outside of this room that Mark reviews for Kirkus. No, you can say a review for Kirkus. I just cannot say which. Oh, okay. I guess the shield. The reviews are anonymous, which makes some people in the larger literary community a little bit upset. I got assigned these to review works in translation, mainly just because the fiction editor knows that oftentimes I can meet these books halfway that oftentimes if there are books that are coming out from Dahlke or open letter that are a little bit outside of mainstream a little bit more experimental, play with language a little bit more. I can tell later I'm game for that. I don't love all of it necessarily, but you know, I'm willing to try to, you know, see what the author is doing, do a little bit of homework to understand where it's coming from. The downside of this to your point minute is that the word count for Kirkus reviews is 300 words. So I'm not going to have a whole lot of space to talk about issues with the translation. I don't have automatically a grasp of it. But the way that I've approached it is that my feeling is that every book teaches you how to read it. And each book has a certain integrity to it. And so if you see things, well, if it's Swedish thriller where, you know, you have a certain expectation for colloquial language that, you know, it's going to go down fairly easy, and there's clunky prose, I'm willing to acknowledge that I usually don't say, well, it's the translator's fault. I'll say that, no, either because of the translator or because of, you know, the source text, you know, something goes a little bit awry over here. So the best I can do is acknowledge it. But I don't try to lay blame squarely on one person or another. Does that answer the question? Yeah. Yeah. And and stop us if there if you have a question that we can we can make it an open discussion. Katrina, you do assign book reviews. And you're okay. So you decide who's going to who's going to discuss what book and how. Sure. Talk to us a little bit about that process. How do you if you see a book that you're like, well, we should really write about we should really put this on our blog, or do people pitch you or how do those things come about? Both. I should start by saying, you know, I'm a blog editor at Ascentode, which means I'm a part of the daily content on Ascentode, whereas we also have a criticism editor who is in charge of our quarterly content. So our processes are very different. Actually, I discovered in my research process for this panel. So the quarterly mainly solicits reviews, almost exclusively. And I discovered that Ellen, our criticism editor actually sends out this really nice note where she writes what her expectations are in terms of reviewing a book in translation. So she has sort of guidelines for how to review a book in translation. And I love to read it. It's really brief. But later, maybe. Well, you can read it. I mean, I asked him totally specifically a book about I mean, a publication about work in translation. So there's a higher standard of attention. Yeah, yeah. Sure. I mean, I can read it briefly now. So don't you guys want to know what? All right, great. Yeah. So Ellen sends this note out to all reviewers as she solicits where she writes, we expect all reviewers to engage critically with the collaborative nature of translated texts. The translator as well as the author should be credited at the first mention of the book's title. Make sure you back up both praise and criticism of the translation with specific examples. If the translator hasn't included a note describing his or her approach to the translation, it is useful to refer to this and indicate whether you think their aims have been achieved. Where previous translations of a word exist, we recommend you compare their approaches with specific reference to short passages. So you can indicate the contributions made by the new one. If the original author is known for particular literary qualities, it will be helpful for you to assess whether they appear in the translation. We are happy to see intelligent criticism by writers unfamiliar with the language of the original, as long as they address the fact responsibly in their review. That sounds like a model. Yeah, that's like the ideal, right? So it's also, you know, the fairy tale ideal that doesn't, you know, take into consideration time and word length. Yeah, I mean, mainly time, I would say, that's the main thing because, first of all, I mean, many of these indie publications don't pay their reviewer. So that's one thing. So they can expect you to read a review in both the original language and the translation and other translations, too. So it is really a model and we're not oblivious to the fact that it's kind of impossible. But still, like, it's nice to send out these guidelines just to like be clear about what what the ideal would be what we expect. That being said, I, I added the blog with Patty Mash, who is here. She's wearing a hat. Patty, where are you? Yeah, oh, she took off the hat. Okay, great. Okay, there it is. Thank you. So we, we co added the blog and, you know, we, we try to discuss every month we have this roundup called new in translation or what's new in translation. And so we try to discuss what what titles, you know, are relevant to or relevant. How do you say that? titles that we've noticed that have either been reviewed elsewhere, or that we've discovered through our own network on social media, you know, people uploading a photo of a book saying this is incredible, I can't wait for it to come out in this and this month. And so based on the Kirk is review. Yeah, sure. So so so we discuss what we would like to be a part of our what's new in translation roundup. But also, we invite reviewers to pitch to us as well, mainly from our own large team of editors, they will, you know, we have country editors who are situated all over the world, and they will pitch a review to us, for instance, and be like this is is something that's really interesting that I'd like to review. It's coming out in October. Could we put it slated for the what's new in translation October? How long are those reviews, the blog? So, um, well, so we published, it depends on what what's submitted to us. Our what's new in translation roundup is basically it can be anywhere from like three paragraphs to like a whole like full length review. And sometimes we decide to publish those full length reviews separately from the roundup. So it's very it depends on what we get in basically. But I will say that at the blog, we do not send out this letter beforehand, because we mainly get content and then we just edit it when we receive it because it's a daily blog. So that also means that sometimes Patty and I have to actually go in and tell the reviewers that they have to mention the translator. So so Ellen, who's a criticism editor of the quarterly, she I she told me she never has to do that because she's already sent out the guidelines. But with us, we get