Ideally, a sentence read aloud, in a foreign language, should still sound like something, even if the listener has no idea what it is he or she is being told. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear. Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. Here’s where the job of translation gets more difficult. What else do Melville’s words possess that “Idiot, read this” lack? “Idiot, read this” has force and confidence too, but is less likely to produce the desired effect. The translator’s first task, then, is to re-render a certain forcefulness that can’t quite be described or explained.Īlthough the words “Call me Ishmael” have force and confidence, force and confidence alone aren’t enough. You know almost instantly whether you have a novice on your hands, and that if you do, you’ll have to do a fair amount of work just to keep things moving.Īuthority is a rather mysterious quality, and it’s almost impossible to parse it for its components. Anyone who is able to waltz, or fox-trot, or tango, or perform any sort of dance that requires physical contact with a responsive partner, knows that there is a first moment, on the dance floor, when you assess, automatically, whether the new partner in question can dance at all - and if he or she can in fact dance, how well. It’s a little like waltzing with a new partner for the first time. As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers. What’s the big deal?įor one thing, they possess that most fundamental but elusive of all writerly qualities: authority. Let’s take as an example one of the most famous lines in literature: “Call me Ishmael.” That, as I suspect you know, is the opening sentence of Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick.” We still recognize that line, after more than 150 years.

“Translation” as a human act is, like so many human acts, a far more complicated proposition than it may initially seem to be. That is, translation is not merely a job assigned to a translator expert in a foreign language, but a long, complex and even profound series of transformations that involve the writer and reader as well. FOUND IN TRANSLATION by MICHAEL CUNNINGHAMĪS the author of “Las Horas,” “Die Stunden” and “De Uren” - ostensibly the Spanish, German and Dutch translations of my book “The Hours,” but actually unique works in their own right - I’ve come to understand that all literature is a product of translation.

As Horas by Michael Cunningham