 We're live welcome to the virtual readings of the 2016-2017 cohort of the Alta emerging translator mentorship program. My name is Allison Sharet I facilitate the program and happy International Translation Day to all who are viewing This is for those who don't know this is something that happens every year on the Feast of Saint Jerome who was One of the earliest button earliest known of Bible translators. He translated most of the Bible into Latin and so we love him So today we have with us three out of our four Mentees from this past year who have done amazing work. Unfortunately Eliza Rose our Polish Mentee was unable to make it But he sent her all the best We have Sabrina Yasi with us We have Noah minutes and Natasha Bruce They are going to be reading some excerpts of the works that they've done that they've been working on with their mentors for the past year So it's been a long process for all of them and I can't wait to hear what they have for us so first up we're going to start with Sabrina Yasi Oh and I Also very very much need to thank all of our funders for this year who are the the French Embassy books office The Polish Cultural Institute of New York the Russian Federation Institute of Literary Translation and the National Arts Council of Singapore without them None of this would be possible. So thank you all very very much for your support of this program So we will start now with Sabrina Yasi who's going to be reading a no voice by Grachov and If you have any sort of introduction for it More than welcome to let us know. Otherwise, you can just dive right in Sabrina take it away Okay, thank you Allison and thank you to Alta and all the funders for organizing the mentorship and reading and thank you to my other Readers today So over the course of the last year I've been translating the short stories of Grachov who is a little known Leningrad author of the 1960s and Today I'm going to be reading a very short story from his story cycle entitled Sons Without Fathers via TBS as well This is a group of links stories that follows recurring cast of boys in a Soviet orphanage Including the two heroes of this story and just a note on the names in the story since As in a lot of Russian literature they can be confusing. Um, the meathead. Um, the the meathead character is The narrator and he also goes by Martina And then his friend is named corn cob in my translation and he Also goes by polka, which is his first name Okay, so I'll start by reading just one paragraph in Russian and then I'll go on to the translation Okay, so it's called no voice in Russian net goles Okay Okay, so here's my translation of no voice by Greek Grachov They brought us to the big city to sing some songs Corn cob was just a thing, but I was to dance too. There are 53 of us all together They unloaded us at a school and set us on some beds, but nothing to eat Bovka corn cob walked the hall sniffing but smelled nothing edible just oil paint He came over to me Hey meathead. How about I eat you? He says Don't eat me corn cob. I say wait and maybe they'll feed us What if they don't I'd like to eat your hand and nibble your cheeks Wait, I say they've always fed us before and they may again You can eat me later when we're sure there's no food Fine Bovka says then let's go scram something up in town We go to town a beautiful town smells good. We walk walk and come to a factory It turns out. It's the factory that smells good Chocolate Bovka says no, I say chess cookies Chess cookies are made in a bakery not a factory Bovka says No way chocolate is made in a factory. I say what factory do you know that smells like chocolate? factories smell like iron Other factories smell like iron because their machines are made of iron Bovka says But here they must be made of chocolate We stood sniffed bickered We kept walking got to another street a beautiful street Look Bovka says a cafe and there's a restaurant. I say We need not something not so nice Bovka says like this diner Alright a diner I say but here's a cafeteria Perfect for us and smells even better than the restaurant We stood and sniffed then we kept walking Up ahead there were no smells just flowers a beautiful street with flowers on both sides paved no holes Then it smelled of wine. I Wish I could get drunk Bovka says then I'd fire you up and eat you Bovka I say what if the others are being fed right now? Hold up. He says first. That's fine where it smells of wine We keep walking see a bar. There's a man in front snatching people's sleeves as they go by They get free and keep walking the man snatches other people's sleeves and points to his throat We go up to him and he snatches wolf because sleeve He has hands like a worker the bones in them are workers What do you want Bovka says he points to his throat croaks What do you want Bovka asks he croaks croaks and coughs Boys I have no voice. He says What's that you're speaking with Bovka says The man looks at Bovka then at me and starts shouting Bastards sons of bitches cocksuckers scumbags motherfuckers and other cuss words Who are you swearing at us? Wolf asks Demons suck you by assassins. He shouts