the content and we have to edit it just from from whatever the reviewer thought was reasonable in terms of translating this work. And so I've had to like tell our own team members sometimes that they should focus a little more on the review, even the word translation journal, you know, we tend to I don't think we necessarily forget, but maybe we're on the time pressure when submitting and then we're just we'll just try to focus on explaining what the book is about and then write beautifully rendered by this and this person into English. So yeah. Michelle. So you, you read a lot of the reviews, you don't assign them, correct? Correct. Yeah. So what is the in preparing for this? You were looking at the reviews that you're publishing. And do you have a sense of how they approach how you get how generally translation is approached in your magazine? And could you explain it? Yes, since I'm not the book review editor, this took me on a really interesting educational mission of looking at our review section from a different perspective. For the past 10 years, I've edited copy edited every book review that went into our pages. And so of course, I've closely read all of our reviews, but I haven't been the person who's been assigning the reviews. Our recently retired book review editor, Marla Johnson has been doing that. And I'm sure some of you in here have probably reviewed for WLT and may have worked with Marla. But I met with her and visited with her and talked about how she's selected, which books to review and over the years, we've of course over the years talked about that. And I also looked back the past two years and thought about the different range of reviews, both in WLT's pages and other publications and started to see this spectrum of reviews. And I think it's really what you were talking about, Minna, where you have publications that aren't referring to the translator at all, or reviews that as we've acknowledged, do say something about do acknowledge that it's a translation or maybe say the reviews that say you're just elegantly rendered or smoothly translated by. And then you have some reviews that go a little further and give a little more in depth approach to the translation. And then you have some and I was able to find a few good examples in our pages of reviews that really get in depth in the translation to the point where the translator I felt really became the primary subject of the review. I would say those in any publication though are very rare. I think those are still very rare. We publish reviews by people like Mark who are not experts in the language and we think those are very valuable reviews of translated works. And then we also have reviewers who are experts in languages. Our main mission is to bring translated literature from all parts of the world to the attention of an English speaking audience. So we're not going to wait until we establish a relationship with a reviewer in a language. Finally find someone who will write a review for free about a language that we don't have a reviewer in to talk about a book and an author. We're going to go ahead and we're going to review the book. And we're really interested in high quality reviews. So we're balancing a number of objectives. Geographical coverage, language coverage, gender coverage. We're balancing all of these objectives. And Marla said of course, she does value those has valued over the years when you have someone who's also an expert in the language. But we also see the value in other reviewers and people who bring different perspectives to the reviews. And so we really are open to different types of reviewers and what they bring to the reviews. And if you going back through our pages, I could see the differences. And, you know, just for fun, I also pulled like a variety of different reviews from different publication of one Pablo's via those is quesadillas. You could find one from one publication that didn't mention that it was that didn't even make any mention at all the translation. Another from another publication that didn't mention the translator at all, but had a really nice perspective about the political, the political climate was very useful. It provided a lot of good background. I can see the value in that, even though it didn't focus on the translation at all, there was something valuable about that review from another perspective than ours, which was by an expert and also a translator. And he provided very slight sparse. He's a fairly new translator, a sparse, but he did touch up on the translation. Another that touched up on the translation barely, but was critical, and had a little bit of that translation policex approach to it. And I never did find one for that particular book quesadillas in my very quick research, and maybe there is one out there there probably is, that really did the full translation review that I think is so rare. I saw David Shooks and he again a minute ago, he's back there, he probably won't raise his hand now that I'm going to call him out. Where is he? Because I know he's back there. There he is. I was hiding under a hay as a hat too. He recently did a really nice review for us. And I think it's a good example of what someone who is a, who is also a translator and a poet can bring of a collection of an indigenous Mexican poet's collection of poetry. And he did a very finely nuanced review that brought the translator's perspective into the review. And I think it's a very fine example of what an expert can bring to review. But I think that's very rare, where we are now, but I think these are all the types of questions for people to be asking within this conversation. Does that help? As far as what we're doing? Did I wonder off? I do that. So I was looking at some, our panelists sent me some different reviews. And I was, and I started reflecting on, there's a review by Ben Lerner of My Struggle in the London Review books, where he just talks about how mediocre it is. The writing, the cliches, the, you know, he goes on and on all of the things you can say about what a really dreadfully written book it is. And then sort of, and then doesn't about face and says, and yet it's amazing. It's an interesting, it was an interesting review to read right before coming here, because it does not talk about the trans, doesn't talk about the translator. The conversation about the language, its mediocrity and its brilliance lives entirely with Niles Guard and Ben Lerner's relationship to that text. So I was trying, I was trying to think about this paradox of when I was trying to find examples of where a book is criticized and its mediocrity or its failings are blamed on the translator by the reviewer. And when a book is hailed as great, and it's all the responsibility of the writer, which I do think is sort of the, you know, the great writer versus the flawed translator kind of kind of drum. And I was trying to find examples of it and thinking who I could throw under the bus and then and then I remembered