Intervista sull'esperienza di traduzione di letteratura per l'infanzia in Italia

MAGAGNIN, P.

English

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Blog at WordPress.com.104. Chinese children’sliterature in Italy – interviewwith Paolo MagagninPaolo Magagnin is Professor of Chinese at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He is also atranslator and promoter of Chinese children’s literature. We’re delighted that he agreed tobe interviewed, to tell us about his work, his experiences as a translator, and theexpanding world of Chinese children’s books in Italy! We’re also pleased to post thisinterview in September, which is #WorldKidLitMonth. HW: Please tell us about yourself. What would you like our readers to know aboutyou?PM: I am a professor of Chinese at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, where I have beenteaching for a decade. I am lucky enough to be able to translate Chinese fiction, howeveroccasionally, as a way to take a break from my teaching duties and to “stay in shape” as atranslator. I have translated a few novels, short stories, and novellas by Xiao Bai ⼩⽩, XuZechen 徐则⾂, Chen He 陈河, A Yi 阿⼄, Zhu Wen 朱⽂ and a few other contemporaryfiction writers. Unfortunately, translation is not highly valued in the Italian academia, whereit is often seen as little more than a pastime – or worse, a distraction from “serious”research. Because of this, I do not translate as much as I used to or would like toanymore, but still jump at the opportunity whenever I can. I am currently working on thetranslation of Shuang Xuetao’s 双雪涛 short story collection “Moses on the Plain” 《平原上的摩⻄》. However, what may be of most interest to the readers of the blog is the factthat I have translated two of Cao Wenxuan’s 曹⽂轩 most successful books, Bronze andSunflower 《⻘铜葵花》and The Straw House 《草房⼦》。Girasole and La Scuola dal Tetto di Paglia, the Italian editions of Bronze and Sunflower,and The Straw House, both by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Paolo Magagnin (imagesource: Giunti)HW: How did you come to translate Cao Wenxuan’s Bronze and Sunflower?PM: I reckon this is one of those mysteries that often occur in the translation world. InSeptember 2014, totally out of the blue, I received an email from the director of thechildren’s series of Giunti, one of the top publishing houses in Italy, and surely the biggestin terms of literature for children and young adults. She told me they had recentlypurchased the rights to the book, and that “my name had come up” while they werelooking for a translator. She asked me if I was interested in taking the job, and I quicklysaid yes despite the tight deadline – only 4 months – which fell right in the middle of a busysemester and a research trip to Beijing. I had only translated three novels by then, and Iwas anything but an established translator from Chinese. To this day, I do not know inwhat circumstances and thanks to whom “my name had come up”, but it was thebeginning of an extraordinary, and sometimes rocky, journey. As far as I know, no Chinese-language children’s book had been previously translated into Italian at that time, so Cao’snovel was a first. I think that, by choosing to embark on this project, the publisher took aleap into the (almost) unknown. A French edition, Bronze et Tournesol, tr. Brigitte Guilbaud,was available (Giunti sent it to me as a reference, naively hoping I would base my owntranslation on it). The rumour mill had probably been running for a while in the internationalpublishing world, and your English translation  was probably already in the works.Moreover, Cao’s reputation was already growing as a  candidate for the Hans ChristianAndersen Award, which he eventually won in 2016. So this whole thing was the result of amix of fortunate conditions. I am happy I was at the right place at the right time – althoughtotally unsuspectingly.Bronze et Tournesol (French) and Bronze and Sunflower, by CaoWenxuan, translated by Brigitte Guilbaud (French) and Helen Wang(English)If I can spend a few words on the translation itself, I will point out that translating Cao wasa great training ground. Before that, in my brief experience as a translator, I had never fullyrealized what was at stake, or had to discuss or justify my choices, or been required towork with a very specific model reader in mind. But then, especially with Bronze andSunflower, I had to outline an extremely detailed translation project. Most importantly, I wasconfronted with all the constraints that are inherent in the genre. Some of these constraintswere objective, as I had to ponder my lexical and syntactic choices so as to fit the agegroup that the publisher wished to address – I was told at the outset that my readers wereexpected to be between 10 and a very optimistic 15, but Giunti eventually settled for 11(as marked on the book’s webpage). Some other constraints I felt were simply made upand preposterous, which caused me to start more than one fight with the series directorand the editor. For instance, I fiercely objected to the choice to delete some of thenumerous lyrical, bucolic passages (which, I was told, were unusual and would causeyoung Italian readers to lose interest), as well as the postface, and to systematicallyreplace my colourful expressions and idioms (which I inserted for the sake of both thepleasure of reading and the readers’ stylistic education) with more commonplace(borderline dull) ones. A few of my demands were met, many others were not. I had my fairshare of distress, but all in all, the whole process really helped me grow as a translator andbecome more fully aware of my role, of my power and of its limits.HW: Could you tell us more about Chinese children’s books that are now availablein Italian?PM: Compared to the French and the Anglo-American market, the Italian publishing worldhas always been conservative and narrow-minded when it comes to the literature of theSinosphere, including literature targeted at children and young adults. Since Bronze andSunflower was published, and especially after Cao won the Andersen Award, however,Italian publishers began to be slightly more alert to Chinese-language children’s books. Acouple years after Bronze and Sunflower (2015), Giunti asked me to translate The StrawHouse (2018) and another very talented colleague was asked to translate Ximi (which willhopefully be available in bookshops soon). Having said this, the Italian situation is still farfrom satisfying, and interest in this literature has not boomed as it has in other markets. Itried to use what little bargaining power I have to promote a few texts that I consideredwere worth publishing, but so far to no avail. For example, I tried to interest Giunti in LinMan-chiu’s 林满秋 The Ventriloquist’s Daughter 《腹语师的⼥⼉》, providing your Englishtranslation as reference. But, I was told the story was too dark and disturbing for theaudience they had in mind.However, picture books are an entirely different story. The most striking example isTaiwanese writer and illustrator Jimmy Liao’s ⼏⽶ amazing works. Thanks to the tirelessand passionate endeavours of translator and agent Silvia Torchio, they have beenpublished in Italian since the early 2010s by a few forward-thinking Italian publishinghouses, notably Edizioni Gruppo Abele, Terre di Mezzo, and Camelozampa (incidentally,the latter was awarded the BOP – Bologna Prize for the Best Children’s Publishers of theYear prize at the 2020 BCBF). Jimmy Liao’s latest Italian translation, Gatti come noi (Mimanchi, dove sei?) 《遗失了⼀只猫》 (A Cat Went Missing), was published a few monthsago.One picture book that I was pleasantly surprised to see translated is Xu Lu’s 徐鲁 L’erbamagica di Tu Youyou. La scienziata che sconfisse la malaria 《神奇的⼩草》(Tu Youyou’sMiraculous Herb). The scientist who beat malaria), translated by Beatrice Masini, illustratedby Alice Coppini. The book gives the life story of Tu Youyou 屠呦呦, the first Chinesewoman scientist to be awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. Indeed, in the Italianmarket, books popularizing science for young readers are an ever-growing sub-segment.Finally, I’d like to mention a bold experiment made by the publishing house associated witha platform devoted to Chinese-Italian cultural exchange, Cina in Italia. They have recentlymade available Bai Bing’s ⽩冰 picture book L’albero di ombrelli 《⾬伞树》(The UmbrellaTree), translated by Giulia Carbone and illustrated by Li Hongzhuan 李红专. It is interestingto see this as a partially bilingual edition with an overtly educational twist, as it features asection that encourages children to learn a number of Chinese characters and to practicetheir writing. There are many other examples of successful and enjoyable Chinese picturebooks that are currently available in Italian, but I will limit myself to these few examples. Asfor the relative predominance of this genre, I assume it is generally perceived by publishersas being more easily marketable compared to other forms of children’s literature (especiallynovels, short stories being sort of taboo in the Italian publishing industry), not to mentionthat the costs of translation are significantly lower!Anyway, I do not think the success of picture books lies in the fact that they make for“easy” reading, which seems to be what most publishers look for. If you take Jimmy Liao’sworks, for instance, the topics and feelings they portray – loss, death, loneliness etc. – areundeniably as deep and “difficult” – and more often than not, deeper – than those that canbe found in more “serious” children’s fiction. Hopefully, in the next future, the growinginterest for picture books will boost the introduction and circulation of other works: theycould act as a reassuring market foundation for publishers, and as “gateway” books foryoung readers, once they are ready to move on to more complex and more articulateforms.HW: You’ve also examined the translation process in a very professional andscholarly way. However, I (and many of our readers) am not trained in translationstudies, theory or linguistics. Could you tell us about what’s involved, what aresome of the key things you look for?PM: When you look at it through the prism of translation, children’s literature is a miniatureworld that allows you to engage in virtually endless reflection, and to do so from amultitude of different perspectives. In this sense, children’s books are a real treasure trovefor us scholars of translation. Of course, the typical aspect one can analyse is the textuallevel: the translator’s lexical and syntactic choices, the handling of registers, the translationof proper nouns etc. However, if you have an interest in the economics of translation, youcan also investigate children’s books as products on a market that possesses a number ofdistinct characteristics. For example, if you are interested in sociological dynamics, youcan examine the complex network of agents, scouts, sponsors, publishers, editors,translators, and institutions that work together – or despite one another – to select thetexts to be translated, and which influence the mechanisms of translation. Or you mightwant to explore the psycho-linguistic aspects of translated children’s literature, itsimportance for the literacy and literary education of foreign readers, its significance forcross-cultural communication