Wanted: Black women English to Dutch translators

Sadek_A wrote:

Isn't Marieke a female already? Why list "being a female" as a requirement then?

Samuel Murray wrote:
And none of the black translators proposed by the black Dutch activist are African-American, so the "similar culture or experiences" argument doesn't count. Black people in the Netherlands face and have faced an entirely different set of difficulties than their American counterparts.

Anthony John Kiely wrote:
I'm with Chris on this one. And the essential problem here is that issue is being raised in "PC gone mad" clickbait fashion.

In many societies a much-needed re-set is going on, and the outcome isn't always going to be perfect. But the underlying need for the re-set is profound and violent discrimination that is far from over. I'd prefer to save my indignation for that.

neilmac wrote:
Apparently, Marieke-Lucas "identifies as non-binary", which is all the rage nowadays in certain segments of society.

Anthony John Keily wrote:
After all, in the literary area, such pairings are common and writers frequently choose or request to translate or deal with artists or topics for whom/which they feel a special affinity.

Philip Lees wrote:
the bottom line for me is that I think an author should be able to choose the translator for their own work, based on whatever criteria they consider most important.

Chris S wrote:
Although I don’t suppose the poet actually was involved in the choice. More likely her (white middle-aged male) publisher said “By the way, we’ve got all your European translators lined up. The Dutch office have even managed to dig up a young non-binary poet.” And she was like “Yeah cool, pass the salt will you?”

If the Guardian has it right, that's precisely what happened in this case. The writer chose a translator for certain specified reasons. Then somebody else came along and overrode the writer's decision for reasons of their own.

I don't wish to offend our Dutch friends here, but I imagine the market for translated poetry in the Netherlands is not huge - not least because so many Dutch people are capable of reading and appreciating it in English. So Amanda Gorman is unlikely to have lost too much sleep over the choice.

Philip Lees wrote:



Really Philip, with all due respect, I don't think that's what's written there at all! (Although it may be that the article has been edited since its original posting - that can happen.)

The Guardian piece actually says that the publisher and not the author chose the translator and nowhere in the article does it say that the translator was chosen for "certain specified reasons".

The article in the Guardian I linked to includes the following statement: "... Gorman, who is 22, had selected the 29-year-old herself, as a fellow young writer who had also come to fame early."

I think my paraphrase of that was reasonable. YMMV.

Sadek_A wrote:



I was aware "they" identify as both male and female (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marieke_Lucas_Rijneveld); my objection was to the author of the news article who listed being a female as a requirement despite translator's current identity that covers both genders.

Veronica Montserrat wrote:
I believe that non-binary do not identify as men nor women.

Anthony John Keily wrote:

However, Janice Deul's piece in the Volkskrant makes very valid points. She asks why the chosen translator wasn't a “spoken-word artist”. Although it seems central to her assertion that Marieke Lucas Rijneveld "has no experience in the field", this aspect of the discussion, of prime importance from a translation point of view, has been ignored in favour of the facile controversy of the "translator too white" line.

The importance of the spoken word aspect is clear from Deul's further words on the question: "We run away with Amanda Gorman - and rightly so - but are blind to the spoken word talent in our own country.  Not to be found, you say? I would like to share a few names from my personal network. A list that is by no means complete: Munganyende Hélène Christelle, Rachel Rumai, Zaire Krieger, Rellie Telg, Lisette MaNeza, Babs Gons, Sanguilla Vabrie, Alida Aurora, Pelumi Adejumo, Schiavone Simson. Each and every one of them a talent that enriches the literary landscape and that has often struggled for recognition for years. What would it be like to have one of them do the job? Wouldn't that make Gorman's message more powerful?