my translation of Federico Fellini's biography, which, which I did not like the book very much. I thought it was very poorly written. And it was very hard to translate because it was poorly written. And I actually did an expose in Time Out New York about how much I hated translating it and how feeble I thought the original was. And I found two reviews of that book, one, which said, it seems like a really slight book. And the translation, the choices the translator made seem to set the reader up to take it with a grain of salt. So he actually gave me credit for distancing. I don't know how he did this for distancing myself in the translation from the work. And it was sort of like an acclaim. And then a little bit further down on the same amp, that was a publisher's weekly review. And then there was a very angry customer review. This is really a terrible book. And the language is dreadful. And it's filled with these run on sentences, you know, cliches, sentences that don't end. It's really a terrible translation. There you go. But what that what I wanted to what the reason I wanted to think about that paradox is that those are just two different ways of reading. Those are just two different readers and two different interpretations of what was going on with the text. The reason I'm prefacing that to asymptote just ran a discussion between Sue Burke and Maya Evrona about what the ideal review from the point of view of a translator would be. And I'd be curious to know how much those of you who are translators would agree with, in particular, Sue Burke's ideal, she calls it a fairy tale. But this is her declared, this is what would be an ideal review for translation. While any book review has to cover a lot of ground, at some point, I think it ought to explicitly acknowledge that the work being reviewed is a translation and mention it's a parent approach since a translation in some ways rewrites the original. If possible, it might compare a passage of the original to the translation and note whether the translation wrestles successfully or not with linguistic and cultural challenges captures its literary quality like elegance or immediacy or wit and accurately conveys both the meaning in the subtext. Ideally, the review might even compare the translation to any earlier ones and weigh how this translation offers a new outlook on the original work. Whether it is the first or 20th translation, the review could also consider how much the work itself expands or not the literary resources for the target language. Much of the literature is a much of literature is in fact a dialogue. And this is a new voice or a new rendering of that voice will speak to readers and writers who could not hear it before. Now I read that by Sue Burke and thought I'm not sure I would want to withstand that scrutiny, personally. But I'm interested how that resonates with with those of you out. I mean, who of you are coming as a translator and who's coming? Who's a translator interested in being reviewed well in this group? And who would like to be of those people? Would all of you like to be reviewed as Sue Burke describes? In this way? Is this your ideal of being reviewed? Do you share that? Not to put it in the description. And then who's a reviewer? So how do you reviewers feel about that? I'm just curious. Does anybody have an impression? It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? Yeah. Sleep. Right. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think my struggles is an interesting example of this because I actually did an interview with with mouse garden where I talked a little bit about the intentional slovenliness of his prose. And I kind of came away from that with kind of a newfound admiration for his translation of it because it does what Ben Lerner talks about that it is sort of it's, it's sloppy, it's clichéd written, it's run up, but it's so it keeps pulling wind, at least it keeps pulling me in. And that made me feel that he was keeping faith with now scarred intentions. And I think, you know, if I had become aware of something where now scarred said, well, I really was looking for something very tight and very lyrical. And then you're reading this, then you would say, okay, well, something has clearly gone a little bit off here, it succeeds, but in ways that are different from the author's intention, which is a flaw. I mean, even if it is successful. So it was interesting to at least know that the translator and the author were in line on that front. Do any of the three of you have reviews where you know you should mention the translator but you just say, I really it's not doesn't fit. It's not working. Even an asymptote or where it doesn't fit mentioning the translator? Yeah, or where you really feel like you're just tacking on something and you kind of wish that you didn't have to. No, I feel like there's always something to say about a translation to be honest. I mean, I'm sorry, but there is. I mean, I'm a translator myself. So I just I know how much work a translator puts into a book. So obviously, there's something to be said about that. So as we mentioned in our idealized version of what a translation review should be, you know, if there's a translator's note, if there's something where the translator has provided some thoughts on the translation, then that would be ideal to put into the review. I mean, I don't see how it doesn't fit a review, you know, and you can either as as a reviewer, you can either, you know, look at the introduction in the book if there is one, or, you know, Google the translator's name, see if an interview comes up or anything, you know, like that's, that's something that's a compromise where you don't have to do like a lot of work, but you can still incorporate the translators. Yeah, there's a really good interview by Scott of Esposito with them Bartlett in the Paris Review Daily about trans the translation project. And it's true, there's so much information that comes to us as readers. I guess it helps when books are six volumes long, because there's because as a book review editor and a signer, you start getting lost. Like, are we just going to review the next installment, you know, even with the front is for the book I had. It's very difficult. What are we going to do? We're just going to talk about it again. We're just going to find another person. And so that's when the translator does start to emerge because we're extra material. Yes. Because my readers are going to be used to that. Right. You've been expecting a full audience. And I start to do that. I actually, I would not start to do that. I would not I would not pull out passages and do line by line analyses and comparisons with the original. And I think there are plenty of other ways that you can talk about the translation without doing that. And without because the general audience is going to just throw up its hands at that point. Well, that person knows the original must be good, must know what he's talking