Again, he grabs his throat and croaks the emotions with his hand get the hell away We go. I Don't get it. He's having no voice focus says as we're walking me neither I say he was talking after all And what was he croaking for Bovka asks? I don't know but let him and that's hurry. My stomach is sticking to my back Mine too. Wolfka says But I feel sorry for him Back at the school. We run into the director public sealage get dressed at once. We're leaving for the house of culture How about lunch? I ask What are you bothering me for public see which says the concert is in half an hour? Did you have lunch? Wolfka asks the others did we ever they respond What about us you were late public a silly bitch is on our case again Still not dressed. Just you wait corncob. I'm coming for you But we haven't eaten what Chris says. You'll eat after public a silly bitch says sing first now hurry up and get dressed You'd have to be crazy to come sing somewhere on an empty stomach will because says to me You're right. I say Wait a minute. We'll show him. We'll have no voice What do you mean? I ask then follow a silly which is honest again still not dressed Brace yourself Martina after the concert. I'll give you to something to sing about Croak Wolfka whispers. I Catch this drift public a silly bitch. We have no Boris. I'm out What did you say? We have no Boris Well, you'll have one in a minute public a silly bitch says and grabs my ear. Oh, I say Guess you do have a voice now get run and get dressed He hurries off and the other kids surround us so meathead you got your vocal cords checked It says it's not fair making a sing without lunch You're right. They say it's not you guys will kisses. Let's pretend not to have a voice until they feed us He won't believe us the other says get that the others say well, of course not you'll be doing it in protest Who focuses a protest they say back home health stage a real one Fine focuses to hell with you all We arrive at the house of culture and take our places on the stage The curtains part and we start singing Suddenly Boca grabs my hand Don't sing I Understand and stay quiet. We'll cut doesn't sing either. We're looking at Paul of a silly bitch opening our mouths wide and croaking Nothing, he's smiling and winking so we'll sing more cheerly He doesn't hear us. What because says to me We're quiet again. Everyone's singing about us. We're opening our mouths wide and staring at public a silly bitch. No reaction We're not singing. I hear a wolf cash out suddenly, but he doesn't hear us Idiot faster cocksucker Boca shouts, and he doesn't hear us Assassin succubus four eyes. I shout, but he doesn't hear us everyone's singing and we're shouting, but it's like we're silent Acquire really is loud Then I dance because I have to you use your legs to dance after all Then we go to dinner. I Understand what now with that man meant what it means to have no voice focus says and I understand I say That's it. Thank you so much. That was wonderful It's always such a shame that that we have to turn off all the rest of our videos and not be able to hear the audience Here because I was just dying with laughter So funny All right. Thank you very much three. Thank you. All right next up we have No, a mince who is the mentee from French? he's going through reading excerpts from the yet-to-be English title the alarash by And Maybe later we'll talk to you a little bit about how difficult that title is to translate Yeah, it's been probably the most challenging part of the translation just that title Last that's totally fine. Yeah, sounds good Yeah, I'll be reading from alarash by Patrick Gougeon. I have it right here I'll read the first paragraph or so in French. I don't think there's really any context. We need so let's just jump in Kadi a pass a la vampra par le vitre du minibus saman fondé la levant en ondulation et regardé c'est un dauphan à chaque voiture qu'on croisé Fred lui rappelé d'être vigilante attention pas pour jusqu'à ce que ça finisse par gaver les oreilles de adama qui contrairement à alban et herman avait oublié son mp3 Il attiré le bras de Kadi pendant qu'elle capterait l'air dans sa main en coups boules pour fondre de s'asperger le visage avec Tantan parce qu'ils sont ce qu'on te dit et d'autorité il a remonté la vitre je prenais un bolder Kadi stuck her forearm out the window of the minibus her hand cutting through the wind in undulations. Look it's a dolphin With every car we came across Fred reminded her to be careful watch out for the semi To the point where adama who unlike alban and herman had forgotten his mp3 player was fed up listening to it He pulled Kadi's arm while she was capturing the air in her cupped hand to pretend to splash her face with it Don't you hear what people tell you and he rolled the window back up with authority. I was just trying to catch some fresh air The monotonous but pleasant road Sunflowers Fatou is searching for an anomaly a rebel flower with its back turned to the Sun Would we stop breathing if there's no more trees she asked in the parking lot There was naturally a rush toward the shopping carts in their car out