Category: Translated Fiction

October 2021 Book Club Report: Intan Paramaditha’s The Wandering

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 October 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

We were supposed to discuss Indonesian writer Intan Paramaditha’s The Wandering in September, but I had to cancel our meeting at the last minute because of my poor health. I guess that gave us more time to explore different storylines and go on more than one adventure in the novel!

The Wandering was first published in Indonesian in 2017 and its Indonesian title Gentayangan means ‘wandering’, ‘haunting’, ‘in between’. Its English translation, which was translated by Stephen Epstein, was published last year and has received much positive reviews.

It’s the story about an Indonesian woman who makes a deal with the devil to own a pair of red shoes that will take her anywhere she wants.

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What’s really fascinating about The Wandering is that it contains at least 15 major storylines and each storyline unfolds depending on the reader’s decision at various points in the novel, whether to take this path or that, whether to go here or there. The choices are limited and already decided for us, but I could still feel the tension and trepidation whenever I had to decide the next step, knowing that my decision will lead me on a very different path.

What makes this decision-making so personal and palpable is the author’s creative and clever use of the first-person perspective – ‘you’. It creates a very personal experience for the reader and requires our active engagement, to imagine ourselves in the stories.

The Wandering reminded us of Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights, which we previously read for our book club. However, while Flights dissects the topic of travel in a somewhat cerebral manner, The Wandering does it in a visceral way, such that there is a sense of regret, lamentation, that comes from being away from home, from disillusion with a Faustian bargain.

It also reminded us of another book we read for our book club as well – Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound, which is steeped in Indonesian mysticism and folklore that are also prominent in The Wandering.

While discussing about The Wandering, we did wander off talking about other things like the Indonesian writers at the Ubud Writers Festival, online Bahasa Indonesian classes, Thai language classes…and last of all, we decided to read Taiwanese writer Chang Yu-ko’s horror novel Whisper for the month of November! It’ll be our first translated horror read and I’m super excited!

Everyone is welcome to join our book club. We meet every last Saturday of the month, either online or in person, depending on the relevant restrictions. For more updates, do follow us on Instagram and Facebook!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to discuss a translated book selected for the month. Everyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about our book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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August 2021 Book Club Report: Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes

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 August 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

I’m so grateful we could meet physically on the one-year anniversary of our book club and over a picnic at the beautiful green space at SMU at that. It was our first picnic and I think we pretty liked the idea and might try doing that again. We also welcomed two new friends and were happy to hear their thoughts about Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes. 

Originally published in Spanish in 2018 and translated into English by Megan McDowell in 2020, Little Eyes might not be the easiest book to follow with its alternating stories of several characters. It was interesting listening to different perspectives and insights that each of us had about Schweblin’s style of writing (Did the novel start out well but didn’t end up going anywhere?), qualification as a sci-fi writer (Did the novel fulfil the criteria of a sci-fi novel or fall miserably short? What’s the criteria anyway?), as well as issues about technology, surveillance, social media, and so on.

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Here are some questions we discussed:

  • Was the novel easy to follow?
  • What made you feel most uncomfortable in the novel?
  • How did you find the author’s style of writing?
  • Would you want to be a kentuki keeper or dweller? Why?
  • Which character or story stood out most to you?
  • Did the novel remind you of a film or book?

September 2021 Book Club Selection

We’ve decided to read Indonesian writer Paramaditha Intan’s The Wandering for our September book club! Come join us to discuss this choose-your-own-adventure novel. For more details on our September book club, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to discuss a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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July 2021 Book Club Report: Mohamed Latiff Mohamed’s The Widower

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July 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

New restrictions kicked in last month because of the rise in COVID-19 cases, so we had to move our book club meeting online again. It was our second online meeting, and I guess we’re slowly getting the hang of it. But I must say, I still miss meeting in person and catching up over tea and cakes. Guess that would have to wait. 

For the month of July, we decided to read the English translation of Malay novel The Widower, written by Singaporean Malay writer Mohamed Latiff Mohamed. Mohamed is a prolific poet and writer in the local Malay literary scene and has won numerous accolades, including the Singapore Literature Prize, three times. The novel was translated by another well-known local writer, Alfian Sa’at. 

So what’s this book about in our own words? The Widower is a stream-of-consciousness narrative about a widower’s descension into madness. Structurally, it’s fairly consistent, oscillating between the present, where the protagonist is grieving after his wife’s passing, and his past as a political detainee for 17 years. Some readers might find the protagonist’s back-and-forth internal philosophising single-dimensional and repetitive.

