Introductory Conversation with Simon Leser (World Literature Book Group)

all right and thank you for joining us today for our world literature book group which beats every second and fourth Wednesdays of each month both on site at Mechanics Institute in downtown San Francisco and online via Zoom I'm Nico Chen and I am the program manager here at Mechanics Institute today we are starting a little earlier because we are joined by a special guest the wonderful Simon lesser who is the translator of far away the southern Sky by Joseph Andress Simon do you want to quickly intr uce yourself to the group yes um so my name is Simon I am a a translator from French and I also am in the French department at NYU where I'm currently uh finishing a doctorate so writing a dissertation on late 19th and early 20th century literature oh cool thank you so much Simon and for our introductory conversation with Simon today I will begin with a prepared list of questions and at around 5:45 p.m. we'll open it up to the Q&A with the group um you can either add your questions into our chat box as your questions emerge or you can also use the raise hand function in your zoom and I'll call on you if you want to ask that question yourself um and Simon um I was supposed to read your bio but you've actually told us quite a few things but this might be competitive oh sorry repetitive Simon ler is a PhD candidate in the department of French literature thought and culture at New York University where he works on questions of voice and musicality in late 19th and early 20th century literature we've gathered here today to talk about his translation of Joseph Andrew's far away the southern Sky uh published by Verso so my first question for Simon is Simon we started with your professional bio but we would also love to learn more about your linguistic Auto biography so in other words How might people understand who you are through the lens of language um sure I mean uh I suppose the the easiest way to go about that is to say uh that I my first Lang so there go can can you hear me now is this better yes I can hear you yeah okay good uh so as I was saying my first language is actually French um and I am indeed French for all intents and purposes uh but English is a close second language so I was raised by um journalist I'm the child of journalist who at some point had to move around for work uh and so from the age of nine onwards and basically I lived in anglophone countries um and clearly the kind of relationship between the two languages French and English um which is the two literatures I work on and do research on and obviously the passage from one to the next in Via translation all of these things are stayed with me and are kind of the integral part of my professional life thank you for sharing that with the assignment and um let's talk a little bit about far away the southern sky and Joseph Andress what Drew you to this work and or this author um so a bit about Joseph andras um I don't know how much you you you've discussed him or are about to discuss him in general but he is a very interesting contemporary French writer I think the first thing perhaps to note about him is that he writes under a pseudonym so Joseph vras is not a real name he doesn't want anyone to know what his real name is uh his first novel which I also translated um I think the English title as I remember is uh tomorrow they won't dare to murder us it's a novel about the Algerian War uh it was published in France in 2015 uh where it won him at least one uh very prestigious prize uh the pr for for debut NOS which he refused um both because he did not want uh his identity to be revealed uh but also for political reasons he I believe one of the main reasons he refused it in his statement was that um he didn't want competition to be a part of literature in any way and you think it's wrong to for for for authors to and books to be made to compete in that way um so he's he's he's a very interesting writer I find for for for these reasons and in fact for the the reason for the fact that he Blends kind of a very strong interest and in fact is animated by by radical lewing politics uh but unlike perhaps the cliche of those writers that are uh you know radical especially on the left um he is has an avowed poetic bent and an interest also in language for the sake of language and so the kind of juxtaposition between the two Devotion to political subject while also um an interest in um yeah in in theoretic language or in language for its own sake a lyrical attention to language I think the combination of the two makes him a very very interesting writer and a kind of unique writer both within the French context and Via translation I think certainly within within the American context and would you mind just reading a little bit from the book itself a passage to give us an idea of the author's voice in your translation uh sure I remember you sent me you told me how long I shouldn't be very long about this uh so maybe I'll just read a page or two something like that yeah two two to three minutes would be you know like a okay so two pages at the most okay okay um I mean just also uh I know I would actually I don't know I would imagine you You' all had to read it or parts of it perhaps not yet but um maybe I should introduce it I mean this is very quickly so far away the southern sky in French and it's about hoi before he was hoi Min so his formative years immediately after the first World War uh where which he spent in uh Paris and I'll read the opening two pages which are uh I think quite a grandiose opening and my editor had uh had some problems with him but I I I like it very much maybe we'll hear what you have to think about there is no life but in the shadows in backlight and in the features we struggle to discern in the Silhouettes doubtful of their shapes and in the subdued if not subjugated glimmer the words have said in the haze the galleries delved into and the Embers shed in our hand great men failed at all you think bartering their souls for the Limelight glory and renown's 11 letters