Fred had handed the plastic token over to alban who came sliding back with the cart Three or four kicks and then he jumped up and perched on the support bar sneakers wedged above the wheels The cart his race car while the others unexpectedly frozen strangely defensive Hands in their pants pockets and shoulders slumped dragged their feet toward the entrance of the supermarket They stopped in front of the automatic doors They stared at the families who in turn did the same to a girl of about 15 Everyone said what's up, and the girl went to stick close by her father busy scrutinizing the coupon catalog Erman not easily phased or maybe to lay the blame for his actions on someone else asked me What's that prissy chicks deal huh? She never seen a noir before? It's just the country for Edward worded there are blacks here to cut it out for five seconds. I Didn't say blacks. I said longs Don't fall for the delusion that you're being persecuted. I added you have as much right to be here as anyone and no one cares Just don't wreak havoc no shouting no running in the aisles. That's all Still they all lowered their heads upon crossing the entry including alban Why does a voting ballot until Erman exaggeratedly lifted his chin put on his cap before then folded in the back pocket of his jeans He stood tall with back a dojo and let Lou say wish come on. We'll show them who's boss He made his way between the lettuce and the ondives putting on a cocky show of self-confidence Imitated it once by all the others that second skin of an enraged kid Slamming freezer doors after bickering over the flavors of ice cream arguing between the strawberry and the mango cream in store Bay cones and bars ditching the packet of cookies between the cereal boxes the cans ultimately being deemed too lame Pushing each other sucking their teeth at each other telling each other to fuck off They're being such a pain in the ass. I grumbled to Fred You know the concept of stigma reversal. I shook my head now. We're right in the middle of it Not for long once I chew them out. I Started by shaming Erman to catch the other's attention and since I was foolishly worried he'd ask why me I preempted with a this Goes for everyone like if this kept out damned if we wouldn't all go right back to the banlieu this minute We don't have to put up with this We have our own lives and declaring that threatening it. I repressed the gorge in my gut so it wouldn't rise into my throat We're happy to be here on vacation with you. Let's be clear, but we don't have to be so you cool it right now You give me your hat you give him his money back and you you're going to put that club sandwich back Wasn't even halal anyway. Adana said At the checkout their crestfallen faces and the dead calm that reigned over them would have to be seen to be believed The cashier scanned the products the girls arranged them in bags Which the boys placed in the cart the cashier with the sweet face of an adorable young student whom I was watching Striving not to get caught in the blue ribbon tied in her hair not to see the heart shaped powder for upper lip Not to notice the furtive glance as she casted her colleague to registers over Each time her gaze accidentally came against those of the children that touch of contempt and the absence of a response when fatso Kari Adama Alban Irman Unenthusiastically sure but in chorus greeted her with a have a nice day, ma'am She bit her cheek and rightly or wrongly I ignored her attitude ignored my anger Which browsed silently focusing on the asinine radio ads the store announcements Claire you needed at the front desk Claire to the front desk From the balcony flex was watching the horizon still and again the same flashing light at the tip of the monument of the capital at this Allure how many revolutions and since when did we no longer even notice it along with the airplanes? We no longer heard at least every seven minutes all day long and partway through the night Two red dots at a variable distance the wingspan no more significant than the imaginary line Connecting the incandescent tip incandescent tip of flex's cigarette and mine the same cigarette Which we took turns drawing on while watching the same horizon. I said it's over with Claire over over Over flex understood that I would hold on to the cigarette until it burned down to the filter so he lit himself another Six years ago. No seven. I kissed her here for the first time Fuck all that for this Flex looked at me his face totally blank I Wrote on the metro the whole way like I did before like I used to Claire says that I squander my energy that I wasted in the wrong places And what's the point of even having so much if that's what I'm gonna do with it? I let out a nervous snicker the fuck does she know she doesn't know what the hell She's talking about so pisses me off that she's still right somehow Sure, maybe I could have maybe I could have written a book or whatever written something serious or painted But I haven't traveled you know, what have I ever seen? I don't have a mommy and a daddy who shove a solid gold thermometer up my ass when I have a