about. And I don't think that's necessarily true. I think it happens often that a reviewer sort of throws out their authority there like that. And it requires that they know the original, they can read the source text. Therefore, they know what's good. We're all faking that part. Yeah. Yeah. And they focus on individual lyric, like, like what you discussed before and say it's bad because it should be this word, not that word. It's interesting the tolerance of a general readership for intricate discussions of translation, which we all love. I think I'm speaking for everybody, maybe not you. But for you guys, when you talk about your mission is to bring this work to more readers. So how much do you want to create an app or a kind of more academic app? Is academic fair? And my more academic apparatus around the discussion of the translation at the risk of alienating a pushing a general reader away from a book. It's almost like saying, this movie really has subtitles. Well, I think I think that we've gone ahead. Just very quickly. I mean, I just it doesn't have necessarily be as dry as that. I was about going to say that, you know, if I was going to have in the same way we're talking about what our magical unicorn translation reviews going to look like, I think about, you know, what would be one thing that I wish I had more of in terms of either what is submitted from the publisher in terms of one sheets or information or in the translators note is not so much about sort of like the linguistic choices and translation choices, but the cultural space that the book occupies. Why was this book published? Why does you know what oftentimes when I see information about it, it's been a bestseller at one of prize, which is great to know. But what is the reputation of the author? What community does this author belong and what sort of how does resonate with the community in which it was published when it was first published? Why is this book important? I don't have to necessarily believe that there could be different disagreements about that. But I want to hear a little bit more about what specific place this book occupies. Because one thing that happens, I think with quote unquote lazier reviewers, is that sometimes books and translation, the author is treated as sort of an ambassador for the entire country's literature. So you know, Arauki Murakami is Japan or but you know, David Grossman is not Edgar Kerr, it is not Gail Haravan. I mean, there's a robust kind of community of different types of writing in within one country. And having that book positioned for a reviewer, a little bit better would help avoid some of those sort of kind of more glib broad brush statements about, you know, what the translation is that you're talking to publishers about. Right now, you're addressing the publishers. Give us better information. I'm pushing the blame away from you. Yeah, Michelle, you were. Oh, I think you're you ask a question that went to how interested we are. Yeah. Well, I think our Translation Tuesday blog that we've been running for the past couple of years has taught us or really not taught us but really validated that the people who are looking at world literature today, whether they be academics or more general readers are really interested in what translators do. Maybe not getting into a very academic discussion of translation, but they're very interested in the art of translation and the subject of translation. So we like we've included we're now including a translator's note what we call the notebook section up front, trying to incorporate more and more and more of translator visibility and information that goes a little deeper into what translators do and how they do it. That said, we are really not trying to push what you would call an academic perspective throughout because I think that we are trying to attract a broader readership, something that will satisfy people who are more in the club and more academic, but also people who aren't. And if it's consistently academic throughout, it may feel overwhelming to people and shed a lot of people out. So I think that our review section that has some that do provide more in depth discussion of the mechanics of the translation and some that perhaps aren't able to incorporate that in the review provides both perspectives and something for different types of readers. And I think that the way that we're approaching that tolerates those differences and provides those differences among our readers and reflects our kind of a broad readership. But we have been validated by our translation Tuesday blog in our belief that people are broadly interested in what translators are doing. They'd like to read about it. And it was quickly our most popular blog series. Do you have to add to that, Katrina? Yeah, I mean, in terms of thinking of the reader, we're also aiming for the intelligent lay reader at Asim Toad. And we want to, you know, be free of largely free of scholarly apparatus, such as the organ. I don't want to retract a little bit on the academic, but I do mean maybe too specialized. Maybe it's just specialized, but I said I said academic, but I might have been putting too much on that. I mean, we so we don't our reviews don't focus that much on the translator, but it's more aware of the translators that I think than I think a lot of other reviews are. So still our reviews in Asim Toad are just normal, your normal reviews accessible to, you know, literary readers. But then we will have maybe a large paragraph that talks about the translation. So again, you know, the ideal would be all these like comparisons and whatnot. But the reality is, you know, we we only have so much space for a review. And so we just offer these guidelines and then the reviewer will take whatever they take from it and then, you know, do their own thing with it. Should we talk about does anyone have a question on this? Does anyone want to add anything now? Okay, just interrupt me if you want to. What about reviewers who don't really know the source language as one? You know, what do you find is the difference? And do you ever think that it's better if the reviewer doesn't? Okay, so again, I have a really good quote from our criticism editor. I just her name is Ellen Jones, and she's a PhD in comparative literature and somewhere in London, and she's just she's amazing. So because I asked her sorry, I asked her, what do you mean when you write, we're happy to see intelligent criticism by writers unfamiliar with the language of the original, as long as they address the fact responsibly in their review. I was like, what do you mean by that? You know, what is that? And then she said, well, I quite like criticism that is slightly personalized. So I'm always happy for reviewers to explain the limitations of their language competence. Being responsible about it might involve citing other sources if they're reflecting on a word phrase tendency in the original, such as dictionaries or other translations. But