Kuala Lumpur – Long comfortable in its position as the world’s dominant language, publishing, in the English speaking world, abided by what has come to be known as the “three percent rule.” Namely, that of the total publishing output in the English language, translated literature comprised but 3% of the total output.
In recent years, however, there has been a noticeable increase in literary interest in translation, and literature into the English language. Nielsen identified an increased mark in translated literature from 3% to 5% of the total output in English language. While still greatly lagging behind languages such as French and Spanish and especially Mandarin, the rise has nevertheless been significant. Additionally, it has also demonstrated a growing interest in translation of non-European languages.
This was evident in the recent award of the acclaimed National Translation Awards of the American Literary Translators Association to translators Jack Levine, Soeun Seo and Hedgie Choi for the Korean poet and novelist Kim Yedium’s collection of poetry Hysteria (Action Books) on October 15, 2020.
The collection, was described by the panel of judges, Ilya Kaminsky, Lisa Katz, and Farid Matuk, in the following terms: “One of the co-translators of this good-humored and confrontational book notes in his afterword that the style of Korean poet Kim Yideum is “intentionally excessive . . . and irrational.” Her speaker is a hipster who makes brash statements about quotidian experiences that may occur in any crowded city. In the title poem, a woman being groped on the subway imagines her revenge: “I want to kill the mother***. . . . If only I could go to the sandy beach on the red coast, moonlit. There, beside the cool waters, I would lay him down. If only.” Yideum turns her glance on her specifically Korean milieu as well. An intriguing, illuminating volume.”
Other collections that made the shortlist, included The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice: A Tiny Homeric Epic by an unknown author, translated from the Greek by A.E. Stallings (Paul Dry Books); The Last Innocence/The Lost Adventures by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated from the Spanish by Cecilia Rossi (Ugly Duckling Presse); Room in Rome by Jorge Eduardo Eielson, translated from the Spanish by David Shook (Cardboard House Press); The Winter Garden Photograph by Reina María Rodríguez, translated from the Spanish by Kristin Dykstra with Nancy Gates Madsen (Ugly Duckling Presse) and Tell Me, Kenyalang by Kulleh Grasi, translated from the Malay by Pauline Fan (Circumference Books).
The prize, awarded to translators rather than authors, now in its 26th year, and in its 6th year of the prize awarded in separate categories - poetry and prose - has also been noted for offering a platform for smaller poetry publishers. 2020 was also the first year that nominations were received from non-American, non resident in America translators.
Of the nominations that made the shortlist, another notable title included Tell Me Kenyalang by the Sarawak poet Kulleh Grasi and translated from the Malay by Pauline Fan. Of Tell Me Kenyalang, the judges offered: “Translator Pauline Fan, in collaboration with poet Kulleh Grasi, offers an English version of Tell Me, Kenyalang that complicates national categorizing schemes of world literature. Grasi intersperses verse written in Malay with phrases of Kaya and Kelabit, just two of the languages spoken by different ethnic and cultural groups residing in the nation state of Malaysia. Allowing some Kaya and Kelabit to remain untranslated, Fan and Grasi give readers rich multilingual evocations of multiethnic storytelling, ceremonial songs, ritual incantations, and dream weaving. But this is no museum. Fan’s translation renders the pulse of a living poet’s contemporary, generative attention to contemporary, generative moments, offering us a text that is “[n]arrated, alive.” – The Vibes, 18 October 2020