fever, you know The farthest I've ever gone. It's not even about how many miles I've gone. It's how little time I've spent elsewhere. What's that worth? She makes me laugh literature is something else It's important causes heroes lives that make you dream especially today people couldn't care less about other people shitty lives They already have their own The outline of flex's nose perfectly straight and square of his mouth his forehead You think they were cut out with scissors him in the scenery outside like two distinct images super imposed Like in the movies where the background is rigged up behind the actor It had that sort of effect with the car headlights and everything That's where you're wrong first off You don't give a fuck about people and then thank God life ain't limited just to theirs or ours You see the son also sets on parking lots The pain had disappeared so I pushed harder on it fingers numbed by the ice and wind to make sure it was still there It worked so bitch. I hissed through my teeth The caretaker at the gymnasium had this time thought to turn off the lights the rectangular windows were dark Tell you what if I'd had to write a book for example, I'm realizing now It would have been to see what book I'd write if I'd been somewhere else That's it. Thank you. Thank you so much Noah Yeah, I'll stick So we will now move on to our final reader Natasha Bruce And before we do that, I did want to mention that for all those of you who are watching this live If you have any questions for our readers You can email them to me because I haven't quite figured out the YouTube live Set up, but don't tell anyone you can email them to me at Allison charrette at literary translators.org That is a l l is on Cha Rette at literary translators org And we'll have a quick Q&A session after our readers published Finally, I would like to also very much thank the mentors who have been working with our four mentees for the past year We have the Emmanuel Estelle Bill Johnson Marion Schwartz and Jeremy Tieng and they have they have given Enormous amounts of their time and knowledge and energy to help these wonderful emerging translators long and for that We are also eternally grateful So finally for this evening. We have or rather this morning where Natasha is we have Natasha Bruce who is very wonderfully joining us from Hong Kong at eight o'clock in the morning her time. So thank you very much for that And Tasha's going to be reading a couple of excerpts from lonely face by in pie on and I will let you explain whatever you'd like and take it away Thank you Allison and Yeah, thank you also to Alta and to the mentor Jeremy and the Singapore Arts Council for making mentorship possible because it's been wonderful And I'm very happy that I got to take part I'm going to be two short extracts from The opening chapter of the novel I've been working on which as Allison said is called lonely face or Gucci delian And it's by the Singaporean author It's a novel that he wrote in 1989 and it is about a 39 year old man whose wife and child have just left him Despite what he claims in the first line of what I'm about to be And whose father has just died and he's taken himself to this casino hotel resort to reflect on those two events But actually also his whole life just asking himself basically where everything went wrong The the structure of the novel is quite interesting because it cycles through the second first and third person perspective depending on chapter which Creates effect where you feel like you're zooming in really really close on this man and his sadness and then kind of pulling away Just when it starts to feel like it might be getting a bit unbearable So as you can imagine, it's not always the most Uplifting of novels, but I think that one thing in pay and does really really well is to Introduce kind of comic relief opening the form of quite sharply described secondary characters just when you need it the most But that said the extracts that I'm going to read up in the first chapter where he's setting the scene for the death of a father and the departure of wife So in some respects if you don't feel slightly depressed after listening to my reading then I might have failed as a translator I'm not going to read it in Chinese to start with like the other two did with their languages because I don't trust my Pronunciation to adjust this so I'm just gonna start with inch. I broke up with Chini You're right as though informing a faraway friend of recent developments But in fact, it's a confession to your father I've decided to divorce her you add and then pause letting your right hand rest against the paper still gripping the pen It's near povers over the blank page like a hawk You don't know how to continue There are a million things you want to tell your father But every time you try to put them down on paper It's like knocking over a case of movable type the words jumble in your head And it's all you can do to piece together a few disjointed sentences And now you're stuck again You put down the pen and examine yourself and the dressing table mirror a long one gloomy face Sunken