The Bat Segundo Show #53: Michael Orthofer and Betsy Wing

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Guests: Michael Orthofer and Betsy Wing (translator, LBC nominee, Summer 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: In absentia, fleeing the silly hipsters.

Subjects Discussed: How to raise awareness of translated fiction, an idea involving Chad Post, on being a designated translator, language adopted by literary critics, a very friendly dog in the Wing household, breaking down a novel, dictionaries, on hooking up with Paule Constant, working class vernacular, dialects, maintaining the tone between funny and heartwrenchingly sad, working against first impressions in translation, the myth of auctorial spontaneity, a forgotten movement in the late 1970s and the early 1980s to bring attention to translators, the advantages of freelance translating, and putting the translator’s name on the book spine.

[INTERVIEW NOTES: The interviews were all conducted by telephone.]

 
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One Response to “The Bat Segundo Show #53: Michael Orthofer and Betsy Wing”

  • Edward Champion’s Return of the Reluctant » Roundup says:

    [...] On a related note, Scott observes that the book he voted for — Enrique Vila-Mata’s Montano’s Malady — didn’t make the longlist. I likewise think this is disheartening. And as NBCC Board Member, I hope to draw greater attention to translated titles. It’s bad enough that newspapers frequently ignore non-English titles for review, but the time has come to draw greater attention to the fact that not all books are written in English and that there are translators regularly doing hard and often thankless work, sometimes denied even a mention in book reviews! (For instance, in all the celebration of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, how many of you are aware that Natasha Wimmer translated the book? Wimmer’s name isn’t even on the cover. Thankfully, Scott interviewed Wimmer a few months ago.) For more insights into translation, see the Segundo interviews with translators Betsy Wing and Jordan Stump. And I hope to feature more translators in future Segundo shows. [...]

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