#And I even heard from some professional lit translators that they don't necessarily care about the work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

salvadorbonaparte · 1 year

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I have to translate five poems for my portfolio and I picked Nina Mingya Powles because I really vibe with the way she talks about home and heritage and language but I'm also neither from Aotearoa nor Malaysian-Chinese so there's just a lot of research involved in this translation but I also really just want to get the feeling right.

#Most translators don't translate literature and it's totally normal to not really care about what you're translating #As long as you do a good job #And I even heard from some professional lit translators that they don't necessarily care about the work #But I think with poetry translation the connection has to be there #I don't think you have to be a poet to translate poetry but you need some connection to poetry #And like when it comes to heritage I think anyone can translate anything informally #But if this was a published translation the author should get a say in the matter #I don't know Nina Mingya Powles but if someone tried to get the rights for the German Market #And she said she wanted a Chinese German translator that would be her right as the poet I think #But I also know there are plenty of authors who don't care as long as the translator is good and respectful #Anyway I think the ethics of this are fine because it's just for a portfolio #But I'm trying to be really respectful to her heritage because it's an important part of the work #And I have my own different connection to heritage that I explore while translating her work

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