(Deputy Blog Agency reporting from the UK)
When Isabel Cole, my chum and fellow
translator-and-writer, said she was on the Oxford-Weidenfeld
Translation Prize shortlist for her rendering of Franz Fühmann’s Das Judenauto (The Jew Car, Seagull), couldn’t go
to the prize ceremony, and had been asked to provide either a representative or
a recording, I was flattered to be her preferred option – some US and Canadian translators
on the shortlist sent entertaining video and audio messages. All I had to do
was read from Isabel’s fine translation and introduce the book. The best bit
was that not being Isabel I could also blow her trumpet. Which I did. Although
I helped edit this translation, and saw it in an earlier draft, I was still
mightily impressed by its fluidity and poetry. It was a joy to read. Isabel has
earned this approbation after years of dedication to literature, with her many
translations of fascinating (largely dead) authors for Seagull (hooray for them
too). In the excitement I forgot to mention setting up No Mans Land, a huge
achievement, but did mention the fact that she also writes – with a book out
recently – a significant aspect, at least to me. (Isabel gave me some of the
best feedback I received on my own manuscript and has a keen eye for fiction.)
Having read The Jew Car in original
too, I described what I think is special about the novel. The ironic voice on
the one hand, evoking the perspectives both of naive young Nazi Franz and of
post-war socialist Franz as he wrote, with humour as well as horror; and the un-heroic,
anticlimactic dramatisation of ‘monumental’ events before, during and after the
Second World War, with the focus on everyday, mundane details which makes the
storytelling all the more convincing – refreshing and important in the context
of the grotesque Schinken we’ve been
subjected to recently: Nazi period dramas which buy into all the clichés and
codes of Hollywood. Sorry rant over! (Well this is a blog...)
So, the winner was... not Isabel, it was Susan
Wicks for her translation of Valérie Rouzeau’s poems – and there were two
other poetry collections in the shortlist, plus a novel partly written in
verse. As I was at pains to stress to Isabel on the phone, shortly afterwards,
the judges were at pains to stress that the shortlist was as important as the
winner, demonstrating this by each enthusing on stage about the books they
particularly liked. In fact Susan declined to say anything herself on receiving
the prize, nor did Matthew, MC, jury head and prize organiser, so the ceremony
was also somewhat un-heroic. Luckily the principle of St Anne’s college toasted
her over dinner. Oh yes, there was dinner, and fine wine (thanks Isabel, thanks
St Anne’s!).
Susan is a Bloodaxe
poet, and a Faber author, when not translating; like everyone who was at
the dinner she was clearly someone who loved words and takes them seriously. As
someone whose first degree was in ‘colouring in’ I found dining with a posse of
top academics surprisingly relaxing, conducive and not in the least threatening.
But not only was there dinner, more enticing to a thinny like me was the Rahmenprogramm. The prize ceremony was
the climax of ‘Oxford Translation Day’, a festival of workshops, readings and
talks spread over, erm, two days which reminded me of the VdÜ’s Wolfenbüttel
gathering. Readers of this blog will be familiar with what goes on there. I
attended a workshop on poetry writing, my new medium, run by English PEN, using
poems in translation as the inspiration. Check the programme.
Ok back to your regular blogger, that’s all from me.
