By Jørgen Christian Wind Nielsen
In May 2019,
the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations, CEATL, launched Counterpoint/Contrepoint: an online
magazine on literary translation, with articles on translation and literature,
art and politics, European and world-wide, from a diverse group of contributors.
Why does the world need such a publication, one might ask? Well, the business
of the (literary) translator is, by definition, internationally oriented, as
translators cross many borders – cultural and linguistic – in their work.
Counterpoint #1, frontpage
So from the very
beginning, the ambition of the three editors, Hanneke van der Heijden from Turkey/The
Netherlands, Anne Larchet from Ireland and Juliane Wammen from Denmark, was to
produce a publication that would be of interest to “translators, publishers, agents,
researchers, students or journalists, or people who just have a general
interest in literature across borders, the European book market, and in the
people that shape both”, as quoted in Issue no. 1.
“Our original task was to strengthen
the visibility of CEATL among our own members,” the editors say. “But we very soon realized that it would make sense to
reach out to a wider audience. We are a rather invisible lot as translators,
but we play such an important role in getting people to understand and talk to
each other, in both a concrete and more abstract sense. And we want to make
sure that no one forgets that!
We see translation
as a contrapuntal field that branches out into politics and languages, art and
craft, trade and culture: our modest aim is to contribute to the discussion of
what translation is with colleagues and to explain and visualize it to non-translators.
As you know, translation is so much more than looking up words in a dictionary
– it requires cultural insight, in-depth knowledge, linguistic skill and, in
our case, literary sensibility; in short, an ability to put yourself in a
position where you gather up all that knowledge, intuition and skill and create
a text that is both faithful to the source text AND a text in its own right.
Our second – but
by no means secondary – aim is to draw attention to the working conditions of
translators, mainly across Europe, but in principle anywhere in the world.
CEATL works hard to follow and influence decisions made in both the EU and at national
government level concerning translators. Sometimes being a translator can be quite
a lonely job but working together in organizations like CEATL can make a
difference, politically. By sharing both our victories and our challenges
through Counterpoint, we hope to improve cooperation and increase solidarity
and thus have a better chance of standing up to some of the major commercial
players in the book market. For instance, CEATL’s longtime political work paid
off when AmazonCrossing changed their contracts to be more favourable to
translators.
On a personal
level, it is always heartening to know that, whatever the particular conditions
in your country, other people share your aims and that you are not alone in
facing all the highs and lows in your work.”
Eeditors: Hanneke van der Heijden, Juliane Wammen, Anne Larchet. Photo credit: Martin de Haan, Tim Flohr Sørensen
Counterpoint/Contrepoint
is free and published twice a year. Read and subscribe here:
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