I am by profession an instructional designer, helping professors use technology. The work involves staring at the computer during much of the day. After finishing my professional work, I go back home, have dinner, wash dishes, and read a book to my kids. And then I go back to my computer to get a few more hours of screen tan - this time translating novels. The lack of physical activity means it isn't a balanced lifestyle.
Well, translators don't have a life anyway. One has to be slightly crazy to get into it, and even crazier to keep doing it. Translation is literally back-breaking work, which requires intensive mental effort and minimal external distraction. You sit quietly at the computer for so long that a passing alien might mistake you for a sculpture. Translation is difficult, too. Some books are so difficult to read that even one of my long time supporters said she was there for moral and spiritual support, not linguistic assistance.
Since 1997, I have translated a dozen or so books, including V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin and Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. Some of these books have won prizes. Let the Great World Spin, for instance, won the 2010 Weishanhu Prize, the highest literary award for an international author. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn won China Times's Books of the Year Award in the Youth Reading category at the end of 2010.
In any other line of work, this would have made a person rich and famous. In translation, you remain mostly off stage, and often poor - an indication that translators are artists, too. At present, most publishers pay about 65-100 yuan ($10-15) per thousand words for literary translation, no matter how good you are. You know that words are cheap because the rate has remained at this level for decades. The rate is so pathetic that I once considered giving up translation in pursuit of a career as a pig farmer, an idea that came to me after I translated Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole, a novel featuring a pig farm scout.
Then why would one translate? Part of my reason is the difficulty in saying "no". Since most publishers do not pay much, they add a lot of courtesy on top of their inquiry. I won't blink to resist coercion or temptation. But kindness kills. Courtesy conquers. Many editors' sincerity and persistence embarrass me into saying: "What the heck, I'll do it." I simply would not be able to bear the guilt if I rejected a well-made proposal from a cordial editor. It's a good thing that I did not encounter such a situation in marital decisions years ago. Also, literary translation is a rather small field. It is important to maintain a good relationship with editors, just for rainy days. Sooner or later, one gets addicted. Giving it up will be traumatic, just as continuing it could be.
Literary translation brings some secret joys. You get to interact deeply with good literature. Another joy comes from hope, almost a Promethean one, to borrow some small literary fires to set China's dull literary scene ablaze. Many of the authors I have translated were not even known in China when I started translating them. When I started Naipaul's A Bend in the River, he had not won the Nobel Prize for Literature and few people in China had heard about him. Now he is almost a household name among Chinese intellectuals. Translators have helped in a small way to make many authors' names familiar in China.
Through translation books travel, well received in some countries but rejected in some others. I was told by Colum McCann that his Songdogs was very well received in France and Germany.
There are some things in a book that make it click in a particular culture. Exactly which book have this potential is as much a translator's intuition as it is the publisher's.
As books travel, we seek to be good travel agents so that "the journey is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery" (Constantine P. Cavafy's Ithaca) among their new readers in a new language.
I am also a blogger, so as I translate and write profusely (sometimes to a fault, I must admit) about these books as a book critic, mostly as a change from translation. I talk a lot about why books are good or bad. In China, writing has been held almost as a mysterious art thanks to Lu Xun's jeer that some people wanted to learn writing by reading "novel writing methods".
The assumption is that you are either born a writer or you are not. But why not? People can learn the craft of writing by opening themselves to good influences. Good writing inspires awe and gives ideas. Good authors get others excited about particular ways to write, the way Franz Kafka wowed Gabriel Garcia Marquez with The Metamorphosis.
Such impact is made possible through the work of translators who can knock authors from their familiar pedestals or get them out of the maze of their writers' blocks.
It's my secret dream that one day or one night, a Chinese author reads a book I have translated and bangs on the desk: "I didn't know that novels can be written like this! I can do that!" There, the circle of life for writers goes on.
Visions like this keep me going, in the depth of the night, when the non-reading world has gone to sleep.
The author is a literary translator, instructional designer living in the US.