spell the same defeat so much blood under the pedestals of their statues such surrender on the radiant screens so many emissions in the exalted scenes nothing quite appr paves like success once warned a commun dear to your heart hoimin the icon the revered supreme leader interests you very little portraits printed on Bank notes from Vietnam on over by International Trade even less you only ever cherish those of the back the losers the ignore the third rates the fuckups those there laid low on their shoddy Stars not worth even a penny we know the president illustrious goatey enthroned in history somewhere between Lenin and Gandhi indeed that's probably all we know the high priest of a communism perished and everywhere denounced but the man for whom you Harbor such affection was still a moneyless vagabond he wasn't called hoi men for one thing he changed names like he changed sh sweating in the hope no less of making us all equal at last he slept in Pixy wrote articles in a language his mother had never sung to him in and roamed Paris under the eyes of devious cops it's this man in Exile in the nooks of a capital just out of the wall that you go in search of knowing you won't find a thing thank you so much for sharing that passage with us that was beautifully read yeah I see some nods and some you know happy faces after that beautiful reading Simon thank you and for those of us who may not be familiar with the art of translation can you tell us a little bit more about the translation process how did you encounter this work what was its road to publication um well that's quite straightforward so I published I mean I translated his first novel and then I just had a conversation with my editor at Verso books about what to do next it was between the this book and another one myor thought this one sounded more he doesn't read French but he thought the idea of this one sounded more interesting and so he went with this one um the uh transl translation process I mean the the translation is kind of a it's it's it's a game like creative writing but just with uh more constraints more rules uh because you do have to reproduce and stay as close as possible or reproduce a version of of of of work in another language um and so it always involves a couple of drafts uh the way I start is you know one has to start close as possible to the original language basically do as literal a translation as you can um staying always paying attention very closely very it's almost a very close reading of the original work uh and making making sure you have all the particular arrangement of the words the choices that the author makes um on the page and then uh through you know three four sometimes five other drafts uh you slowly get the original language out of your mind um and start editing English Pros like it's English Pros first and foremost because you uh absolutely do not want to to the book to read like it is a translation basically I'm going to now open it up to a Q&A I don't see any questions in the chat box but does anybody want to step in and ask a Libby go ahead I'll ask a question this language in this book is um kind of challenging I think and I was wondering do you read the book many times before you even begin to translate it and do you do any background um homework on like hoochi men and on any um on the book before you start um so some translators steadfastly refuse to read uh the book They're translating uh before they translate um because uh they want to ensure that the the language they reproducing and the effect they're going for is as close as possible to the effect of the effect they had when they read it the first time OB if you read a book many times uh you kind of can get lost in the we or you lose just the idea of yeah what it's like reading it for the first time I'm not so fussy so I did read it beforehand and in fact that part of the ation had with the editor was um you know based on that experience and reading you know that book and another one by andras um and as for research there's all sorts of things that have to be researched um in um whether it's about hoim men's life so had to verify there's some moments as you can say the the language is is uh can be is extremely precise but it's lyrical and it's uh in French especially something that is very difficult to do in English is it mixes slang with very refined and very uh higher brow kind of uh vocabulary um and some slang for example was is very dated so it would have been words that would have been common in 1920s in Paris um and so there's there's a kind of research around vocabulary for that to make sure the the words that then I had to to find it was come to be somewhat equivalent to those in French weren't um were from that era and then yes the hoim Men's Life uh had to I mean there's whether it's you know there's a moment in there I think there's there's a poem by Pelini which I had to look up in the original Italian because I couldn't find there was no translation of it in English and I didn't know exactly where he got it from those moments in hoan's life I wasn't sure exactly at some point what andras was trying to say so I had to look up exactly I think it was when he was imprisoned in China or something was it after he went back to to Vietnam before the English you know imprisoned him before or something like that I remember having to do you know having to look up properly in the biography so yes there's always there's always research involved basically okay I have a question uh I have actually two questions the first one is uh do you find that the people that you do these translations for uh actually go out behind you and try to find somebody who speaks the same language and then reads what you've done and says yeah good bad and different okay that's the first question second question is what's the French equivalent of [ __ ] up um the first question is easy so the the Verso actually hires a copy editor that speaks French so um the final the kind of read through for grammar and uh you know checks particular turns of phrases to see that seem a bit weird and