Translating Love: An Interview With Aditi Machado
Aditi Machado is a poet and translator from Bangalore, India. Her poetry has recently appeared in Web Conjunctions, DIAGRAM, The Offending Adam, and elsewhere. She edits poetry in translation for the international online journal Asymptote and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Denver.
PHILLIP: ADITI, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SPENDING TIME WITH ME TO ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT YOU AND YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO LANGUAGE. IT’S A BIG TOPIC THAT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED BUT I THINK YOU ARE THE PERFECT PERSON WITH WHICH TO EXPLORE LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION.
FIRST, CAN YOU SPEAK A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU GOT YOUR START IN WRITING, SPECIFICALLY AS A POET? WHO ARE EARLY INSPIRATIONS AND WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER ABOUT YOURSELF WHEN YOU REALIZED “OH, THIS IS ME. WRITING IS ME.”
Aditi: Like many writers, I wrote when I was a child, but these writings were mostly what you would call “fiction.” When I was sixteen I wrote a novel and thought, given the worldwide interest in lit fic by Indians, I stood a pretty good chance of being famous. Then, when I read it several times over, I realized I had fundamental problems dealing with narrative–as in, I couldn’t tell a story and had no sense of linear time or time that could “work” in fiction. I was also writing poems at the time and fell into a sort internet community of poets. By the time I graduated from college I knew I needed to get an MFA–not because an MFA makes you a poet but because I had no sense of what I was doing. I didn’t have enough poetry books around me and had met very few poets. But I felt useful and confident as a poet. So that was it, I think. I applied to MFA schools in the United States. I needed that atmosphere.
P: AND IN FINDING THE ATMOSPHERE, AND THE SUPPORT, DID YOU FIND THAT THE WORK YOU DID AS A FICTION WRITER INFORMED YOUR POETRY, EVEN IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE MISSING CERTAIN ELEMENTS? I’M WONDERING IF, SINCE WE WILL TALK ABOUT TRANSLATION SOON, YOU FOUND A WAY TO TRANSLATE YOUR FICTION INTERESTS OVER TO POETRY.
A: You might be right there–at the time I was obsessed with JG Ballard, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Woolf, Duras–all of whom were deathly serious in their writing. Dangerous and experimental in their thinking. And I’d spent a couple of years getting into cinema with a film group, so there was that. But I still needed to read a lot of poetry–I’d probably read about an eighth of what my MFA peers had, if that–to figure out what it was about those writers and my favorite directors that could be put in service of poetry.
P: WHAT DID YOU FIGURE OUT? WAS IT POSSIBLE?
A: Yes! It had to do with landscape and consciousness. There is an incredible scene at the end of Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar in which a flock of sheep enter into a field–it’s a slow moving and filling up of space. It looked to me like an image of thinking, of coming into consciousness–I could feel the film think. And I realized that that’s what the most exciting poetry did for me: it made thinking feel and feeling think. You couldn’t tear them apart. And it had to with thinking being situated, in the body (of sheep, of yourself) but also in the space around you, whether that’s a field, or by the ocean, in the middle of a city.
P: ASYMPTOTE IS “AN EXCITING NEW INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL DEDICATED TO LITERARY TRANSLATION AND BRINGING TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY WRITING. WE ARE INTERESTED IN ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN LANGUAGES AND THE CONSEQUENCES OF THESE ENCOUNTERS.” HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH THIS JOURNAL AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WITH THEM?
A: Asymptote was founded by an incredible individual named Lee Yew Leong. I joined as a contributing editor shortly before the first issue came out in January 2011–it happened by chance and over the internet. Then I was nonfiction editor and finally the poetry editor. It’s been over four years now–the best, most exciting job I’ve ever had.
P: GLAPPITNOVA FOCUSES ON THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT OF THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION. IN MANY WAYS, I SEE TRANSLATION AS A TYPE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL PROJECT WHERE ONE MUST BE PASSIONATE ABOUT LANGUAGE, PASSIONATE ABOUT EXPRESSION, AND DEEPLY INVOLVED IN THE LIVES OF OTHERS. THIS MIGHT BE A REACH, BUT DO YOU SEE TRANSLATION AS A WAY TO EXPAND NOT ONLY THE TRANSLATOR’S IDEA OF COMMUNICATION BUT READERS’ TOO? IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT THE PRACTICE OF TRANSLATION IS TOO THE PRACTICE OF EMPATHY, OF CONNECTING WITH OTHER PEOPLE?
A: Absolutely! A simple thing: often publishers and reviewers downplay the fact that a book is a translation. Many publishers believe that readers don’t want to read something “foreign.” But I say, let’s move toward having more faith in readers. As a reader, simply noticing that, say, Edith Grossman translated a book by Gabriel García Márquez reminds you that the text has moved from Colombian Spanish into (American) English; it’s a way of empathizing with identities not entirely your own.
