Chi-Young Kim is one of the best known young translators of Korean fiction. To this date, she has translated and published five Korean novels in English: I have the Right to Destroy Myself (2007) and Your Republic is Calling You (2010) by Kim Young-ha, Toy City (2007) by Lee Dong-ha, Tongue (2009) by Jo Kyung-ran, and most recently Please Look After Mom (2011) by Shin Kyung-sook. Kim and I recently conducted an e-mail interview.
(For Part 1 of this interview, click here.)
SOV: I really like what you said about dialogue — the importance of “underlying sentiments and unspoken feelings.” There are all kinds of subtextual cues about the way characters talk and behave towards each other that usually help us understand characters better. Literal translations of dialogue often run the risk of destroying any sense of a lively interaction between speakers. I remember being especially impressed by the fluency of all the colloquialisms in your translation of Kim Young-ha’s first book (I know from experience how hard it can be to keep these sooth). Can you talk about specific instances of slang or idiomatic expressions that you might have struggled with? (I think it might help less-experienced translators to hear how you work through these specific issues.)
CYK: I can’t think of anything specific about the slang/colloquialisms in I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (it’s been several years…) but I was just working on something recently, where a prostitute says to her customer, “자기 멋져.” I kept coming back to that, because not only do you have to convey the meaning behind it, you also have to make it sound authentic. I don’t think a woman in that situation would say, “Honey, you’re great.” I thought about how prostitutes spoke to each other in books and movies. In the past year, I’d read Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, which has several prostitutes as the main characters. I thought about how he had described that world, and how those characters spoke, and settled on “Baby, you’re awesome,” for now. It still doesn’t feel 100% right to me, so I’ll probably revisit it later, after I have some more time to think about it. Usually, I’ll put something down in my first draft, as a place holder, and then go back to it again and again. Often, I’ll ask people around me what they think someone would say in a certain situation. Frequently it isn’t until the last moment that I settle on something, and even then, that’s not the end of it. Since the editorial process at publishing companies take a year or so, in that time various copy editors/editors may make better suggestions, or I might think of something more fitting. Time and willingness to be open to other suggestions are two very important factors when I try to find the perfect expression for things like that.
SOV: 멋져 in general has been a problem for me on several occasions. It always sounds so uncool when you translate it as “cool” which defeats the purpose. And it’s something that anyone can say in Korean, young, old, male, female…whereas “cool” sounds odd or stilted coming from certain demographics…
I also really like the idea of a translator researching different kinds of books (as you did with Let the Great World Spin) to piece together various situational lingo, and in that sense, translations are like idiomatic collages.
CYK: I think it’s so important for a translator to be widely read, and not just in his or her language(s) of focus. When anyone asks me how to become a translator/a better translator, I always tell them that they should read a lot in the target language, not only works written in English, but also works that are translated into English (from various other languages). Plus, it’s fun.
SOV: Translators are often reprimanded for all that might be lost in translation. People don’t talk enough about what might be gained. I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are on Shin Kyung-sook’s book being released in the United States (besides the obvious boon it will be for the market value of Korean literature in the future). While her book had a prior *existence* in South Korea, it is being reborn as a new text in a very real way. How do you see the text as having evolved through the process of translation? I know that you’ve worked in literary publishing before, so it might be interesting to hear your thoughts on how her book (or, for that matter, other books you’ve previously translated) have added to the U.S. literary discourse.
CYK: The English version of Please Look After Mom is somewhat different from the Korean original. For the American audience, the editor thought it would be confusing that Chi-hon never refers to her boyfriend by name, so we asked Ms. Shin about that, and she provided us with the boyfriend’s name. There were other instances where I had to add on some explanatory details; there is a scene where Mom says, I don’t want to be buried under you, Aunt, which makes sense when you know what Korean graves look like, but not if you’re picturing a Western-style cemetery. The editors and I went back and forth on this, because they kept thinking I meant “behind” of something else. So we added on a sentence, describing briefly how Korean graves are on a slope, and the different graves are situated on the slope depending on your age, etc. Another example is:
“- 박소녀.그때 당신이 웃었네. 왜 그런 마음이 들었는지 모르겠소. 나는 당신을 한번 더 웃게 해주고 싶었네. 그래, 당신이 묻지도 않았는데 언니 이름은 대녀라고 알려주었네. 당신은 한번 더 웃었소. 그러더니 자신의 이름은 은규, 형 이름은 금규라고 했소. 부친이 이름을 지을 때 제발 돈 많이 벌어서 부자로 살라는 뜻을 담은 이름이라고. 당신 형제들을 부를 때 금궤야, 은궤야, 라고 불렀다고. 그 덕분인지 금궤인 형이 은궤인 자신보다 쬐금 더 잘산다고.”
“‘Park So-nyo.” You laughed then. I don’t know why I did what I did next, just that I wanted to get you to laugh one more time. Even though you didn’t ask, I told you that my older sister’s name was Tae-nyo, which means “big girl.” Our names–Little Girl and Big Girl. You laughed again. Then you said that your name was Eun-gyu and your elder brother was Kum-gyu. That your father gave you names containing the words “silver” and “gold,” with the hope that you would earn money and live well. That he called you Silver Coffer and your brother Gold Coffer. That, perhaps because of that, your brother, Gold Coffer, lived a tiny bit better than you, Silver Coffer.”
Since this novel is being well received in the States, and because it deals with universal themes and very accessible, I think it has the potential to introduce Korea and Korean culture to a wider audience, to people who might never have known anything about Korea.
SOV: I also wanted to have you talk a little about reviews of literary translations. There’s a common critique, that reviews often ignore the fact that a book is a translation, and that if it is acknowledged, there are usually a few token lines, about the book’s readability and faithfulness, etc. Do you have any fantasies about the ideal book review of a translation? Not necessarily about your own translation, but a book review that is really sympathetic to the various challenges and considerations that go into a translation and engage the final product at that level — everything from the book’s selection process to the way it is being marketed to readers. You know, some novelists dismiss book reviewers by saying that “they can’t possibly know how hard it is to create something” and therefore prefer their books to be reviewed by other novelists. I think that’s a little extreme, but I wonder if a similar case might be made for reviews of translation… To put it another way, what are some guidelines you’d like to suggest for book reviewers who are confronted with a translation manuscript
CYK: Well, I don’t know if a review could really address the various challenges and considerations that go into a translation; it would not only have to be someone who is equally well versed in the original language/culture and the target language/culture, but also someone who is actually a literary translator (because the mere fact that someone is bilingual doesn’t make that person a translator, and especially not a literary translator!). And that person would also have to know about the publishing/literary world in the US AND in Korea. I don’t know if that ideal person really exists. And even if that person existed, I’m not sure what kind of review I would want to read. I guess what I find interesting and fascinating about reviews is that it’s very personal and subjective (as it necessarily is); well respected reviewers can all have different opinions, and take away different things from the same book. So people who are more interested in foreign literature would perhaps mention the translation, while someone else might point out something completely different. I always think that a book becomes, in translation, partly the translator’s, and maybe the book also partly becomes the reviewer’s, and also the reader’s, once they read it. Does that make sense? I always find it fascinating how different people read things differently; that’s true in my personal life, when I discuss books with friends and colleagues, and it’s true in the reviewing world (for instance, the NPR was pretty harsh in its review of Please Look After Mom, while other publications tended to be more positive about it).
SOV: Thank you so much for your time, Chi-Young. I am sure that translators and readers will find your insights enormously helpful. We look forward to seeing more of your work out there!
(For Part 1 of this interview, click here.)
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