it's like did the author actually do that uh there's someone that goes over it at least one person that goes over it and speaks French as for the French equivalent to [ __ ] up I have the hold on I have the French right here it is um could you spell it I don't think I can do that yes f o i r e x uh is French slang it's a verb uh and yeah it means to if someone is a yeah they messed up their lives they're [ __ ] up they're they're down and out basically oh thank you well I'm glad we don't have to quite censor this but we're gonna go Scott Mara and then Caroline okay all right Scott your question please well my question is um have you met Joseph Andress and pro I don't know physically but at least you know by on phone or by some way of communication were you able to disc discuss your translation with them have a dialogue about it uh was he able to read it in English or does he not speak English so just you know more or less that dance or that dialogue did you have that with him um so I've only ever corresponded with uh andras via email he has a personal email that people can can get in touch with with which people can get in touch with them um and yeah I've discussed I mean his English I know he's talked to he can to my editor and and I don't know if he uses essentially you know transl internet translation to but he can sort of correspond in English um but uh i' I've always I always make sure to send him a draft of the translation before uh there's even conversations with the other so when I send the first draft to the publisher I always send it to him as well but he never has I mean besides say conversations about the title of the first novel for example which had to be which the editor wanted changed and andas was and I didn't particularly want it but um but andas was like okay if they want to change it then it has to be taken from the same poem that I took my T from so stuff like that usually he's very um very hands on thank you Simon um Mara do you want to ask your question oh I have a FAL question who's the lady is on mute the right shoulder over your right shoulder who's the lady over your right shoulder that's uh that's actually the person I sh in office with someone here uh but that is by the look of it a Russian lady but I couldn't I couldn't tell you more Mar you you're on mute M yeah okay there I am um how long does it generally take to to like finish a translation and do you often not have enough time to get it finished in terms of the which when the publisher would like to get it finished I mean I always send in a draft when when it's due um the I mean it's it's those questions are difficult to understand I mean if I was uh difficult to respond to because uh I've never had the luxury of just working on the translation you know i' I've translated was what also teaching or writing you know academic articles or doing research on something else um but this one yeah I mean doing all of that it's a very small book it's in English it ended up being 30,000 words or something and it's still with all the drafts and then with the kind of then the the editor coming in and asking for it to the process was a year year and a half something like oh okay interesting but you know I knew I mean I know translators who who who mostly just devote themselves to translation and a book like that they could do I think I could do as well three four months okay thanks interesting yeah I also have two questions first one um it's just a stunning translation it's really beautiful um I and I it I really felt like it was kind of in oh I kind of felt like was in a dream like moving into the past and wasn't I was an invisible kind of being floating around in the streets at that time trying to get the experience of of being there I does uh the question was is that that sort of dreamlike or lyrical poetic is that is that what he uses in other books or is that a voice for this book um so he always there's always yes there's always that aspect uh to it but it's it's more or less so um he has a book that is much more um almost a journalist book not quite his second book um was about uh uh the kind of the French island possession in the Pacific or new calonia and about a a revolutionary militant who was killed there in the early 1990s and that's much more kind of straightforward in the way he goes about it but there in the way it's written it's much more like I'm on the ground looking for what happens uh you know in the in the late 880s on this island um but there some of those other novels I mean I highly uh I really want to make sure that this one is the next book of his that's translated he wrote a book also that came out in 2022 uh about kamid de Mulan was an important figure during the French Revolution that's also for example very lyrical and I think also the first novel the one that's already it's also been translated is also more lyrical though um was so much more violent uh um but yes there's always yes he it's clearly an interest of us what was the name of the book from 2022 uhat it hasn't been translated yes it's would be to fight you to fight or to fight the the second real quick question is there's a you may you probably haven't seen it but a friend sent it to me an article on translation in the current New Yorker I think it's by David surles about no so it's about it's about demons actually a friend of mine wrote it by Max Norman who's a a good critic good J so I was really interested in that idea of phenomen phenomenology in Translation can you comment on that so I haven't read Daman s's book so I can't quite comment on it um but it is basically I mean this is uh there's another critic called Clive scull who's also published a book last year and it seems to be yeah yeah a way um critics or at least academic critics are are going about trying to understand the process of translation uh and through phenomenologies of reading so it is uh not so much trying to understand the act of reading as a kind of deciphering interpretation of the text as as a you know a moment that's not in time but really what happens when you read a book when