eye sockets concealing a pair of lifeless eyes their murky white threaded with cobwebby blood vessels Greenish under our bags bordered by deep trench like wrinkles The skin is coarse and broken out in little red bumps You lean closer Your eyes shift into sharper relief and now the under eye bags are leather pouches rough as crocodile hide and Underneath other people's it's truly baffling to be almost 40 years old and still suffering from action You poke one gingerly with a fingernail and feel a start a sharp stab of pain you take your hand away It's best not to touch them You bring a finger to your forehead slowly brushing away a stray lock of hair You've just showered and your damp hair seems a little sparse the white of your scalp shows through Your hairline is receding and it's especially noticeable at your temples where the newly exposed skin looks like a peach eating away at a forest Dizzy from too long pressed against the mirror you shift view your face from a little further away Those tight eyes again lips set in a mournful line some patchy stubble emerging from the pores around your mouth and chin At these quarters this long face is the spitting image of your father's You fall back in alarm She wasn't a good wife let alone a good daughter in law Back to the letter, but this isn't how it sounded in your head. You've often resented. She mean she certainly wasn't a good wife But you've never tried to put this resentment into words Perhaps out of fear that once the words are on paper. They'll rub at your old wounds Not ready. You feel a little suffocated You pick up your pen and put it down again Then look to the ceiling and straighten your back as they're fighting to the surface of water for a breath of air And then you sit frustrated waiting for this latest wave of emotion to set side So those are the opening paragraphs And now I'm going to jump a little further through the chapter to a time when this character has stopped looking at himself in the mirror And has moved on to the hotel casino You stand at the slot machine mechanically insert a two cent coin and then pull the metal lever on the side Serving rapidly at the spinning pictures the reels were around and around and come to a stop nothing You have your own special system six goes with one cent five goes with two forward three and so on There's no real reasoning behind it But you like applying yourself to a set of rules stuffing your brain full of meaningless calculations so they can't think of anything else The slot machines are arranged like a bank of doled up women batting their eyelashes and casting alluring glances at every passify Their noises reverberate through the hall turning it into a kind of frenetic disco The metallic scrape of believer the frantic were for wheels the thrilling ding of the winners bell the silvery clatter of coins into the metal dispenser train Shouts of dismay size You lose yourself in the disco music just like everyone else pulling wildly on the arm of your dance partner Transfixed by the colors fitting across their face Four bars three stars two sevens a red cherry golden bell purple lemon Is it a lemon? It certainly looks like a lemon by its purple You find yourself shouting at the pictures as your coins slowly vanish from the change train When the bell finally sounds and more coins come cluttering down you rubbed your hands in delight feeling proudly at the players on either side To your left there's a middle-aged man in a yellow batik shirt hair slicked back Piggy eyes a mole on his cheeks frowning thick black hair He looks like a loan shark sidekick from a gangster film His lips are pursed and he angst aggressively on his liver every so often he muttered something under his breath It's not a friendly prospect. He seems ready to beat the machine to a pulp if she won't give him more coins On the right there's a young guy of around 20 wearing a loose white shirt with a skinny red tie His lanky frame sways from side to side as he plays and has clearly enjoying himself He keeps leaning over to see where your reels land wanting to share the fun At long last you hit the jackpot with four sevens and the machine dolls out two hundred dollars in small change Such a pity. Why didn't you bet more in the first place? The youngster's already gone and the man in the batik eyes the money pouring into your tray You shoot him a quick, please glance and then press the red button on your machine trying to make the money come faster Suddenly you think of Chi-min If only she were here You came to this casino together once and you won then too Coins poured from the machine like water from a burst down She jabbed frantically at the red button clutching your arm in excitement ripping so hard you yelped in pain But happy pain And how long ago was that? Shall Chiang had just turned one and you'd left him at home with the nanny The machine spits out the last few coins and then stutters to a halt You sigh scooping the money from the tray and carrying on You came to Cundin to forget about Chi-min, but you can't even when you focus all your attention on playing still can't forget her Chi-min