FdE Writer Series — Mary Ann Newman
MARY ANN NEWMAN — Our new Writer Series asks our writers a few questions about their careers, working process, highs and lows and one or two other things - we hope you enjoy this little insight into the people behind our wonderful books.
1. How did you get into translating?
I was a vocational translator. In freshman year of college, the first time I understood a poem in its entirety, without need of a dictionary—It was Poem 20, by Neruda—I was so thunderstruck (it’s a perfect poem for thunderstriking an 18 yr-old) I rushed to translate it to share it with my mother and my aunt who were in the other bedroom. I made a typical novice’s error (I translated “te tuve entre mis brazos” as “I held you between my arms”), which made my mother laugh, but even the ridicule didn’t dissuade me. From then on, I read Spanish by translating. Now I sort of read English by translating, hahaha.
2. Any highs or lows of your translation career so far?
The first is always the best, no?[1] O’Clock, my translation of Monzó’s Olivetti, Moulinex, Chaffoteaux et Maury, was a super-high. So thrilling to see a book you love, by a good friend, in print. But all of them have been a thrill, for one reason or another. The Hispanic Labyrinth, by Xavier Rubert de Ventós, also a good friend, it was amazing to live inside the head of a philosopher. I learned to translate rhyming poetry with Josep Carner’s Bestiary, which taught me to break rules and walls, and this was useful as I got to wallow in Sagarra’s gorgeous and baroque style with Private Life. And the cherry on the sundae has been learning to translate aphorisms with Joan Fuster, a sort of stripping down to the core of language. I guess we could say there have only been highs? My only disappointment is that dear Peter Bush got ahead of me in translating Monzó’s El perquè de tot plegat. That was on my bucket list, but I let it slip away.
3. Which author(s) is/are on your dream translation wish list?
More Carner, Narcís Oller, Eugeni d’Ors, thinking about Marta Rojals, Joan-Lluís Lluís, and Sebastià Alzamora, and then a little more poetry: Maria Callís Cabrera, Àngels Gregori, Dolors Miquel…
4. Please tell us about your translation process: do you listen to anything while you work? If so, what?
I listen to public radio. When I’m concentrating, I don’t hear anything, but I like having voices in the background. And where do you most like to translate? I take the notion of a laptop very literally. I translate at my desk in my room and on the couch in the living room, and I love love love to go to my go-to bar in New York, Merchants, and sit there and translate for a couple of hours with a drink. Especially when the weather is nice.
5. Any peeves about the publishing industry? Anything you would change?
Peeves, hm. Since I work with indies it’s hard not just to be grateful… They’ve always treated me very well. As for the big houses… they should get over their resistance to translation, invest in actually selling translations, and pay more.
6. Three songs that sum you up?
Three? 1. Misty (Erroll Garner, either the Sarah Vaughn or Ella Fitzgerald versions, but the first one was Johnny Mathis.). Can’t decide between Under the Boardwalk (The Drifters) and Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding), but they’re a very similar and very me vibe. Summertime (George Gershwin). Don’t know if they sum me up, but I never get tired of them. But, but, I need to add the first of the Cançons i danses by Frederic Mompou. And this doesn’t leave any room for Maria del Mar Bonet or Violeta Parra or Chico Buarque… I reject the premise, hahaha.
[1] This is a Fuster reference: In many things, but particularly in love, experience tends to be a defect. That’s why one remembers one’s first love to be the best—it is the best.
Mary Ann Newman is the translator of FINAL JUDGEMENTS
