Rosalind Harvey in Headingley Library

Translating Culture – Pigs’ Head Stew, La Chingada and Mexican Chavs Abroad

Sally Bavage writes:

 

The subtitle to this excellent discussion enjoyed by an audience of thirty in a welcoming corner of Headingley Library was 'the importance of culture in literary translation'. Too true!  What would we call someone who drives behind ambulances so they can speed, wears a polyester blouse with a Lacoste logo, claps when a ‘plane lands, uses a clothes hanger for a TV aerial or steals souvenirs from hotels? – it’s ‘naco’ in Mexico, and ‘chav’ in her English translation. Every nationality has a cultural context which influences content and description in creative writing, allowing the intelligent reader to draw their own images from the words.

She considered carefully which words would not need translation, leaving many items of food in the original Spanish, reasoning that enough readers would not need an alternative to taco or enchilada.  Posoli, on the other hand – the pig’s head stew of our discussion title – does appear in the glossary she included. Her description of a whole pig’s head cooked with maize, chilli and floating lettuce left the young boy who is the narrator of her book as disgusted as we were. It also served as a metaphor for the trend in Mexico of body parts turning up in unlikely places - 'a good head' IN a barrel of beer was one recent example.

And now we come to the matter of  ‘la chingada’.  It’s rude.  Very rude.  But it is in ubiquitous use and culturally far less offensive to Mexican ears than an effing prostitute is to more sensitive English ones. How to translate the culturally offensive without compromising the meaning within the story is a balancing act without a safety net, it seems. 

Rosalind Harvey has worked with Anne McLean, the doyenne of Spanish to English translations and has now branched out on her own.  Rosalind’s first solo work, translating the work of author Juan Pablo Villalobos is titled Down the Rabbit Hole and was published in September 2011 by And Other Stories, a new small publishing house. Choosing a title to convey the slightly surreal meaning of the Mexican hideout which features in the story, with its hint for readers of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is, again, a translator’s high wire act.

We are indebted to Mike of the Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, who kindly supported the event with books for sale.

Two of many positive audience comments sum up the evening very well: “Very interesting and enlightening explanation of translating literature from one language to another and the cultural and contemporary choices that have to be made.” 

And, very succinctly, “Muy bien!”

Mik Artistik in Salvo's Salumeria

Benjamin Thomas writes:

This event, hosted by Salvo's Salumeria as part of Headingley LitFest with entertainment  provided by Mik Artistik's Ego Trip, was somewhat like a particularly oddball episode of 'Come Dine With Me' that Channel 4 never dared to air.

As the audience digested four fine courses of authentic Italian dining, Mik and his two sidekicks (Johnny Flockton on guitar and Benson Walker on bass) served up their secret recipe of performance poetry, stand-up humour and musicianship on stage.

Few others could theft the beat from LCD Soundsystem's 'Losing My Edge', the melody from Aled  Jones' 'Walking In The Air', or snippets from hits by the somewhat more renowned Yorkshireman Robert Palmer, then segue such elements into songs about parenthood ('Dad Muscles', 'Turning Into Dad') and budget timepieces ('Cheap Watch From The Market'). Mik even paid tribute to his hometown's best known eccentric with 'Jimmy Saville Had My Album'.

And the fifty-something attracted a crowd which, much like his sources of inspiration, spanned the generations. He mesmerised the young, the old, and everybody in between for the entire duration of his meandering but never tiresome performance lasting almost two hours.

Throughout the show, as Mik flitted between serenading and berating those brave enough to sit in the front rows, he summoned the spirit of two infamously misanthropic wordsmiths from the other side of the Pennines - John Cooper Clarke and The Fall's Mark E. Smith.

But in truth, he's beyond compare, and only those lucky enough to be crammed into the room could have fully appreciated this artist's unique talents.

Below Mik Artistik and his Combo (Jonny Flockton and Benson Walker), and two happy customers - Will Bartlett and Emma Jones - 

New translation for Lebanese Evening

In preparation for the Lebanese Evening in Mint Café on North Lane, Khalil Gibran's famous poem A Tear and a Smile was retranslated from the original Arabic. Read it here.

Can you raise a laugh?

June Diamond writes:

The Litfest got off to a flying start with a comedy workshop led by Mike Nelson.  They say stand-up is the latest performance art, and  a full house of participants aged between 16 and 60+ attested to its popularity.

As you might expect, Mike facilitated the workshop with humour, and also warmth, expertise  and support. Ice-breakers were followed by presentations on the structure of jokes, using the microphone, and other information essential to budding comedians. The session ended with a brief set from each participant. Keep going,  if you can,  for three minutes, was the advice. “That’s what my girlfriend tells me," said one comedian.