You whisper her name out loud and instantly regret it casting her panics look at the middle-aged man He's just lost the last of his coins. He gives his liver a final angry yank and marches off a Man in a gray suit has taken his foot to your right. He's about 30 squinting has a cigarette dangling from his mouth He calmly takes a coin and drops it into his machine And that's the end of that reading Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh There may have been an echo there Yes, apparently I'm echoing Your speakers, but thank you very much for that. That was absolutely depressing So I will I'll bring everyone else back now Um, I think I will let's see I'll bring your videos back and keep you muted for the time being As a reminder for those of you watching if you have questions for this next Q&A Part of this reading you can email them to me at Alison charrette at literary translators.org And I will be checking that every so often Otherwise I get to ask questions So we'll we'll start with Sabrina since you're the first one I would I would love to know how you found this and how you decided to translate it and And Did did the did the comic-ness of it have anything to do with that because I'm imagining it did but I would love to know your process Yes, it definitely did So basically I was a big fan of the writer Sergei Devlatov who's another 1960s learning grad author who later emigrated to the US and published quite extensively in the New Yorker and I was looking for a translation project and I Had an inkling that there might be someone from the same era because it's a very Rich and I think somewhat undiscovered period in Russian literature the 1950s 1960s raw period when The controls of the Soviet Union were relaxing somewhat and they were letting in more Foreign literature for example, so artists had exposure to more stuff but the censorship was still quite quite strict, so although many Writers were experimenting quite a lot and doing interesting things Many of them like my author Grachov were not published really during the Soviet Union. They didn't get by the censors and So it's a rich period and has many authors that are still to be discovered So I was just paging through an anthology of Devlatov's work and there were some photographs and I was going through the photographs and just looking through Who was there and It was all writers, so I just looked at everyone basically on the internet and then I went and got their books from the library and Finally, I found Grachov and yeah, I just I loved his stories immediately. I just found them So affecting and the story I read is is Funny and many of his stories are funny, but many of them are also just like extremely poignant He writes beautifully from the perspective of children as as you can tell from that story And he has a very unusual style for a Russian writer. I think he his prose is very spare Very humorous Kind of a telegraphic style, so those are all things that that drew me to him Well, we'll just keep going. I was wondering about your your your translation process specifically if you have If you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about those that amazing string of course words Well, I thought it was interesting because it jumped from kind of the the normal curse words If you want to call it that to the demons and suck you by Yeah in the Russian, I don't have it in front of me. I can't remember exactly what words he used but It was quite a diverse string of different epithets and None of them. I think were quite as rude as the ones that I use because in Russian Curse words are like really rude like you would never say them and literature whereas in English literature I think it's it's pretty acceptable and no one's gonna be incredibly shocked So I think I did probably Ramp up the rudeness a little bit And then there was just such a diversity. I mean, I think also in Russian There's a much greater diversity of Of things bad things that you can call people So in English, I had to sort of reach for some unusual Obscuring of same examples Yeah No, I would like to ask you a few questions as well Um, okay specifically I Working from French. I have a little bit more knowledge of what you may be looking at than any other two But I was I was thinking I haven't I don't think I've read very much fiction that That that gives the perspective of people in the volume and But then those are those are very much, you know, there's a really negative connotation for the volume of projects in France and Do you know if this is kind of one of the first that's come out and did that play a role in you selecting this project? That's a great question. I think Bonilla literature is something that we're going to start seeing more and more of both in France and in translation There are some folks who have been doing it from a slightly different angle Dominique Fabre Writes a little bit about the Bonilla, but mostly from like a middle-aged white man perspective So it's a slightly different one than this like younger one. There's um, so Petit Gougeon he grew up in the Bonilla and he liked his character in this