Conversation Across Cultures: An Interview on Translation with Brittany Nguyen
Non.Plus Lit is now accepting creative works of poetry in English translation! To celebrate, and to learn more about our translation section, our Editor-in-Chief Jarrett Moseley sat down with our Head Translation Editor, Brittany Nguyen for a talk about her experience with translation, goals for our translation team, and the conversation across cultures which translation creates.
Jarrett: When did you start translating?
Brittany: I don’t know where to start, but I’m just going to say—the beginning of time (or since I was born.) I’m a daughter of immigrants. Growing up, I was always translating in verbal and nonverbal ways. So, it’s always been a part of my life. When I started undergrad and began writing more seriously, I took notice of this. I also started to realize who I was catering to.
I felt like I was writing towards a Eurocentric audience; that all my discussions and workshops were held in that zone. That was taxing. It cut an important part of me out of my writing. When I realized I didn’t want to do that anymore, that I wanted to bring the Asian American part of me into my own writing, that’s when I started translating seriously. Later, I started grad school and joined Columbia’s translation section. I met great translators there and received great support. So, I was able to start doing translation in publishing too.
J: So you started translating pretty long after you started writing poetry.
B: Oh yeah. Way after. But I included aspects of translation in my own writing before I started actually translating, though.
J: And when you started translating, did that change the way you wrote poetry?
B: Well, there are aspects of translation in all my work now. Whether that translation is really distinct, like including an entirely different language, or its just images and emotions that are foreign. I feel like it’s always there.
Translation makes you hyper-aware of your word choice, something that many poets are very akin to. In ways though this hindered my own poetry as I became quite focused on always finding the perfect word. Though that may just be more on my character, haha. Translations definitely enabled me to bring my own identity to the poetry I was writing.
J: That’s really interesting what you say about images or emotions being foreign—can you say more about that?
B: There’s a lot of things that are common in other places that aren’t common here in the U.S. If you’re reading a poem, you’ll have to look it up and figure out what it is. To me, that’s an act of translation.
J: I definitely wouldn’t have been as interested in poetry if I hadn’t found poetry in translation early on in my writing. Poetry in translation can definitely change the landscape of American poetry—and so much of it already has.
B: Definitely. For me, poetry in translation put in perspective how strictly traditional American poetry can be. We’re so quick to say “oh, that’s strange” or “this phrase is so out of my syntax so it doesn’t make sense.” It feels really condemning to international writers.
J: Can you say more about people thinking poetry in translation is “strange”?
B: Oftentimes with my own writing, if I translate something into English, people will say it doesn’t make sense; but then I’ll take it to someone who is bilingual and they’ll tell me “no I have no issues with this whatsoever.” Usually, the critique is coming from White people born and raised in America.
People are easily dismissive of things that are foreign and that’s an issue. Even simple things—once in a workshop I wrote about an outdoor tent at a Taiwan night market, which Taiwan is famous for. It was a really simple image, the tent flying open because of the wind. In the work, I was struggling with how to portray the color and fleetingness of the image. But then people told me I should take the whole tent out of the translation, saying “it doesn’t make sense, why would people be eating outside in a tent,” “why would they be in plastic chairs,” and “why would they be outside a subway?” Often I get that kind of feedback, that things just “don’t make sense” and that becomes the focus on the conversation.
J: I think what you said about poetry in translation stretching the bounds of what can be said is really important. Some poetry in translation I’ve read—poetry from different countries and cultures—feels more free to be less about “making sense” in the typical sense, and more about the composition of the poem.
B: Yes, though I definitely think you can make sense in that way. To me, that’s one of the fun things about reading translations in English. The poem is going to start off foreign, because it is foreign, but sense-making is a natural instinct. It’s a fun thing to traverse if you’re new to reading translations or don’t speak a second language.
J: What’s your favorite part of translating?
B: I think it’s probably the reason I started in the first place. Translation is such a small community, and I want to increase the “international” literature in the English publishers' output. That mission is on par with what Non.Plus Lit is doing—giving voice to poets that are not usually heard.
I also think something really unique about poetry in translation is that there’s never an authentic translation. The translator’s job is to transfer over the emotions and intentions of a culture into a different language; it’s that type of conversation across cultures that creates new translations. You never really capture the original poem exactly, so there’s many liberties that you have to take if you want to stay true to form, keep rhythm and rhyme, or if you want to get as close to the original poem’s words. So, it’s all about picking and choosing liberties. In the end, the final product ends up being the Translators poem.
J: That makes sense. So much of poetry takes place at the edge of language, and on the edge of words’ meanings—so there’s no way to substitute the exact same meaning or connotations for each word.
B: Yeah!
J: When you’re reading a translation, what do you look for?
B: That’s a really hard question. If a poem doesn’t bring over the author’s intention—and if it doesn’t do so succinctly—that wouldn’t be a translation I’m particularly interested in.
J: Do you think it’s difficult to find the original poet’s intention?
B: I think sometimes you read translations and can tell right away the poem has been translated word for word. If the emotion from the original piece isn’t there, I feel like that’s not a successful translation. Also, translation is all about revision—looking for synonyms, finding words that are sonically parallel—and usually you can tell when a poet has worked on those things.
J: Why should people read poetry in transition?
B: Honestly why not?! If you’re willing to read poetry originally written in English, why not read poetry in translation?
J: Why should people translate?
B: There’s a big issue in publication, the 2-3% issue. The percentage of translation being published in America is really low. I think the best way to get into translation, and to learn more about it, is to just translate yourself. Anyone can translate—we live in an international age. So why not bring over international cultures through poetry?
J: What do you hope the translation section here at NPL will look like, and is there anything specific you’re looking forward to?
B: I want to start out with a modest goal and have a space for translations. I hope we can get at least one solid translation per issue in the beginning. Then, if we have more, we can grow from there. I’m also hoping we can hold as many different languages as possible.
We’re also looking more for contemporary translations; or if, it’s a translation of a traditional poem, we’re looking for modern translations of those poems..
J: What languages are we accepting?
B: We’re open to all languages! Obviously I specialize in several languages, but I don’t want to restrict what can be submitted. We also have one of our readers, Lilia Ellis Marie who is a master of many languages, working on translation with me.
J: Okay before we go, can you tell me some of your favorite translators?
B: Sawako Nakayasu, Katrine Øgaard Jensen, Ken Liu, Don Mee Choi, Janet Hong, Joyelle McSweeny, Sora Kim-Russell, Madhu H. Kaza
J: And, do you have suggestions of books in translation our readers should check out?
Brittany’s Translation Recs:
Third-Millennium Heart by URSULA ANDKJÆR OLSEN, Translated from the Danish by Katrine Øgaard Jensen
Hysteria by Kim Yideum, translated from the Korean by Jake Levine, Soeun Seo, and Hedgie Choi
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
Eartheater by Dolores Reyes, translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches
Conveneience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori
The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translate from the Korean by Deborah Smith
If you’re interested in submitting your own translations, you can check out our guidelines following the button below!
Brittany Nguyen is a poet and translator from Walnut, California. She translates from the Korean and the Vietnamese but sometimes ventures into the Chinese and the Japanese, often incorporating them into her own work. She is the 2018 recipient of the Academy of American Poets: The Piri Thomas Poetry Prize and has a piece in the upcoming issue of the Notre Dame Review! She currently lives in New York City working on her MFA at Columbia University.