We asked him whether he’d like to be hotted up in Swedish too.
April 8, 2025 10:49 AM Subscribe
After decades of translating literature from Japanese to Swedish, the career of daughter-mother translation team Yukiko Duke and Eiko Duke came to an end when Eiko passed away in 2024. In "The Joy of Translating is Gone" (translated from Swedish by Ian Giles), Yukiko reflects on their career, their relationship, and the act of translation.
This was lovely and gentle and fascinating, thanks so much for posting.
I don't speak Japanese, so unless someone translates "M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest" into English, I suppose my best option is to try to claw my way through the Spanish version with what mediocre grasp of the language I can muster; but it would be a rough go.
posted by cnidaria at 11:58 AM on April 8
I don't speak Japanese, so unless someone translates "M/T and the Narrative About the Marvels of the Forest" into English, I suppose my best option is to try to claw my way through the Spanish version with what mediocre grasp of the language I can muster; but it would be a rough go.
posted by cnidaria at 11:58 AM on April 8
Thank you so much for this post! I feel ridiculous living in Sweden and having no idea that there was a Swedish book review. I loved the article. It was wonderful and honestly, there’s not much of that going around at the moment. Thanks again, OP!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:39 PM on April 8
posted by Bella Donna at 2:39 PM on April 8
The paradox is that when a translator has done their job properly, they have made themselves invisible. The translation is so close to the original that practically everyone believes the work was written in Swedish – or that it’s so easy to translate that just about anyone could have done it. Obviously this is not true.
Indeed not, because translation is Hard. A good translation is quite as much effort as the original book - more perhaps because the creative flow is hampered by the original author's plot line and sensibilities.
If transl is your jam, I can fulsomely recommend Fifty Words by Polly Barton (2019, Fitzcarraldo publ.) Barton spend 15 years TEFLing in Japan and learning the language, culture and customs before returning to England to hang out her shingle as a translator from the Japanese; of which she has a dozen books to her credit. Fifty Sounds is essentially 50 chapters: each one riffing on a Japanese word or phrase, where she encountered it and what it made her think.
One short but telling chapter is about moja-moja モジャモジャ - the adjective routinely applied to Barton's curly hair. Not the more common (loan-word?) kuru-kuru - that wouldn't do. A friend explained that her hair was beyond curly it was wild unruly electric . . . like Struwwelpeter. The poor woman's moja-moja hair attracted A Lot of uninvited pawing and poking . . . and not only from curious pupils. What is wrong with people's assessment of personal space [here and abroad] that they feel licensed to touch other people whose work is inevitably public facing?
moja-moja? A pal from Northern Ireland came back from college in The South raving about The Dubliners. Uncle who has seen them on the TV: "That Ronnie Drew and that Luke Kelly, they look like a pair of sheep's arses."
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:52 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]
Indeed not, because translation is Hard. A good translation is quite as much effort as the original book - more perhaps because the creative flow is hampered by the original author's plot line and sensibilities.
If transl is your jam, I can fulsomely recommend Fifty Words by Polly Barton (2019, Fitzcarraldo publ.) Barton spend 15 years TEFLing in Japan and learning the language, culture and customs before returning to England to hang out her shingle as a translator from the Japanese; of which she has a dozen books to her credit. Fifty Sounds is essentially 50 chapters: each one riffing on a Japanese word or phrase, where she encountered it and what it made her think.
One short but telling chapter is about moja-moja モジャモジャ - the adjective routinely applied to Barton's curly hair. Not the more common (loan-word?) kuru-kuru - that wouldn't do. A friend explained that her hair was beyond curly it was wild unruly electric . . . like Struwwelpeter. The poor woman's moja-moja hair attracted A Lot of uninvited pawing and poking . . . and not only from curious pupils. What is wrong with people's assessment of personal space [here and abroad] that they feel licensed to touch other people whose work is inevitably public facing?
moja-moja? A pal from Northern Ireland came back from college in The South raving about The Dubliners. Uncle who has seen them on the TV: "That Ronnie Drew and that Luke Kelly, they look like a pair of sheep's arses."
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:52 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]
Thank you for posting this. It's a lovely piece, very moving and very insightful. Definitely the best of the web!
posted by vac2003 at 4:25 PM on April 8
posted by vac2003 at 4:25 PM on April 8
BobTheScientist: If transl is your jam, I can fulsomely recommend Fifty Words by Polly Barton (2019, Fitzcarraldo publ.)
I couldn't find that work, but see she wrote one called "Fifty Sounds". Is that the same work? Or should I keeping looking for "Fifty Words"?
posted by vac2003 at 4:30 PM on April 8
I couldn't find that work, but see she wrote one called "Fifty Sounds". Is that the same work? Or should I keeping looking for "Fifty Words"?
posted by vac2003 at 4:30 PM on April 8
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posted by chavenet at 11:33 AM on April 8 [2 favorites]