文字廉價(jià)，藝術(shù)永恒
按職業(yè)講，我是個(gè)幫助教授運(yùn)用科技的課程設(shè)計(jì)師。這項(xiàng)工作使我一天中大部分時(shí)間都盯著電腦。完成職業(yè)的工作后，我回到家，吃飯，洗碗筷，給孩子們念書。忙完這些，回到我的電腦前，再花上幾小時(shí)盯著電腦——這回是翻譯小說。這種生活方式缺乏體力鍛煉，頗不平衡。
話說回來，翻譯家又有什么生活方式可言？人不有點(diǎn)瘋勁才不會去做翻譯，堅(jiān)持往下做就更顯瘋狂了。翻譯委實(shí)是個(gè)非常累人的活計(jì)，它需要集中腦力，盡量少受外部干擾。你會長時(shí)間靜靜坐在電腦前，恐怕路過的外星人會誤以為你是雕塑。翻譯也很難。一些書很難讀，以至于一個(gè)長期支持我的人說她會在道德和精神上支持我，可是不愿給我語言方面的幫助。
從1997年起，我已經(jīng)翻譯了10多本書，包括奈保爾的《河灣》，貝蒂·史密斯的《布魯克林有棵樹》，科爾姆·麥凱恩的《轉(zhuǎn)吧，這偉大的世界》和約瑟夫·奧尼爾的《荷蘭》。有些書獲過獎(jiǎng)?！掇D(zhuǎn)吧，這偉大的世界》獲得2010年度最佳外國小說微山湖獎(jiǎng)。《布魯克林有棵樹》在2010年末獲得《中國時(shí)報(bào)》“開卷好書獎(jiǎng)”中的“青少年佳作獎(jiǎng)”。
如果是其他工作，這會讓一個(gè)人名利雙收。在翻譯行業(yè)，你仍會寂寂無聞，仍會囊中羞澀——不過這說明了翻譯者也可歸入藝術(shù)家行列吧。按當(dāng)前行情，不管你翻譯的多好，出版商對文學(xué)翻譯的出價(jià)是千字65到100元。這下你該知道文字很廉價(jià)了，因?yàn)檫@個(gè)價(jià)格已經(jīng)維持了幾十年。這種稿費(fèi)實(shí)在少得可悲。記得翻完安妮·普魯?shù)摹独现\深算》（這本小說以養(yǎng)豬場的選址員為主人公）后，我甚至想過放棄翻譯，去做豬農(nóng)。
那么人為什么要做翻譯呢？我的部分原因是很難說“不”。雖然大部分出版商出價(jià)很低，在詢問時(shí)十分客氣?？咕苊{迫或誘惑不難，但有時(shí)候善良卻讓人無招架之功。很多編輯十分真誠、堅(jiān)持，我往往最后是說：“見鬼，翻吧。”拒絕一個(gè)客氣而誠懇編輯，會讓人覺得十分慚愧。所幸這種局面，當(dāng)初找對象的時(shí)候沒遇到過。另外，文學(xué)翻譯是個(gè)小圈子。和編輯保持好關(guān)系也很重要，也算是防止不測吧。另外翻譯這事做久了，人會癡迷起來。放棄會和堅(jiān)持一樣留下創(chuàng)傷。
文學(xué)翻譯能帶給你一些神秘的愉悅感。你會和好的文學(xué)進(jìn)行深交流、互動。另外一種愉悅來自一種普羅米修斯盜火似的希望。我們也希望帶來一些小的文學(xué)星星之火，讓略顯呆滯的國內(nèi)文學(xué)原野熊熊燃燒。翻譯會把好作品好作者介紹過來，這也是很有意思的事。開始翻譯時(shí)，我翻過的很多作品的作者毫不出名。開始翻譯奈保爾的《河灣》時(shí)，他還沒有獲得諾貝爾文學(xué)獎(jiǎng)，在中國幾乎沒有人聽過他。現(xiàn)在，在中國的知識分子中，他可以說是一個(gè)家喻戶曉的人物。
通過翻譯，書在旅行。它們在一些國家受到好評，在另一些國家遭到拒絕?？苽?#183;麥凱恩告訴我，他的《歌犬》在法國和德國很受歡迎。這本書中的一些東西使它在某一文化中受歡迎。不同書有不同潛質(zhì)，出版商能察覺，譯者有時(shí)候一樣有所直覺。在書的旅行當(dāng)中，我們努力做稱職的“旅行代理”，讓它們在新的讀者新的語言中“道路漫長，充滿歷險(xiǎn)，充滿知識”（康斯坦丁·卡瓦菲的《伊薩卡》）的感覺。
我也是個(gè)博客，也寫過大量關(guān)于所譯圖書的評論（有時(shí)候我承認(rèn)都顯得過了點(diǎn)）。這有時(shí)不過是翻譯之余的消遣。我常評論某書好或不好，也希望借此開展作者之間思想和方法的交流。在中國，由于魯迅嘲弄有人想通過“小說做法”學(xué)習(xí)寫作，寫作幾乎成為了一門神秘的藝術(shù)。這種思考的潛在假設(shè)是，寫作是一種或有或無的與生俱來的能力。但是為什么不能學(xué)習(xí)呢？人們可以通過接受好的影響，學(xué)習(xí)寫作的技巧。好的作品能引人敬佩，能激發(fā)思維。好的作者能以某種方法啟發(fā)他人，正如弗蘭茲·卡夫卡的《變形記》讓加夫列爾·加西亞·馬爾克斯驚嘆那樣。譯者的工作使得這種影響成為可能。譯者興許可以將作者帶出自我迷戀，或帶他們走出思維的困局。
我常偷偷夢想，有朝一日，某位中國作家讀到我譯的書時(shí)，拍案而起：“我不知道小說能這樣寫！我也能做到！”那樣，作家間的傳承將繼續(xù)綿延下去。
這樣的幻想，讓我在夜深人靜，在不讀書的人們進(jìn)入夢鄉(xiāng)之時(shí)，仍筆耕不息。