Stylistically speaking, the political and religious themes of the novel seem underdeveloped and might come across as too abstract for readers. (I guess this is where book clubs come into the picture to provide the space for readers to discuss and explicate abstract themes and dive deeper into underlying subject matters. So come and join us!) It’s funny how our discussion touched on various topics like the the role of media in reinforcing certain narratives, trauma, mental health, and the lived experiences of minority groups in Singapore.

We also talked about the similarities between this novel and Yeng Pway Ngon’s Unrest, which we discussed in March. Both writers are second-generation writers in the Malay and Chinese literary scenes, both tackled the issue of political struggles/detainment, both novels had characters who were obsessed with love and sex (is it a male writer thing?), and both also explored the impact of political detainment on detainees in the long run.

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Here are some questions we discussed:

  • What do you think of the author’s style of writing?
  • Does this novel remind you of another writer or book?
  • Which plot or theme stood out most to you?
  • Which part of the novel did you find confusing?

August 2021 Book Club Selection

August is #WomeninTranslation month! So we’ve decided to read a translated novel by a woman writer: Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes. Do you know that August is also the one-year anniversary of our book club? Come join us and celebrate the camaraderie we’ve forged over the past year while reading translated literature. For more details on our August book club, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to discuss a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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Stella’s Translation Diary #2: Translation is Impossible

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Translation is Impossible

By Stella Kim

Translation is impossible. That’s what I hear in the back of my head every time I sit down in front of my computer. Today I ponder what to do with Korean words, which, when translated into English, contain names of other countries. Take, for instance, the word “패랭이꽃” (paeraengi kkot). It’s a type of wild flower native to China, Korea, Mongolia, and southeastern Russia, according to Wikipedia.

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(A screen shot of Google search of paeraengi kkot)

The flower paeraengi kkot was named so because its shape resembled paeraengi, a type of hat that male merchants used to wear in Joseon Korea (though I can’t really see it).

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(A screen shot from the Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture)

In any case, despite the very folksy name it has in Korean, the English term for this flower is “China pink.” Some might not think about this twice, because this is the name of the flower. But I hesitate. I wonder if the insertion of the word “China” in the flower would confuse English readers and have them wonder whether the story is set in Korea or China. That’s probably me being overly concerned. Then I wonder, what if readers think that this is some flower that came from China when it is native to Korea too? What if readers think that even in Korean the flower is called China pink? Is that okay? After thinking about all this, I decide to just call the flower ‘pink’ for the moment.

Then I come across another term: “매화” (maehwa).

Maehwa is the name of the flower of a “매실나무” (maesil namu), commonly known as Chinese plum tree, Japanese plum tree, or Japanese apricot tree.

The fruit, “매실” (maesil), is closer to an apricot than plum, but maehwa is generally translated as “plum blossoms”. Handling this term is a bit easier, because I’ve already thought all I need to on the matter from looking up paeraengi kkot. I decide to go with plum tree and plum blossoms, all the while part of my brain keeps on telling me that maesil is different from the plums that English readers are familiar with.

Flora and fauna native to East Asia have been named in English by people who mostly discovered them from China or Japan, two major superpowers today. So it’s understandable that a tree native to both Korea and China was discovered first in China, what with Korea being closed off to the Western world for a long time. And they would’ve looked at paeraengi kkot and thought, “Hm, that looks like a pink, but we haven’t seen specifically that type of pink. I know! Since this flower is from China, I should call this China pink.” It makes flowers that people haven’t seen more familiar to them, as people would know what a “pink” looked like, yet it also adds a hint of exoticism.

I wonder if similar things happen when an English book is translated into Korean—are words localized? Or are they transliterated? The few I’d consulted mainly seem to transliterate and add footnotes or parenthetical explanations. What about books from different languages translated into English? But then again, what country in the world is similar to Korea, which had been China’s vassal for a long time and even as a sovereign country paid tribute to China in an acknowledgement of China’s strength?

 But I can’t change words or add enormous footnotes to the terms I’d like to explain, so I move on.

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June 2021 Book Club Report: Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults

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June 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

We almost called off this month’s book club meeting because of the two-person dine-in restriction, but one of the ladies had a brilliant idea of meeting at one of the benches at SMU…so there we were at a bench outside Onalu cafe on the last Saturday noon of June, sharing our thoughts about Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults over yummylicious egg sandwiches generously prepared by T and her husband, while K joined us over Zoom. 