P: WHY IS TRANSLATION IMPORTANT? I READ THE NUMEROUS REASONS ON THE “ABOUT” SECTION, BUT I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU HOW TRANSLATION HAS PROVEN ITSELF TO BE A FORCE WE SHOULD ALL CONSIDER NECESSARY.
A: For aesthetics, there are a number of reasons. Translation allows incredible cross-fertilization across languages and cultures. I doubt I can think of a single writer I admire who has not claimed translated literature and/or the act of translation itself as a major influence. Major literary movements are born out of translation cultures. I am a better reader and writer because of translation. But there are also political reasons–ethical reasons. Translation fundamentally assaults your identity, your ideas of authorial “genius,” but also your own dearly-held notions of what makes “great” writing. It forces you to deal with “other” literary traditions, it forces you to deal with the complexity of others. I don’t just mean reading literature of witness from regions of conflict, although that’s an important part of it. I don’t mean just reading representations of life in another part of the world–not just the “contents” of those lives, but the “forms” of their living, breathing, thinking. Translation is a radical political activity–always.
P: THERE IS THE UNDERSTANDING THAT TRANSLATION IS A RARE OCCURRENCE IN THE US. WE DON’T GET MANY INTERNATIONAL TITLES TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH AND SOLD HERE. I THINK I HAVE PERSONALLY SEEN A RISE IN TRANSLATION BOTH AS AN INTEREST AND PRACTICE. AS CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, WHAT DO WE LOSE BY NOT HAVING THE WORK OF OTHERS FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE? WE SPOKE ABOUT EMPATHY AND NOW I AM WONDERING IF WE MISS OUT ON OTHER OPPORTUNITIES TO DISCOVER SOMETHING. THE WORD “LOVE” COMES TO MIND, BUT THAT SEEMS TOO BIG A CONCEPT. MAYBE WHAT WE MISS OUT ON IS MORE REFLEXIVE, MORE TO DO ABOUT WHAT WE MISS IN OURSELVES?
A: Often when I teach writing/literature, my students will say that they like to read about people they “relate” to. When I ask them to explain, it sounds like they want to read about lives very similar to their own–a mirror of sorts. What’s exciting about translated literature is that it helps you to do the opposite: celebrate difference. One of my favorite poets, Etel Adnan, who is Lebanese-American, has this line “To look at the sea is to become what one is” (also the title of her Reader, published by Nightboat books). This suggests that looking, intently and passionately, at something not yourself (human or inanimate) can help (re)define yourself. “Love” is not a bad way to put it. If you want to “love” the world and find a place in it, you have to arrive at multiple meanings of that word–translation can help you with that.
P: YOU ARE NOT A BUSINESS WOMAN, OR MAYBE YOU ARE AND I DON’T KNOW IT HAHA, BUT I AM WONDERING WHAT IT TAKES FINANCIALLY TO RUN A LITERARY JOURNAL THAT DEALS IN TRANSLATION. WHAT HAS BEEN CHALLENGES AND REWARDS WHEN IT COMES TO DOING WHAT YOU DO AND RECEIVING FUNDING FOR IT? DO YOU HAVE SPONSORS OR DONATIONS COMING IN, ESPECIALLY SINCE WE ARE STILL IN A TIME WHEN TRANSLATING THE LIVES OF OTHERS INTO A SHARED SPACE IS STILL SEEN AS “UNRELATED” TO OUR OWN LIVES?
A: Very simply, publishing literary translations, by journals and small presses, is almost always a labor of love for which there is little, if any, monetary compensation. I am not directly involved with the financial side of Asymptote, but can say that we are a not-for-profit organization and that all our issues are free to read. We rely on donations and have run two successful Indiegogo campaigns to fund our website and our events. It is equally true that our readers and supporters have been generous to us, and that money is a precarious issue for translation. That said, if you are a literary translator, there is an increasing number of grants and awards to apply for. Offhand, this includes the PEN/Heim translation grants, NEA grants (if you are American), the ALTA Travel Fellowships, and a number of other country/language-specific grants for book-length projects. Translation advocates are constantly working to improve the visibility of translators–I would say it’s an exciting time for translators.
P: WHAT PERSONAL PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON, NOT NECESSARILY IN TRANSLATION BUT IN FICTION OR POETRY? HAVE YOU HAD TIME TO WORK ON YOUR OWN WRITING?
A: I’m currently studying for doctoral comprehensive exams, so there is less time for personal projects. But I do have a poetry manuscript that I’ve been working on since last summer, and a book translation that should come out next year.
P: THANK YOU, AGAIN ADITI! IF PEOPLE WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOU AND WHAT YOU DO, WHERE SHOULD THEY LOOK?
A: Thank *you*, Phillip. I can be found on Twitter @blottingpaper and at my website .
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