it also might involve just admitting when they're not qualified or experienced enough to remark on the quality of the translation as a translation, but rather on its quality as a new and independent piece of writing, its value as an English language work. So, you know, that's that's something where you as a reviewer can step in and say, I'm reviewing this as a piece of English language work, you know, I don't know Chinese, you know, I don't know Chinese. But as as a book in English, this is what I think of it. This is what I think of the sentences, you know, and then you can argue, you know, it might be due to the translator. I don't know. But this is what I think of it as an English language work. I find as a reviewer, sometimes it's bad if I know too much about the, like, say there's some big writer that I wanted to translate, but I didn't get the job. And then I'm reviewing it. And I have, you know, I would have done it differently. What happens when you get into that territory, at least editorially? Is that a good, I mean, that can't be a good thing. And how does the readership know the difference between a grudge or backseat reviewing or backseat translating and a fair review? Well, I think the New York Times book review does so many ethically questionable assignments. They almost would want to put them on a different plate. Yeah, I do, I do think it's, yeah, yeah. But I do think, yeah, so right, but if you were a review editor, and someone said, oh, and you were looking for someone to review the book, might not you say, Oh, well, Minna knows all about this author, she translated this early piece, wouldn't she be good? And as a reader, would you be interested in knowing then what I thought? I mean, there's I don't know either. I just think it's fun to ask I think it is more of an ethical thing, especially if you feel like you have some engagement with that author, that community, and especially like if you were in the running for it. I mean, it gives you an expertise, but it's an expertise you kind of need to cop to and explain your experience. I can make a review rich. I've pulled back on being scorched earth about that sort of, you know, those sort of things. So long as you're disclosing, you know, that helps me understand where you're coming from. So I can take your dismissal. Yeah, I'll also say as an editor, it's, you know, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't question the the criticism in the review, you know, like, I have to go in and look logically at the arguments presented. And, you know, during my editorial process, I'll ask questions for the reviewer and be like, what do you mean when you say this, do you have an example, you know, like stuff like that really basic stuff for an editor, you know, but, you know, so that's also on the editor. If someone gets published, where it's just, you know, a terrible rant about how awful this translator is, it's up to the editor to stop that and to nuance it by working with the reviewer. Yeah. Yes, Russell, but the very bare bones nature of the plot is the translator's doing the translation, right? The bare bones nature of the plot doesn't change, but the pace is handled by the translator. They can destroy that plot if they don't handle the pace correctly. And all of the words shows that we don't know Chinese, but Chinese doesn't have articles. So all the decisions about articles in the whole book are choices that the translator makes. All that language is the translator's language. So as soon as you make that claim, then you have to say it's a translator's responsibility. The only thing you don't know is how much the translator was edited by the editor in English. That's the relationship that you're in. It turns out it's an English language to work at that point. I can't talk about the source anymore. The source doesn't make any difference. So are you arguing for? I'm saying it's a more radical stance than we're usually willing to say it is. We're saying, oh, it sounds like it's an English language, but what we're really saying is that we don't care what the source says anymore. If it's working for most reviewers, I would think, especially in the mainstream environment, you're not acknowledging the translator, but you're judging the book based on its English performance exclusively. And that's and as a reviewer, I always come to that. I'm just reading the book as it's given. I have what I have in front of me, and that's what I'm going to respond to. And so you're saying that sort of this radical, normal behavior. I guess I'm saying that you're creating the translator enough once you start down that road. Right. Once you start down that road you have to say, we're not even going to talk about the source anymore. All we know is a little biography about the all-therapy. So if we had a room full of sources, if all of those source people were in here, they would rise up with pitchforks against us and they'd be right. And that radical stance is probably fine for us translators. It's probably fine for a review in a translation managed by TI. Right. Then there's the bag that has lots of general readers in which translations are only 10 percent of the total divided. And it's not so fine. And they're the kinds of things that has never occurred to most of the folks in general. Yes, in the back. So how often do you see negative reviews of translations in quicksides and translations in something that comes up more and more? Is it something that's really rare? Well, that's interesting. The more that we ask for it as editors, the more we're going to get it. Right. The more opening there is for a negative review. But they usually read translations. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff gets smarmy. And it's really not, you know, why read it? You know, I mean, somebody may say it's a boring translation. I don't like it. It's good. But, you know, what's the point of translating? What's the point of reviewing? I'm kind of with you on that. What I think is interesting that's occurring to me over the course of this discussion is I'm thinking how popular, you know, those grammar, like the grammar columns are and the call in shows how much people like to say, well, irregardless is another you know, they like to call in and ask the expert and vent their ideas about how people use irregardless and things like that. Like those are very popular editions of the Leonard Lopez show. There's a section in the New York Times magazine with your grammar questions. Is it possible that we can be appealing as translators and writers about translation to that kind of geekier element and and and turning sort of working to demonstrate the delight in the translation process. And incorporating that into the review rather than this idea of evaluating and comparing and contextualizing so much as talking about you know, this this this process of transference and isn't sort of appealing to the crossword puzzle aspect of translation and letting a general readership