I saw this story
in Authors and Translators after I had finished translating Isa
Kamari's three novels from Malay to English, and I was surprised how
close my experience was to theirs. I had always thought that my Malay
was not good enough, but after reading some of the dreadful translations
we had to edit, I was convinced that I'd do a much better job. The
thing about translation is that you can (and, according to MacLehose who
gave us Harvill, you should) treat the translation as you would an
original. What often happens is that very soon the novel you are reading
becomes very much your own, and you feel obliged to give the reader the
best experience possible.Translating a novel line by line and word by word is not possible. So all such works are either a rendering or an adaptation. You'll have to read the entire novel first to understand what's going on, and then plan your strategy. I fumbled about in the beginning, and decided that I preferred to work on one chapter at a time. The trick is to retell the story to your readers with all the tensions and emotions intact, and this can often be done only if you are not a hundred per cent faithful to the text. For example the Malay language works best in the passive voice, while English is certainly far more comfortable in the active. (I'm uncertain if this is due to the evolution of the language or due to other inherent qualities.) So it's important to read the entire paragraph before deciding how you'd phrase it. Sometimes, it would sound better for later sentences to be brought forward, because it sounds better that way in English. Another thing I found is that English thrives on an economy of words, whereas Malay language likes elaborations and repetitions. Again, I'm not qualified to say if it's due to evolution or some other reason. Maybe it's purely stylistic.
It was tempting to tweak the story a little to give it a better zing, but fortunately for me, Isa Kamari (who reads English) was on hand to curb my over-enthusiasm. I wonder what happens when a work is translated into a language the author does not read at all. I guess it's better not to know. Just keep the cheques coming!