one has to interact with the language in front of them uh and that I think I suspect though again I haven't read s's book but might be interesting as the means of talking about translation um because it allows one to to write about translation as a first and foremost an act of reading it is basically one's interpretation of the text in front of them in the moment that it then tries to be reproduced uh rather than a kind of uh uh than just going for meaning and like delving deeper and deeper into the potential potentialities the meaning underneath the word etc etc it's about the the the text as it exist in a moment when is's reading them when he's reading it the question was does that work for you oh I didn't hear sorry does that work for me as in yeah yeah as in uh do I think that's a that's that's quite I think I think there's a bit too much that's done with phenomenology um and uh both in ter in general for for to to write about reading but also a translation translation there is I mean what I like about translation is also what I suspect people have problems with is is that it's you can't win there's no actual way you can really reproduce the text in front of you and some people are really disappointed by that uh the the essentially the full kind of context of the choices of the sentences of the kind of the the sheer history and tradition behind especially writer as as interesting and as lyrical as andras behind every little decision and every turn of phrase is not something that one can reproduce exactly in English one can give equivalence and so some people try to rescue translation as a a kind of AR of potentiality as in one can read attex in however many ways and I'm introducing as you know these whatever few ways in my translations so the art is about again the reader that's reading it that's reading the work and and allowing for all these potential interpretation these moment is rapport with the tax but I think really it's it's about making choices and and being fair to the original text and to the reader and and also while ensuring that the text you write is interesting and good it's a bit more I I I have more simplistic perhaps idea than uh than the phenomenologist at least works and I do want to honor um Simon's time so we have time for two more questions first we'll start with Keith and then we'll have one more go ahead Keith yeah now that you translated two of his books do you have a suspicion as to who he is and is that a question that even interest you um I remember well actually I know I think I know his his name um his real name and um one thing I suppose I can I can reveal is that uh there there are moments there are weeks on end when uh Joseph cannot be reached and he travels a lot around the world uh I translated a small text by him a few years ago in which he spend in which he he writes about the few weeks he spent in uh in Mexico in in shiaas in in in southern Mexico with the the zapatista brigades there and was observing kind of what was going on there I know he spent a lot of time in turkey and in particular in Eastern Turkey in Kurdistan and he is uh um yeah he he he he has connections with uh certainly with it seems political activists in very many countries around the world and he writes about them I think he'd be if anything actually he would want me to mention a book that still hasn't been translated yet which he wrote two years ago about a Kurdish musician who's has been impr prisoned for many years in a Turkish prison called nudem durak and he's been trying to get her out and trying to get and wrote a book about it but is she's still unfortunately uh in prison there so that's that's that's what I can say I think I know certainly uh the kind of yeah the kind of man he is what he does uh I'm sure I'm more as convinced that he used to be an activist in France perhaps in in his younger days say 15 20 years ago um but otherwise you know I yeah besides that I can't I couldn't tell you more and we will have Carol ask the last question and you answered my question I was going to ask um about the um dedication to new who who that person was and now you said 31 day she's in prison in Turkey yeah she's a musician he's uh visited her family in fact few going and keep it's going back there a few times um wrote a book again that hasn't been translated trying to get a publisher in the US interested but it um and yeah she's uh she's the figure of the of the let's say an unfortunate victim and kind of symbol of the of the Turkish repression on the cish population I'm going to jump in with just one more question um do you want to tell us about any any recent or upcoming projects that you are excited about uh my own project specifically uh well uh well there's a lot of academic language I don't think uh that said if you're interested in Translation I um wrote uh an essay in which actually so max Norman who wrote that piece in New York about Damon s was my editor um it's for a magazine called the drift and it's about uh I heard someone mention PR earlier it's about the pr translation there's new translations of Marcel po um In Search of Lost time being published every few years and they keep coming and it's an essay both about translation in general and about the relative merits of uh these translations so if you're interested in Reading PR or you are reading pu and you want to know how the hell he came into English and what that means for him then do check well thank you so much for taking the time out of your day once again Simon this is one of the best holiday gifts to this book can possibly on us um so um once again thank you for being here and we are now going to be um transitioning into our informal discussion thank you thank you very much and I hope you have a nice I hope this book at least allows you a nice conversation nice discussion and thank you for zooming all the way in from New York City and um in case you're ever in San Francisco um just shoot me an email and we're more than happy to give you a personal tour of Mechanics Institute okay thank you very much thank you thank you bye thank you