share in that. Yes, but I mean, it requires the same amount of talent, I think, and skill that you would require to write a very thoughtful review of St. Jonathan Friends' novel and understand the nuances there. I mean, I think, you know, I and I I enjoy those pieces when I read them. I think I think I sent you a piece that Masha Gessen had written about various translations of Anna Karenina or there was a takedown of translation of Ovid that I had read recently that, you know, gave me an excuse to stop reading this boring translation of it halfway through, because it was explaining, you know, why the translation bulked it up and heard it. I learned a little bit about Latin translation. I'm always going to be a dilatant on that sort of thing. But that's a matter of being in the hands of a very sophisticated and intelligent critic. And I don't know if that's, you know, in and of itself, it's not interesting, but a good writer can make it interesting. Yeah, I would also like to just bring up my example that I sent to you, which is Ammo Signs, a review of Sylvina Campos, that's where their faces published in the October issue of Asymptote. Get a postcard here if you want to check it out. It's a terrific. It's an amazing piece. Thank you. Okay. So yeah, so this this translation was or this book was translated by Daniel Balderson for New York Review of Books Classic. And so Ammo Hussain in his review addresses the translation this way by one paragraph. But I think it's it's just very elegantly done. Ammo Hussain writes, does Ocampo style transcend linguistic barriers? In Spanish, her prose is uncharacteristically stripped down. In English, essentially a less ornate language, Ocampo's precision isn't as remarkable, though her deaf views of bizarre and poetic imagery is ably captured by Balderson, who also provides an afterward in which he mentions her wild odd syntax. What he conveys even more effectively than the irregularities of her grammar is the ferocity of her narrative method. His selection his selection often displays Ocampo's paradoxical ability to rework similar material from different angles and yet be versatile. And as for his noted wide ranging. So that's just a really elegant way of saying something does get lost in translation. However, I really enjoy this translation in English. I really enjoy this poetry. Oh, what I admire is that it's really talks about English. Yeah, it's that talks about the original's relationship to the English language. Yes, while informing the reader of how the original language poetry is. Yeah, questions. How much decision involves the literary world value of a translation and how much decision is made based on the quality of translation. Because sometimes when I send out submissions, I got replied, this is not suitable for this. And then I resubmit it to some other that they say, thank you for sending us a good story. So I'm wondering with the I'm wondering with the alert and literally that things how much decision is based on the are you do you mean in terms of submitting original original translations to be published or crit or review or criticisms? Making a original translation to be from that. So I have a panel tomorrow about about from publishers point of view about about editing translations and and and responding to them. And that might be something we can answer better there. If you don't mind me putting it off. Till then, I don't want to use all my material. There was another question. Yeah, Jim. Yeah, I was thinking analogy between actors to non-academic reviews. It came up several times and nobody's satisfied with it. And it made me think of another possible analogy which I think might actually get at it more and also explain some of the reason why the so-called non-academic reviews are approached, particularly by publishers. Why people compare it to to theater and sort of pre-paradella theater where there's a fourth wall and that would be the non-academic who are delivering this thing, you know, as if it's actually there. And it's in the world. As opposed to you know, a review that shows the scaffolding and lets you see a kind of directing and that would be the one that in some sense focuses on the translation or the other cultural components of how an author is situated in their culture. So the difference between an academic review and a non-academic review but the kind of non-academic review that we want is style. Between fourth wall, proceeding theater and directing theater. Because the reason I would push it that way is that I think we've all been devolved and know how to appreciate them. It's interesting. I think so. Tim Park said that in the talk I saw him did the last novel and he said, of course the translator is not going to be able to do it. Why would a publisher want to remind people to not read it? And that's a thorny place. You just took us. I was thinking about Tim Park. Yeah. Can I ask a question? Yeah, please. In the first book we don't know anything about them yet it might be true. I'm wondering why there aren't any sort of say well this translation by this translator is different from the previous translation by this translator or is distinguished by these vocal differences by this translator's other work in English. I mean it's the same reason that she mentioned that there are pictures on the cover but I don't think she should. You could do that. I wrote down that proposal. I'm going to write it down. It's my Russell's proposal and I wrote it down because I think it's such a cool idea and it is interesting. It's actually more interesting than the Masha Gasin piece which is a little bit of backseat translating and I disagree with your, I mean I can see why it's fun. That's the thing. I can see why you would come at that like oh here are these different translations and these are the different choices they made and that's fun. It's fun to kind of play with it but it would be equally as fun to look at you know the seven different, totally different you know books that you know Michael Henry Heim translated and you know what choices he made in the different books to represent different authors, what's the versatility you know how is Michael Henry Heim the Philip Seymour Hoffman of the greatest method actor of the generation you know but I mean but yes that is, it's a really interesting, I think it's a great and interesting idea and I think we should all do it. Yes. And as well we'll start following a particular reader so instead of my wanting to go through all going through the particular reader for the tin drum who I really like who's also been reading other things, it's a lot easier for a sort of ordinary human to understand the difference that some people's voices and rhythms are wonderful. I think trying to do that in a written text is really technically a lot harder than most folks. In my sense book reviewers, whether translations are non, we're sort of in a family of sports writers who basically like what we're doing, we like reading