It seems our general reception of The Lying Life of Adults isn’t overwhelming. No doubt the novel leads us into the inner life of a teenager, allows us to follow her on her emotionally turbulent coming-to-age journey, and prompts questions about the ethics of lying. But we felt Ferrante’s other books, particularly My Brilliant Friend, might be comparably more intriguing and riveting. That said, we’re looking forward to Netflix’s upcoming production based on The Lying Life of Adults.

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Here are some questions we discussed:

  • Why did Giovanna lie to her family and to her best friends?
  • Can lying be exalted as an art form?
  • What are the different styles of lying depicted in the novel?
  • Is literary fiction a lie?
  • How has Giovanna changed between the start and end of the story?

July 2021 Book Club Selection

There are countless translated books out there, but for the convenience of our book club members we will select only books with adequate copies in the NLB. 

For the month of July, we’ll be reading Malay writer Mohamed Latiff Mohamed‘s The Widow, translated by . 

If you’d like to join us, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more details about our next book club meeting!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to discuss a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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May 2021 Book Club Report: Fuminori Nakamura’s The Thief

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May 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

Harriett Press Book Club started after the Circuit Breaker lockdown in August last year, so we have been happily meeting physically for the past eight months. And for the first time in our book club’s very young history, we met virtually via Zoom for the first time on the last Saturday of May!

I saved travelling time and could meet the other members within the comfort of my room, but it definitely didn’t feel the same. I missed meeting the other ladies in person, getting recommendations for drinks, and sharing delicious cakes, in cafes packed with human beings. I guess that got to wait after the Heightened Alert restrictions are eased.

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The company and food aside, our discussion was as intriguing as ever. Hearing each member’s interpretation of the novel deepened my understanding of the story and helped me draw connections that I hadn’t thought of.

For the month of May, we read Japanese writer Fuminori Nakamura’s The Thief, translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates. Originally published in Japanese in 2009, The Thief was published in English in 2012. Interestingly, Fuminori Nakamura turns out to be the pseudonym of the author, which kept us really curious about the author’s real name. 

We discussed Nakamura’s unhurried style of writing, the unnamed protagonist’s childhood, the characters’ lonely yet liberating isolation, the tower that resurfaces throughout the novel, kleptomaniac disorder, guilt, ethics, our favourite phrases from the novel, and who the protagonist reminded us of. 

Here are some questions we discussed:

  • If you could sum up the novel in one sentence…
  • What do you think of Nakamura’s style of writing?
  • What is this tower that resurfaces in the novel?
  • Who is your favourite character? Did he or she remind you of someone you know?

June 2021 Book Club Selection

There are countless translated books out there, but for the convenience of our book club members we will select only books with adequate copies in the NLB. 

For the month of June, we’ll be reading Italian writer Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults, translated by Ann Goldstein. 

If you’d like to join us, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more details about our next book club meeting!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to discuss a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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April 2021 Book Club Report: Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound

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April 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

April has been such a hectic month that before the last Saturday of the month approached, three of us were already wondering if we would be able to finish reading Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan’s 470-page Beauty is a Wound in time for book club. Two of us eventually couldn’t finish reading (it’s alright, book clubs shouldn’t make us feel that stressful! :D), and thankfully the other two ladies did and we could still hold a decent discussion over chilled sea salt chocolate drinks and berry ricotta hotcake at Curious Palette! 🙂 

Translated by Annie Tucker, Beauty is a Wound was originally published in Indonesian in 2002. It is set before WWII through most of the rest of the twentieth century, focusing on the rise and fall of Dewi Ayu’s family. What’s interesting is that Kurniawan has insisted, in interviews, that Beauty is a Wound is not a historical novel founded on Indonesia’s history, even though readers are able to identify obvious parallels between Dewi Ayu’s family history and Indonesia’s history.

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As we dived into the discussion, there’s no denying how sick, horrific, even farcical, the novel is—with aplenty scenes of rape, bestiality, incest, zoophilia. These scenes beg the question if they have been overdone; were they even necessary? Looking at the story as a whole, from start to end, we also wonder if these sexually violent scenes and political undertones reflect the impact of Dutch colonialism on generations and generations of Indonesians?

