I envy those who have a knack for picking up languages and the discipline to learn them. I fear I lack the knack and know I lack the discipline. I console myself with the fact that English, my native tongue, is a strange one with endless fissures that hint at its deep multicultural underland. It keeps me occupied.
However, on occasion, I read something in French (the only other language in which I know more than a few words), and I feel compelled to return to the original and translate it into my English. What sparks that compulsion is different each time.
I have tackled a poem by Arthur Rimbaud and Albert Camus’s “Return to Tipasa” continually calls to me, but for now, here are the two translations that feel complete:
Michel Foucault, “Facing Governments: The Rights of Man.” Foucault made a short statement in support of Vietnamese refugees; it began to carry substantial theoretical weight in my dissertation project. I don’t recall having an issue with the translation I knew; I just wanted to represent it in my own words. The last sentence makes it worth it to me. Foucault’s verb is s’arracher, for which my mom offered uproot, which is perfect. That verb is everything I think about the human struggle in politics and culture. My mom is the key to my ability to translate anything. After my first, rough attempt, I send my mom the original, the draft, and a hundred questions. Her translations are literal and precise, and she has a sense of the freedom needed to take a thought from one language into another.
Voltaire, “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster.” I translated Voltaire’s poem because I did not like what was available in English. The readily available translation functioned as a showpiece for Victorian poetic pretension. The translator was more interested in preening his own feathers than in what Voltaire said. I wanted to use the poem in a class as a companion to Candide. I prioritized a direct translation of Voltaire’s meaning. I wanted to communicate the mix of Enlightenment philosophy’s commitment to reason and Voltaire’s humanitarian outrage as others intellectualized away the real suffering of people.
*If you want to use these translations for more than personal use, please seek my permission (alyon@ucsd.edu).
**Photo: Alfama neighborhood in Lisboa