novel Worked as a school guidance counselor essentially and so I think this is pretty rooted in in reality and The most the novel takes place on vacation like a summer vacation in the country with these kids from from the projects and Yeah, I think it's it's a really exciting thing to be bringing into English for me It's I think one of the greatest things about translation is its ability to complicate notions that we might have of other cultures in in America or anywhere else in the world and so in order so to be able to Open that whole aspect of French culture is really exciting and interesting and challenging Example other examples of film would be like a entre les murs That's a really great film that takes place in a classroom in the Bonilla. So I feel like this book has a bit of a Kin there Definitely what were some of the challenges for you working on this translation of the course of last year was it a lot of Registered vocabulary something else Mostly register. I found myself really struggling with the Exactly the right tone to take with the way that these these children speak because I think it's very accurately reported in the book and It's hard to bring that into English without making it sound like existing English registers So to take a very unique Not very unique a unique linguistic Register of the the children of the Bonilla and many of them have parents from West Africa where they were born in West Africa or In the Caribbean or anywhere else. So there's all these linguistic and cultural Influences that are not in the like standard written French so a lot of it I had to learn and then a lot of it was Trying to bring that into English without making it sound like An existing English register and not making it sound like African-American vernacular English for example, which would be unfaithful and untrue and unfair So kind of letting it be its own thing without it sounding weird was very challenging I think sometimes I succeeded sometimes it still came across a little awkward That's with everything. This is always a work in progress. Of course. There's one point in the in the novel There's a brief wrap that happens Yeah, still working on making that rhyme Yeah, that was a something I wasn't expecting to come across I was interested to see the parallels between your work and Sabrina's translation because That the the you know kids in different eras different countries and yet they're all still just goofing around Mm-hmm. I very much liked that So Natasha, I am most interested to hear and I want to hear how you came across this novel a lot but I am super interested to hear about your experience working with the second-person narration because that has such a Reputation for being so difficult to make Work and you know Realistic so how how did you go about working with that and and I will say I found it extremely successful and I'm I'm really glad we had such comic things before you because that was slightly dressed Thanks, um well Perhaps a backstory to having the second-person narration This wasn't actually the book that I proposed for the mentorship So for the mentorship I proposed a collection of short stories by the same author But it turned out his wife had just finished a translation of the story So they were not available, but then the author himself Proposed this book and said that he felt very affectionate about it And one of the reasons that he liked it was because he was experimenting with using different pronouns And I think because he did it at the end of the 80s I think he also felt that he had kind of beat the curve So he was one of the first people in that way to use it. So it was one of the things that he liked Um And yep, so there it was and I read the book and I I actually felt a bit wary to start with because yeah Second person I think doesn't always work and sometimes can just seem like it's done for not the head of it But yeah, it's contentious But I really liked it and I felt they was really effective at making you feel uncomfortably close to the protagonist Um, but when I when I translated it the first draft I did have the second person In the past tense because I did the first and the third person also in the past tense Like it was a regular novel And then I was talking about it with Jeremy and my mentor and he suggested trying it in the present tense And he also suggested trying to think of it kind of like somebody doing a voiceover in a film Which I found really helpful as a kind of way to visualize it And I think he was right and I think the present tense does work Better which obviously is a freedom that you have in chinese Which I guess you might not have in french or russian because in chinese the tenses are more flexible anyway So yeah, that was the process of arriving there the other challenge that also came with it Which is sort of a present in all the chapters, but I think especially in in the second person Which is that in chinese I think there's a much higher tolerance for Starting sentences with the pronoun like just Repeatedly so I think that in pe an has A very precise rhythm to the way that he writes the sentences, but