On the other hand, there’s also no denying the appeal in Kurniawan’s writing: setting the hook in the very first sentence of the novel, cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, incorporating scores of memorable and fascinating characters, opening a window for English-speaking readers into Indonesia’s  culture and history.

Here are some of the questions we discussed:

  • What are some of your favourite characters?

  • Do you see any parallel between Dewi Ayu’s family history and Indonesia’s history?

  • Why do you think the author integrated a significant number of sexually violent scenes in the novel?

  • How is Dewi Ayu’s character fascinating?

  • What do you like most about the novel?

May 2021 Book Club Selection 

There are countless translated books out there, but for the convenience of our book club members we will select only books with adequate copies in the NLB. 

For our May book club, we’ll be reading Japanese writer Fuminori Nakamura’s The Thief, translated by Stephen Coates.

If you’d like to join us, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more details about our next book club meeting!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to exchange thoughts on a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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Lizzie’s Translation Diary #1: The Translation Process

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The Translation Process

By Lizzie Buehler

When I began translating Korean literature six years ago, I felt very uncertain about the process of translation. I knew that I started with a Korean text, and my goal was to produce an elegant-sounding English equivalent (ignoring the fact that there are no true “equivalents” in literary translation). But it took me several years—until I finished my first book-length project, in fact—before I became comfortable with the movement from the initial Korean to the eventual English text. I now have a fairly standard translation process that I stick to regardless of what project I’m working on. This allows me to balance my translation work with my other obligations—my PhD coursework, my own writing, etc.—while still making progress. Sometimes, of course, I fall off course, but the following is the schedule I follow the majority of the time.

1. I start by translating a very rough draft of the Korean text into English. At this point, all I want at the end of the workday is English words on the page that convey all the information in the original Korean. They don’t have to sound good, or even be grammatically correct. They just need to exist. My standard quota per day is three pages. Sometimes I’ve already read the Korean text that I’m translating already, but more often I haven’t. I used to feel like this was a shameful secret I needed to hide, but then I read Spanish translator Gregory Rabassa’s quote about how doing so gives the “translation the freshness that a first reading would have.” I want to translate the text like I’m a reader, experiencing the story for the first time.

2. After I’ve translated a chapter-length segment of the book—usually around twenty or twenty-five pages—I go through what I’ve translated and make the sentences “sound good” in English. This is where I go over the English and compare it with the Korean, too, to make sure that I haven’t made any factual errors in my first draft. I try to go through three pages a day at this stage, too.

3. Once I’ve gone through the second draft of the chapter, I print it out and reread the physical copy, marking it up as I read. Then I made edits accordingly.

4. Now I sent the chapter to a trusted reader—usually a friend or classmate whose readerly opinion I trust—and get their comments. Then I implement those as well—at least, the ones I agree with.

5. Once I’ve implemented my outside reader’s opinions, I give the chapter one more read-over, and then I’m ready to send it off!

6. I start over with the next chapter, and continue with steps 1-5 until the book is finished.

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March 2021 Book Club Report: Yeng Pway Ngon’s Unrest

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March 2021 Translated Literature Book Club Meeting

On the last Saturday of March, our book club met at Wisma Atria’s Toast Box to discuss the late Singaporean writer Yeng Pway Ngon’s Chinese-language novel Unrest, translated by Jeremy Tiang.

Three of us had finished reading the English translation, and a new friend (who didn’t want to be photographed but had kindly taken a picture for us) brought along the original Chinese novel which she’d just began to read. 

We had very interesting conversations about the differences in presentation between the original and the English translation (left to right for English, right to left and top to down for Chinese). We also discussed other book translations by Jeremy Tiang that we’d enjoyed reading, as well as other English translations of Yeng’s works that we might consider reading, such as Costume, as recommended by our new friend. 

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Diving into Unrest, most of us agreed that the novel began with a brilliant opening, curiously vacillating between first and third person perspectives for all six characters and the narrator.

The first half of the novel also offered us a glimpse into the history of 1950s-1980s Malaya, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, such as the anti-colonialism protests in Singapore and the Cultural Revolution in China. For younger Singaporeans and foreigners, the socio-political historical context was interesting to know.

But we didn’t think that Yeng succeeded with the perspective-vacillating experiment, especially as there was an abrupt change in pace and tone mid-way, when the narrator suddenly began a lengthy, awkward monologue about what to do with the female protagonist. And the rest of the story grew lacklustre.

