The 6th International Translators’ Conference 1   By Deborah Smith on Apr 20 2015 19:04:44 Vol.27 Spring 2015 The following two papers are from the 6th International Translators’ Conference, co-hosted by LTI Korea and the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation at Ewha Womans University from December 5 to 6, 2014, on the theme “In ‘Other Words’: Challenges in Translating Korean Literature.”   Building a UK Readership for Korean Literature Translation Practices   Within Korea, translation quality is often judged according to different criteria than it is in the UK and U.S.—those who teach translation in Korea place a strong emphasis on “faithfulness” to the original text and on communicating cultural context, whereas translation for the UK market is a far more creative process, with publishers encouraging the translator to “take liberties” in recreating the text for an Anglophone audience. Talking about Literature In Korea, writers are seen as intellectuals, and are used to being asked for their views on art or philosophy, perhaps even more often than their Anglophone counterparts. Hence, it’s difficult for those in the UK to understand that this kind of intellectual engagement is seen as an integral part of a writer’s job for all writers, not merely the “high-brow.” Hwang Sun-mi likes to describe The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly as a serious-minded take on mixed-race adoption and environmentalism, but Chi-young Kim’s English translation flew off the shelves because it was presented to readers as a charming fable about motherly love. Translators need to be aware of these conventions, and know that they will not be able to sell the book effectively if they simply translate a synopsis or review which was originally written with Korean readers in mind. Mood and tone have traditionally been privileged over character and incident in Korea. The reader’s emotional engagement is Korea’s equivalent of the Anglophone obsession over “identifying” with the protagonist. Combined with the Korean tendency to subsume these imaginary readers into an ethnically-defined homogenous “we,” reviews can come across as both woolly and culturally exclusivist, making it difficult for UK editors to get a handle on the book’s merits. Plot is not absent from Korean fiction—it’s just not what’s usually mentioned. Yet it is precisely what UK editors want to know most about, so that they can pitch the book to their marketing department, who will use this information to design the most effective strategy for promoting the book in the UK market. Translators need to embrace a lot of the work that, with other language pairings, is taken on by agents or commissioning editors, as well as spend time keeping their fingers on the pulse of the literary scene in both the source and target country. This might all sound like a lot for translators to take on, but the upside is that it allows us to be advocates (vocal and often pushy) for the literature we love; the books we bring to the attention of publishers can counteract any tendencies towards pigeonholing a national literature, founded on an overly narrow conception of what readers want and a correspondingly timid marketing strategy. Overly homogenising translation practices—in the choice of which books to translate, in how “domesticating” a translation is—will only serve to accelerate stagnation, doing both literatures a disservice. Role(s) of the Translator Participating in social media and online communities can be an effective way for translators to raise their own profile and make useful contacts by engaging directly with editors, reviewers, and other translators, who work with different language combinations. Editors will be more likely to publish a given translation, and/ or select a given translator to work on a particular book, if the translator has contacts within the industry who could be useful for promotion. Collaborations with UK Institutions One of the UK institutions with whom LTI Korea would benefit from collaborating is the National Centre for Writing (an imminent merger of the current Writers’ Centre Norwich and the British Centre for Literary Translation). It combines expertise in the three main areas relevant for aspiring translators: translation, creative writing, and the promotion of literature. Many graduates of the BCLT’s highly successful summer school and mentorship programmes have gone on to secure translation contracts. This expert knowledge of the target market and proven track record in training translators places them in a unique position to supplement the excellent training provided by LTI Korea’s current programmes. There is also SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies), which is the UK’s chief centre for Korean Studies and runs a separate Translation Studies MA programme. Selecting Books to Translate It is imperative to identify a specific target audience, and give concrete reasons why a given book will appeal to that audience. Rather than choosing books based on books that have been well-received in the Korean market, I recommend translators/agents first familiarise themselves with the target market, and with the lists of specific publishers who are willing to take on translated literature. This will give them an idea of which type of book these publishers might be looking to commission, and they can then select one or two Korean titles that best fit these criteria. UK publishers won’t want to publish a book purely because it’s Korean. This is just business sense; Korea and its culture are still so little known in the UK, the group of people with a specific, pre-existing interest in Korea is not large enough to constitute an audience for a book. But this is in fact an advantage for Korean literature, because it means that any Korean book that gets published in English translation has to earn its place there by virtue of its literary and artistic quality, not because it is of academic or sociological interest. Conclusion The various challenges I have mentioned can be seen as just that—challenges to be overcome with patience and perseverance, rather than insurmountable obstacles. If LTI Korea can collaborate with UK institutions and individuals in order to aid its translators in gaining expert knowledge of the UK market, and if these translators can make the best use of this knowledge through tailoring their translation practices and promotional pitches accordingly, then the future of Korean literature in the UK will be very bright indeed.   by Deborah Smith Translator     Twitter Facebook Google Email .