etc. Of course, all these aspects and approaches are by nomeans unique to children’s literature. However, here they are characterized by a set ofunique features and a much higher degree of differentiation, because of the specific natureof the stakeholders involved, the multiple genres that fall within the umbrella category of“children’s books”, the clearly separate age groups of the readers that different booksaddress, and so on.As for my own work as a scholar, the aspects of children’s literature that intrigue me themost are the same ones that I was – and still am – confronted with as a translationpractitioner, with a twofold focus. On the one hand, I carry out research on themanipulation of translation manuscripts by publishers and editors. Textual adaptation in itsvarious, more or less ethically correct forms, is a widespread practice in the translation ofchildren’s books – and, as I said above, I experienced this phenomenon first-hand. Moregenerally, I focus on the linguistic and translational policies, as well as on the ideologicalfactors that govern Chinese children’s literature in translation. On the other hand, I alsohave a sociological interest in the politics of promotion and reception of children’s books,with an eye to the role of Chinese official and non-official players (governmental bodies andsponsors, critics, and academics), the work of foreign publishers and agents, and theimpact of literary awards. In this sense, the “Cao Wenxuan fever” is a textbook example ofhow literary exchanges can be scrutinised from a sociological perspective, shedding lighton the dynamics at play in the circulation of literature – which is not limited to children’sbooks.HW: Has your interest in Chinese children’s books influenced your colleagues andstudents? PM: Quite a few of my colleagues were interested in children’s literature, either astranslators or scholars, long before I even considered trying my hand at it. If anything, itwas their interest that influenced me! But the impact of my work, however limited, isdefinitely more visible when it comes to my students. When I started using examples fromchildren’s books in my translation courses, and then posting news and articles related toChinese children’s fiction on my semi-institutional Facebook page, I quickly noticed thisstruck a chord with them. MA students started contacting me with surprisingly clear ideasabout what they wanted to do for their thesis. Unsurprisingly, many of them wereinterested in Cao Wenxuan, but others were looking for authors and books that were lesswidely known. Since then, I have supervised some very interesting and well-argued piecesof research: eg, on the narrative of difference in Cao’s Ding ding dang dang 《叮叮当当》series；on the perception of Tang Sulan’s 汤素兰 stories by children of different agegroups; on the narratological and semiotic implications of the translation of picture books,and so on. All of these students were very highly motivated. Some of them, driven by astrong desire to undertake a career as professional translators of children’s literature, evenstarted sending out resumes and translation samples to publishing houses. And it was anextremely proud moment when the In Altre Parole translation competition at the BolognaChildren’s Book Fair 2018 – China was the guest of honour country that year – was wonby a former student of mine!HW: It’s wonderful to learn how the interest in Chinese children’s literature ingrowing in Italy, and I hope we can look forward to featuring some of yourcolleagues and students in the future!Follow Paolo Magagnin on:his staff web-page: https://www.unive.it/data/people/5592091Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paolo.magagnin.cafoscariveneziaResearchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paolo_Magagnin2SHARE THIS:Twitter FacebookThis entry was posted in Authors, Books, Publishers, Translators and tagged Alice Coppini, Bai Bing,Beatrice Masini, Bologna Children's Book Fair, Brigitte Guilbaud, Bronze and Sunflower, Ca' Foscari,Cao Wenxuan, Cina in Italia, Editions Picquier, Giulia Carbone, Giunti, In Altre Parole, Italy, JimmyLiao, Li Hongzhuan, Lin Man-chiu, Paolo Magagnin, Silvia Torchio, The Straw House, TheVentriloquist's Daughter, Tu Youyou, Ximi, Xu Lu by helenwanglondon. Bookmark the permalink.Gatti come noi (Mi manchi, dove sei?) 《遗失了⼀只猫》 (A CatWent Missing) by Jimmy Liao, tr. Silvia Torchio (image source:Terre di mezzo)—Xu Lu’s 徐鲁 L’erba magica di Tu Youyou. La scienziata chesconfisse la malaria 《神奇的⼩草》(Tu Youyou’s MiraculousHerb. The scientist who beat malaria), tr. Beatrice Masini, illus.Alice Coppini  (image source: editorialescienza)—Bai Bing’s ⽩冰  L’albero di ombrelli 《⾬伞树》(The Umbrella Tree), tr. Giulia Carbone, illus. LiHongzhuan 李红专 [image source: cinainitalia]—! " LikeBe the first to like this.RELATED59. Interview with ChloeGarcia Roberts, translatorof the picture book“Feather” by Cao Wenxuanand Roger Mello149. Interview with ChiaraTognetti about Chinesechildren’s books and rights151. Amanda Ruiqing Flynnon children’s books andbookstores in Taiwanand SingaporeJanuary 25, 2018In "Authors"March 2, 2022In "Authors" April 23, 2022In "Authors"Leave a ReplyEnter your comment here...Enter your comment here...← Previous Next →Posted on September 7, 2020 by helenwanglondonChinese books for young readerschildren's and YA books created in ChineseSearchAbout Blog Explore Contact Buy/browse Index

Chinese children’s literature in Italy – interview with Paolo Magagnin

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Chinese children’s literature in Italy – interview with Paolo Magagnin

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