and we want to share that with other people and we're not investigative reporters on the whole. We're not looking for the worst thing that can be explained why nobody should ever read this book. Even a book to review that I don't like I can't do this. I'm with you. I am that kind of reviewer too. I think it's much harder to figure out what's amazing about a book and much more compelling to do in your mind. But there are reviewers who love to just get a kick out of panning and that's their fun. You're looking at me, I'm not that first. But you did say I know about those reviewers who just think there's the art of the pan. For me the weird thing with Kirkus is that they kind of have an unspoken no-take-see-back-sees rule. You don't get a whole lot of choice in what books you're going to send you but once you've got it, you're engaged with it. Kirkus has a reputation for being harsh sometimes. I've had some of those reviews but it's not because I have this particular joy to really just destroy something. I get these books because I'm willing to read them halfway or coming from culturally. I understand the reviewers want to say well no, I don't want to do this. The pure craft of reviewing is one of loving reading and thinking about the book and that's why a person comes to reviewing. And if you happen to be a reviewer interested in translation that might be some of the pleasure that you're taking in exploring a book. If you're just looking at it from a reviewer's perspective I'd actually think, Margaret, we talked a lot in the Penn Translation Committee about ideal reviews too. We have a superx idea and it occurs to me that really, I think in a way almost the best reviewer for translation is a someone who's translated but maybe not that work, that century, that language which is someone who's had contact with the active translation and that's kind of what we as translators would want because we want a reviewer who's translated most, you know hopefully successfully. Yeah, I mean I would also just like to encourage some kind of activism in this area. I mean we're sitting a whole room filled with translators you should all be reviewing translations basically. I mean just to sort of encourage this way of reviewing you know because you're we're all able to make a difference. Are all the hands going up saying okay, Trin, can you tell us how we get to be reviewers? That is the next obvious question. How do you get to be a reviewer? I agree, that's great. Send me an email. No, but seriously I mean I know a lot of editors who are just looking for reviewers all the time so if you are specialized in a certain language you know the criticism editors of the reviewers editors all around and just let them know you exist and they might start sending you books or if you have an idea already for a book then pitch it it's really that simple and then once they have your review they can start editing it or if it's a really shitty reviewer they'll tell you I'm sorry we can't publish this but basically it's not hard to write a review I mean you just look for reviews that you think are well written and then you try to use that example I will say that in terms of getting to a book review editor and pitching yourself as a reviewer if you have something you know that other people don't like a lot about ancient Chinese literature that gives you an in because that book review editor has a new ancient Chinese literature book they just got and then you magically write them and everything sort of the stars align so it's good to have specialized knowledge and even just say I translate so I'm interested in writing about translated books book review editors are looking for you and I think also on top of that people who can kind of defog the culture that the book is coming from but somebody can say here's this book that's coming out of this country here's why it matters to review editors eyes like that because they get these books and they're not sure what to do they're not sure why they're important but if they can have a smart reviewer who can explain this is important and here's why that helps also the detail oriented editor will maintain a spreadsheet of you know reviewers from the different countries which means you know they'll always have you on record in case they get something in it doesn't because when you're looking at a when you are a very busy book review editor and you have piles and piles and piles of books it's like you're looking for reasons to not review a book and if the reason is I don't know who's gonna I don't know someone who can who knows anything about Japanese there's so much going on there's so many books coming out that there's a process of elimination that's going on and so the more that we can infiltrate the world and make it harder for the books to get tossed into the send to pallows pile then the more the world gets opened up to the general readership this is especially true with magazines I'm thinking specifically a book forum what does it have both translated and they want to cover translated books but they don't actually have a lot of people writing to them and you know a lot of people want to review New Jonathan Franzen but they don't have a lot of people writing to them and saying you know I can talk about like new Arabic literature you know do you have something for me I'm really good at it and they'll say yes because I've been looking for you my whole life and I don't think I'm being fantastical we're always looking for people for new people who can write quality reviews so if you're if you want to talk about it afterward let's do that it's an opening up it is not a closing down yeah that's a writing talent sort of thing you know I want if I'm reading a autobiography by a conductor or a composer you know having somebody who is a musician or a conductor him or herself that's a review I'm interested in reading if it's not a quote unquote professional reviewer I think you know there's that balance between you don't want to be you know the translation police but you know somebody who can bring the news I always find that review very interesting and we've been talking a lot about and Russell mentioned earlier a really good point about sometimes people who are language experts let that get in the way and they end up becoming the translation police and for they know what they've written this kind of got to review where this need to focus on the five words that they would have done differently sort of overtakes the review and I think that's when expertise gets in the way and it stops serving the reader so I'm not opposed to reviewing reviewers who are experts in the field in which they're reviewing but it has more to do with that person's ability to keep the reader's needs foremost in their minds when they're writing the review and it has to do with how you write the review and whether you let your expertise get in the way whether you let yourself get in the way and that might be because you have an axe to grinder