Here are some of the questions we discussed:

  • What do you think of the author’s writing style?
  • Did the author succeed in connecting the major themes (sex and politics) of the novel?
  • Which historical themes drew your attention?
  • What made you uncomfortable reading the novel? (the male gaze, depiction of women’s bodies)
  • Would you read other novels by the same author?

April 2021 Book Club Selection 

There are countless translated books out there, but for the convenience of our book club members we will select only books with adequate copies in the NLB. 

For our April book club, we’ll be reading Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound, translated by Annie Tucker.

If you’d like to join us, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more details about our next book club meeting!

*Harriett Press’s Translated Literature Book Club is a monthly book club that meets to exchange thoughts on a translated book selected for the month. Anyone is welcome to join us!⁠ Find out more about book club meetings by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!   

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Stella’s Translation Diary #1: The Beginning

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The Beginning

By Stella Kim

One of my favorite quotes about translation comes from Umberto Eco: “Translation is the art of failure.” No matter how well something is translated, it can never capture the original text in its entirety. This quote lingers in my head as I work on translating Painter in the Wind (바람의 화원). My first draft is always full of Korean words I don’t look up, and it’s a literal translation that helps me get a sense of the book as a whole. But translating historical fiction involves an additional step that isn’t usually required by contemporary fiction—understanding the complexities of the time in which it the story is set.

That additional step requires (at times, rather extensive) research. The first sentence in the book that I translate is “아버지의 화실은 꿈을 그리는 공장이었다.” Literally, “Father’s atelier was a factory where dreams were painted.” Then I hesitate, wondering whether the term 공장, or factory, was the correct one in the Korean, considering that this story is set in the late 18th century Korea. The Naver Korean dictionary gives 10 different definitions of the term, each with different Chinese characters with the exception of the last one, which is Jeju dialect and therefore does not have corresponding Chinese characters. Of those, only one—the one meaning factory, a place with manufacturing facilities—makes sense in the given context. Then I google the word to see whether there were factories in Joseon Korea. It turns out there were—these were places run by craftsmen who belonged to the government. Then just to make sure, I look up the term “factory” to see when the English term began to be used and find out that the word “factory” came into use around the early 17th century. Then I think “mill” is another term that could be used instead, as it has been around for longer than “factory.” But then again, unless it’s preceded by “steel” or “silk” or some other descriptive term, the default definition for mill is a place equipped with machinery for grinding grain into flour. “Workshop” could be another one, so I changed my translation to “Father’s atelier was a factory/workshop where dreams were painted.” Workshop could work, since most people would associate the word factory with heavy machinery and assembly lines that we are oh-so-familiar with today. But the word “atelier” already means a workshop, so perhaps that wasn’t what the author intended. Maybe he did mean that it was like a factory. So after ten minutes of research, I’m back to my original sentence: “Father’s atelier was a factory where dreams were painted.”

Not every sentence requires 10 minutes research (thank goodness), and some of the decisions are made in split seconds, like my decision not to use the term “plant.” But I make sure to note the importance of looking over even the most straight-forward sentences in detail for anachronism, among other issues.

And as I translate the rest of the first paragraph, I return to the first sentence, thinking perhaps it should be “Father’s atelier had been a factory where dreams were painted” or ““Father’s atelier used to be a factory where dreams were painted.” But at the moment I’m unsure, so I highlight the sentence and move on.

Other words in the following paragraphs that stop me include: 도제, 아교, and 앞가리개. They’re not words often seen in Korean fiction with a contemporary setting. I can kind of deduce what they mean from the context—도제 could be apprentice; 아교 I’m unsure but something used for painting that is boiled; and 앞가리개 literally means front cover, but I think it refers to an apron. After translating a few paragraphs, I realize that I’m rather unfamiliar with discussing paintings—I studied Korean history but never art history. I sit and wonder about re-reading Girl with a Pearl Earring to get a sense of writing about art in English, as literary translation is akin to writing a novel in many ways. And I start researching books in English on traditional Korean art to get a better sense of writing specifically about traditional Korean art in English.

I’ve translated several pages since, but about 50 to 80 percent of every page is full of highlights that I need to come back to later on. Completing the first draft is going to be hard and challenging, but it’s also my favorite part in the entire translation process—where everything is new and exciting and I’m still trying to make sense of the world that is unfolding before me.

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