he does repeat the pronoun a lot And in english, I think it didn't really convey the rhythm that he had in chinese So it did have to think quite hard about different ways to start the sentences Yeah, yeah I'm I'm I'm very much in awe of the work that that you've done and indeed all three of you because you You've achieved such vastly Different yet wonderful translations of these things and I'm I'm I'm very very Proud of all of the work that you guys have done and and all of the Success that you have already had because all of this is just fantastic Is there I did just want to open it up to the three of you in case you had any questions for your your fellow translators I realized that was you know something I should probably let you do if you'd like to And if not, that's okay too I guess Like how did you guys find working with your mentors? Did you find it? Did you think that it really helped you grow as translators? We were leading For me, absolutely. Yeah, it was an incredible experience actually um, yeah, and Marian was just incredibly generous with her time and had so much experience and I Yeah, I think just the the conversations we had about the individual stories were the most helpful thing and um Yeah, because there are just these issues that come up with that and nobody else in the world would know what you were talking about But she knew exactly Yeah, so It was fantastic Thank you backing off that question. What was the And and for for any all of you what what was the the one thing that your mentors taught you that You think is the most helpful for you either in the act of translation or in Trying to work as a translator Get a comfortable chair Immanuel told me that on day one. She said you're gonna be sitting at a desk hours Still working on it You still don't have it's been a year. No, come on I live in san francisco expenses are high chairs It's on the list It's comfortable enough. I think uh That's good advice if I had to say for um, uh, am I am I live? I can't am I can you hear me? I didn't see the green dust. Um I didn't I didn't get any so succinct advice from Jeremy, but uh, I would say that in terms of actually Translating then um, I think maybe it helped me see that you have a bit of room to manoeuvre with the language Like you don't have to be so big You have to look at the text as an English text and see how it works and figure out how to make it work And if that means deviating slightly from the Chinese sometimes that that can be beneficial rather than just Unfaithful, so I think figuring out that space was really helpful. Um, and in terms of transition as a career I think Jeremy is just fantastically organized and far see you so I think he really helped me see that you have to Yeah, you have to kind of be looking Ideally kind of three projects ahead. So I mean, I don't think I've quite achieved that but he did Help me see that that's something to aspire to like to see how to line up projects and chase them while also working on a project Which is yeah, something that I didn't have in mind before That's good advice for any freelancer. I think yeah, yeah Um, I think for me, um, yeah, again, I don't know if I got any Uh, very pithy advice, but um one thing that mary was always pushing me to do was um, just to look at the expansion rate in English from russian because um, You know for various grammatical reasons, um, you tend to add a lot of words when you translate from russian And you don't necessarily notice because the words are shorter in english So it looks like it's the same length. But really you've added a lot of word count um, so She basically told me that I should expect a one-third expansion rate Which was a very scientific way of looking at it, but very helpful Um, and anything more than that I should I should really examine What I was doing that actually makes you really lucky and then chinese translators because I think definitely in the uk A lot of places pay you per english word like Well, that is wonderful. Um, thank you all so much for joining us tonight. I am so pleased to have been able to give you A bit of a platform to share your work because you have done incredible work over the last year And I'm I'm so pleased that you all have gone through this program and had such a good experience with it um, so from an alter perspective, we will be sharing the news of all of our mentees both past and present when they Inevitably get publications and win awards and all of this It's already happened for the mentees from last year or from the pilot year rather. So um, it will will be sharing news of of these three and of Eliza as well I'm sure very very soon. So Watch all of the the alter social media sites and we'll be letting you know what they've done Thank you all so much for joining us tonight. Thank you. Noah and Sabrina and Natasha Thank you to all of our viewers. Thank you again to all of our funders and mentors and everybody at altar who supported this program It really does take a village and This this is the result of it and as you can see it is well worth it So happy translation day everyone and we will see you next time