Abstract
This article focuses on the translations of two well-known Troubles novels, Robert McLiam Wilson’s Eureka Street and Colin Bateman’s Divorcing Jack. Emerging from and reflecting the violent conflict which has blighted Northern Ireland, these books are very difficult to translate. The translators not only face the challenge of transposing local voices and concepts into a different cultural environment, they also have to deal with the particularly dark Northern Irish humour generated by such conflict. Not every translator, of course, has the opportunity to experience Northern Irish society at first hand, and a lack of local knowledge is often evident in their work. Dwelling on a number of examples, I set out to analyse the choices made by the different translators and explain the reasons why they might have opted for a specific translation in order to carry a specific local discourse across.
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Notes
- 1.
Patrick Magee, Gangsters or Guerrillas? Representation of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles Fiction’ (Belfast: BTP Publications, 2001), 5.
- 2.
Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, (De-)Constructing the North: Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles since 1969 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), 41–62.
- 3.
Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street (London: Vintage, 1996); and Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack (London: Headline, 1995).
- 4.
Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility. A History of Translation (Abingdon, Routledge, 2008), 15–20.
- 5.
Ibid., 15.
- 6.
Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street, 36.
- 7.
Brice Matthieussent, trans., Eureka Street, by Robert McLiam Wilson (Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1997), 36. The English translations appearing in brackets after paragraphs in German, French or Spanish are my own translations and remain close to their respective source in order to illustrate the discrepancies between their English source and the translations proposed by the German-, French- or Spanish-speaking translators.
- 8.
Inventing the brand ‘Easi-sleep’, McLiam Wilson seems to play with the term ‘easy chair’, which refers to a functional kind of chair such as a recliner. In a French-speaking context, this particular type of chair is called ‘chaise magique’ (cf. ‘Uaredesign’, http://www.uaredesign.com/easy-chair-chaise-beige-magis.html, accessed 3 September 2013). Matthieussent was possibly unaware of this underlying wordplay. Otherwise he could have made up a brand name based on the French equivalent of the term such as ‘Sommeil magique’.
- 9.
Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility, 19–20.
- 10.
Christa Schuenke, trans., Eureka Street, Belfast, by Robert McLiam Wilson (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1999), 31.
- 11.
Obviously Schuenke does not make the effort to invent a German equivalent for the brand, a not insurmountably difficult task. To propose a more German-sounding translation, the imaginary brand ‘Träum süß’ (‘Sweet Dreams’), for example, would have sufficed.
- 12.
Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, trans., Eureka Street, by Robert McLiam Wilson (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1999), 46.
- 13.
Cf. ‘Who is Log’, http://www.whoislog.info/profile/daniel-aguirre-oteiza.html, accessed 3 September 2013.
- 14.
Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street, 36.
- 15.
Brice Matthieussent, trans., Eureka Street, 55.
- 16.
Christa Schuenke, trans., Eureka Street, Belfast, 31.
- 17.
Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, Eureka Street, 46.
- 18.
André Lefevere, Translating Literature. Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1992), 77.
- 19.
Solomon Volkov, Conversations with Joseph Brodsky (New York: The Free Press, 1988), 53.
- 20.
André Lefevere, Translating Literature, 70.
- 21.
Don Patterson, Orpheus: A Version of Rilke (London: Faber, 2006), 80.
- 22.
Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street, 192.
- 23.
André Lefevere, Translating Literature, 77.
- 24.
Brice Matthieussent, trans., Eureka Street, 243.
- 25.
Christa Schuenke, trans., Eureka Street, Belfast, 192.
- 26.
Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, Eureka Street, 191–92.
- 27.
Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack, 150.
- 28.
Michel Lebrun, trans., Divorce Jack!, by Colin Bateman (Paris: Gallimard, 1996), 189.
- 29.
Michael Kubiak, trans., Eine Nonne war sie nicht, by Colin Bateman (Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe, 1996), 168.
- 30.
Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack, 129.
- 31.
Michael Kubiak, trans., Eine Nonne war sie Nicht, 146–47.
- 32.
Michel Lebrun, trans., Divorce Jack!, 165.
- 33.
Colin Bateman, Divorcing Jack, 129.
- 34.
Michael Kubiak, trans., Eine Nonne war sie Nicht, 146.
- 35.
Michel Lebrun, trans., Divorce Jack!, 165.
Bibliography
Aguirre Oteiza, Daniel, trans. 1999. Eureka Street. By Robert McLiam Wilson. Barcelona: Tusquets.
Bateman, Colin. 1995. Divorcing Jack. London: Headline.
Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer. 2003. (De-)Constructing the North: Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles since 1969. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Kubiak, Michael, trans. 1996. Eine Nonne war sie nicht. By Colin Bateman. Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe.
Lebrun, Michel, trans. 1996. Divorce Jack! By Colin Bateman. Paris: Gallimard.
Lefevere, André. 1992. Translating Literature. Practice and Theory in a Comparative Literature Context. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
Magee, Patrick. 2001. Gangsters or Guerrillas? Representation of Irish Republicans in ‘Troubles Fiction’. Belfast: BTP Publications.
Matthieussent, Brice, trans. 1997. Eureka Street. By Robert McLiam Wilson. Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur.
Patterson, Don. 2006. Orpheus: A Version of Rilke. London: Faber.
Schuenke, Christa, trans. 1999. Eureka Street, Belfast. By Robert McLiam Wilson. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Uaredesign. http://www.uaredesign.com/easy-chair-chaise-beige-magis.html. Accessed 3 September 2013.
Venuti, Lawrence. 2008. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. Abingdon: Routledge.
Volkov, Solomon. 1988. Conversations with Joseph Brodsky. New York: The Free Press.
Who is Log. http://www.whoislog.info/profile/daniel-aguirre-oteiza.html. Accessed 3 September 2013.
Wilson, Robert McLiam. 1996. Eureka Street. London: Vintage.
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Schwerter, S. (2018). Foreign Voices and the Troubles: Northern Irish Fiction in French, German and Spanish Translation. In: Villanueva Romero, D., Amador-Moreno, C., Sánchez García, M. (eds) Voice and Discourse in the Irish Context. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66029-5_11
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