I was honoured this year to be invited to be a judge for
the International Dublin Literary Award (IDLA, formerly known as the IMPAC
Prize), one of the most prestigious awards for fiction. As a translator, I was
hugely excited to have the opportunity to expand my reading horizons and read
some of the best contemporary fiction, so I said yes. In short order, box after
box after box of books arrived for me, trundled down the rough track that leads
to my house in Dorset by a surprised delivery driver.
IDLA is special for several
reasons, not least because submissions can be made by any public libraries
world-wide who wish to sign up for the scheme, so the prize is a great way of
flagging up the hugely important role that such libraries have always played in
the lives of readers, young and old. But what does the IDLA have to do with my
usual blog topic, translation? Ah, well, that’s the magic of the IDLA. It’s the
only major literary prize that treats translations into English on the same
basis as works written originally in English.
Although the number of translations submitted was, unsurprisingly, less
than ‘originals’, six splendid translations, out of a total of ten, made it onto
the official shortlist.
The Unseen, Roy Jacobsen, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw.
Three generations of the Barrøy family live a subsistence life of farming,
fishing and migrant labour on an island off the coast of Norway. Their number is
gradually extended by pregnancy, (hoped-for and unplanned), passing strangers
and happenstance. We judges called it ‘beautiful and compelling; as wry and
apparently light-handed as it is intimate and fresh.’
Distant Light, Antonio Moresco, translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon. A man living
completely alone in an abandoned mountain village comes across a young boy, a
fey strange creature, and gradually wins his trust. This is a literally
haunting story in which the past and the present merge into the surreal, yet
the natural scenery and the passing of the seasons, are evoked with complete
realism. A gorgeously lush translation that does justice to the lyricism
of the original.
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye, translated from the French
by Jordan Stump. Clarisse Rivière refuses to admit to her husband Richard
and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper.
Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan, visiting her
mother in secret and telling no one of her real identity as Malinka, daughter
of Ladivine Sylla. A beautiful but disturbing story of three generations of
women whose lives are irrevocably damaged by lies and violence.
Baba Dunja’s Last Love by Alina
Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim
Mohr. Baba Dunja is a Chernobyl returnee, one of a motley bunch of former
neighbours, determined to recreate their old lives in the radioactive no-man’s
land. Only the elderly dare return to this blighted, toxic place, but return
they do, and live out their days with gusto. Wryly humorous, touching and
sharply perceptive about the humanity of old age.
The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri
Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Lisa
Dillman. In a city blighted by crime and death, feuding criminals
negotiate over the bodies of murder victims.
Herrera, the master of noir stories, builds an entire world in a concise
hundred pages. The translator does a splendid job of recreating in English his
vivid mixture of slang and lyricism.
Human Acts by Han
Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith. Interconnected stories of lives changed forever by
the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea. If you have ever read anything about
the 1973 coup d’etat that put Pinochet into power in Chile, you will recognise
the awful transition from political protest led by idealist youth to oppression,
torture, violence and death. Beautifully told, smoothly translated.
These six are a tribute both to the inclusiveness of this
prize, and the quality and range of contemporary translated fiction available
to us in English generally. Interestingly, as we judges argued back and forth
over our favourite books, we never once talked about the translated ones as
being in any way different because they had originated in another language. To
us, they were excellent works of literature and were to be judged as such. And
that, I believe, is just how it should be.
With the IDLA, there are five
judges drawn from different countries, (though this year we were all UK-based)
and usually including one translator. We spent a weekend together in November
to consider the entirety of the submissions, and over the months, and through
various conference calls, we whittled that down to a shortlist and then to one
winner. The process of that
debate was certainly challenging: I found it surprisingly difficult to
articulate why a certain book engaged me, impressed and delighted me, stayed
with me…or, conversely, irritated or bored me. Our egos definitely had to be
left outside the door.
In the end, there were several
gorgeous novels that I’ll treasure and re-read. However, there can only be one
winner. And on June 13th 2018, we met again in Dublin to celebrate
the presentation of the award to a Galway-based writer Mike McCormack, for his beautiful
novel Solar Bones. This is the story
of the dead Marcus in his own words. To quote our citation: ‘In this probing of what it
means to play out the various roles of husband, father, son, brother, colleague
and neighbour, Solar Bones offers a sharp, acerbic and often very funny
response to contemporary Irish masculinity. Its account of the relationship
between Marcus and Mairead is a particularly piercing and affecting portrayal
of contemporary marriage, with its necessary inter-webbings and defended
privacies; its desires, losses and rewards.’ According to Mike in his acceptance speech, Solar Bones did not have an easy ride to
publication; his previous publishers turned down this book on the grounds that
there was ‘too much domesticity’ and ‘no one will read it’, (I bet they’re
gnashing their teeth now) and for years no one else wanted it either, until
Tramp Press, a new small Irish publisher, took it up. ‘Too much domesticity’?
Now that’s a fascinating thought, with quite a long literary history.
After the event, I presented (offloaded?)
all 150-odd novels, with the exception of a particular favourite, Madeleine
Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing,
to the Weldmar Hospice Book Shop in Dorchester where I live. They then asked me
to talk about the Dublin Literary Award to a group of local readers who, fired
up my enthusiasm and by-now-intimate knowledge of a good number of the novels,
swooped on them and bought all the best ones up. So we were able to continue
the literary celebrations. And, yes, in spite of (or rather, because of) all
that intensive reading, I’d do it again any day; I feel as privileged to have
been part of the IDLA now as I did when I was first asked.