it might just be because you're letting what you're comfortable writing about and the things that you like to write about get in the way but really that to me is the key issue it's okay to be an expert in the area for us but you shouldn't let that get in the way and overtake so that's an editorial so this is a reviewer's get paid for the review not by world literature today and not by asymptote either I get paid so I don't know what that tells me this may be where you all walk out some of the book form pays I'm really really pleased that now TLR pays for it's online reviews a whole 25 dollars but we pay something which we're really proud of you know people it's we're all like hey translators you don't make any money why don't you review too it's not gonna pay the bills it's part of the the poetry part of what we're doing if I may make a quick pitch he can pay the bills I can pay maybe my gas bill just a quick pitch I'm on the board of the National Book Critics Circle which bookcritics.org and one thing they do for its members is maintain a list of book review outlets with a special focus on ones that actually do people so and that's open that you can get onto that list without becoming a member no you do have to be a member and how much is the membership more than you did there it is 50 bucks it's not that much you do two reviews for TLR you pay for the National Book Critics Circle you have your clips that let you in and it's a done deal the National Book Critics Circle yeah bookcritics.org yeah it's an extensive that is a good data thank you for mentioning that that's important Colorado review I think pays a little bit too yeah the literary magazines are a good place to begin begin flexing the muscles if it's not something you've done it's a good place and you're not going to get edited if you go right away into you mentioned USA Today having written for USA Today they'll just take your whole language and put in a meat grinder and spit it out in tiny little like chewed up potato flex and you won't even recognize it anymore yeah but those bigger places are going to edit the bejesus out of you and it's not going to be as much of a learning experience but you know one other thing I would just recommend if you're hot to do this I mean you don't necessarily have to wait for some editor to tell you I mean start a blog especially if there's a niche that you know that nobody else is really covering you know do a blog to just kind of like test the water see how you feel about actually doing this sort of work put it on a tumbler and then if you're reaching out to me if I'm wrong about this but when you reach out to an editor to say I'm really interested in Swedish Literature for the past six months I've been maintaining a blog about new books in Swedish Literature can I write for you I think that's a useful calling card so you don't have to wait for an editor for permission to care about this you can care about it right now or you can just write to the Essentode blog and get published immediately the hurdles I mean that's that I feel like that's also something that these free journals can do I mean I also just have to say we don't get paid either the editors don't get paid either so it's all you know an ideological endeavor but you know that's a great way to like start getting published so that when you write to these other journals that do pay you can link to you know the Essentode blog for instance and be like I published this review with Essentode and they'll be like great that's a great journal so to get started everybody should go to Essentode basically or TLR yeah and not to steal your thunder yeah or world literature today yeah Margaret yes that's a great idea that's a good idea that's awesome yeah who's got money we're back to the beginning where are the standards we're back to the beginning what are the standards we use those yeah let's use Ellen's email to me yeah I think we'd all like to see Ellen yeah I'll ask her I'm sure that's fine with her yes gosh that's hard for me to answer because I don't know if you're crazy looks like my crazy I think looking at a review that you like but what I would do if I was trying to start writing reviews in what I did do was read reviews and kind of do a little bit of an imitation just structurally that's what I would do in my first reviews I would do something structural and just the most important thing is to remember textual substantiation which is sort of an undergraduate thing to say but just remember to keep referring to your book because a lot of times when you're writing about you can't go into your head and you have to keep the focus on the book so I would just say that some reviews we have a couple excellent ones that we pulled amongst ourselves for this panel you can look at reviews that you really enjoy reading I read a lot of Angela Carter's book reviews from like the 70s they were amazing and then you just imitate the structure and that's how I would start absolutely yeah yes hold on I'm not sure I understood like how do reviewers or editors select which books to oh yeah no that's okay for today the question was how do we choose translations to publish it has a lot to do with the pre-publication the industry journals publishers weekly and Kirk's reviews it has to do with the material that the publishing houses send out the pieces of paper that come folded in a review copy it has to do with a publishing houses reputation it has to do with it has to do with is Chris still here he just left so Chris was just here and last year you know they published the Luisa Luisa, I don't know yeah those syllables again they published this book it was really marvelous now when his catalog is going to come in from Coffee House Press a book review editor is going to say I wonder what he's choosing this year for his translation book because that last one was really good so there's a little bit of what are people doing that's how books get chosen I think and then there is a certain amount of standing in front of a pile of books and opening it and reading a couple of lines and trying to get a sense of what it's like and if it seems interesting those are the different do you agree those are the different criteria yeah and I would also say just outreach from also the translator sometimes I mean just if you have a publishing house that's for some reason not engaging in this and not you feel like nothing is happening and they're not reaching out to editors for whatever reason you can send an email to a reviews editor and present yourself a really good idea is to translate blurbs from the original language you know the country of the original book and translate blurbs from newspapers like good review blurbs and then send that along because that will make an editor interested does that answer your question any other questions we are running down everyone wants to go get their donuts donuts I wasn't expecting that yeah that's just a cultural expression go get your donuts thank you