I was amused, inspired and touched by the sheer creativity shown by everybody involved. It’s interesting how immersion in such an experience changes the world around one. I walked out of the workshop to go to the toilet and walked into a broom cupboard by mistake.

SI Leeds Literary Prize 2012

        Readers of the LitFest blog could well be interested in this prize, which is organised by Soroptimist International of Leeds. For more information click here. This is a recent SI news release:

Writers with new year’s resolutions to finish their novel and get it published are being encouraged to dust off their manuscripts and submit their entries to the SI Leeds Literary Prize.  This new award for unpublished fiction by Black and Asian women will be announced in October at the Ilkley Literature Festival, and potential entrants have until 1 June to submit their entries.

Prize judge Hannah Bannister, the Marketing Director at Peepal Tree Press, thinks it’s an exciting opportunity for women writers: “I know from my experience at Peepal Tree that writers sometimes need encouragement to take that first step and complete their manuscript, and that being shortlisted for a prize can change an author’s life.  I’m particularly keen to read the entries as the winner may get a publishing deal with Peepal Tree, as well as professional development support through our Inscribe programme.”

The award winning authors will also have the opportunity to perform their work at the prestigious Ilkley Literature Festival, where the prize will be awarded in October.  The winner will receive £2,000, with £750 to the runner-up and £250 as a third prize.  Entries can be submitted any time before 1 June and full details of how to enter are on the prize website: www.sileedsliteraryprize.com

Patrons supporting the prize are influential writers and thinkers with a significant public profile, and the prize team is delighted to welcome its latest Patrons, Bonnie Greer OBE and Bernadine Evaristo MBE.  Playwright and novelist Greer is a passionate advocate of diversity, and her works are concerned with the lives of minorities within majority cultures, particularly those of women.  British writer Evaristo was awarded the MBE for being ‘a major voice in the multicultural panorama of British literature’, and her novel-in-verse The Emperor’s Babe was chosen as a Times ‘Book of the Decade’ in 2009.

For further information, images or interview requests, please contact Fiona Goh, Project Manager, tel: 01422 435077 or e-mail: info@sileedsliteraryprize.com

The Dream and the Reality

Sally Bavage writes:

Our partnership event with the Irish Arts Foundation on Friday 2 March was a double bill which promised to be entertaining and thought-provoking – what the LitFest always aims for - and we were not disappointed.

Father O’Malley, I imagined,  would be a frailish man in his eightieth year.  Not a bit of it! He gave us a feisty view of the history of the movement to preserve the Irish language since the end of the Middle Ages, spiced up with recollections and anecdotes of his own part in its preservation.  He had subtitled his account of the rise and fall of the speaking of Gaelic as “the dream of the Gaelic League”, founded at the end of the nineteenth century after three centuries of decline, and “the reality of failed twentieth century government initiatives and minuscule funding” leading to Gaelic having an uncertain future in contemporary Ireland.

As early as the sixteenth century, the poet Brian Ó Gnimh was speaking about being adrift on a rising tide of English which reduced his words to the lonely call of seabirds:

I am the guillemot, the English the sea.

Reasons for the decline were many: Cromwell, colonisation by the English, some of whom insisted their labourers and their families spoke English, the Great Potato Famine, lack of employment opportunities ...  all conspired to confine Gaelic speaking to outlying areas, in some cases within a generation. Although the Gaelic League made good progress up to 1916, speaking the native language also fed the aspirations of the republican freedom movement, which led to government support being mealy-mouthed and inconsistent.

Father O’Malley gave us an entertaining account of his part in the setting up of a pirate radio station that confronted those who said it was technically impossible.  Quite a turbulent priest indeed.  Now there are thriving TV and radio stations which broadcast in Gaelic. Forty years ago, those who refused to pay a licence for English-only broadcasts only in English were jailed.  However, in uncertain economic times, the progressive strategy to support the acquisition and the use of the native language is in doubt.

Irish literature is published by two key publishing houses, who provide volumes of stories, short stories and poetry, and who support modern young poets as well as more traditional forms.  The Queen spoke in Gaelic in 2011 on her visit to the country, which has given a fillip to the movement determined to hold back the tide of cultural globalisation through TV, radio and news media that threatens to swamp the resurgence of Ireland’s native language. Food for thought indeed.

For the second half of the evening we were delightfully entertained by Dylan Bible on guitar and Amanda Fardy’s vocals as they explored traditional themes of life, love and loss using some modern interpretations of old Irish airs.  It was Trad meets Blues meets Burt Bacharach through haunting melodies and piercing words. 

A truly enjoyable evening exploring the voices of Ireland!  If the definition of an elegy is ‘mourning or expressing sorrow for that which is irrecoverably past (and you like to play upon words) then our evening was Gaelic to elegiac – almost.

Below, Father O’Malley