FdE Writer Series — Tiago Miller
TIAGO MILLER — 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?
After many, so many, too many years of literature, language learning and travelling, in 2018 I decided I wanted to be a translator specialising in Catalan literature. In hindsight, it seems a fairly logical decision: I’d been studying Catalan, I’d lived in Barcelona for a three years by then, I’d always read widely in different languages, literature and theatre were the only two things I’d ever taken remotely seriously in life, nevertheless the idea seemed to come out of the blue. Given that I’d never studied translation or wasted money on any type of workshop or course relating to it, I learnt the craft by doing, which in my case meant translating, doing comparative readings, and asking lots of questions. And after a couple more years of hard work, rejection letters and doomed projects, I finally got my break in 2020 and was offered to translate my first novel (The Others, FdE, 2021).
2. Any highs or lows of your translation career so far?
Honestly, the high is seeing something you’ve worked on published and reaching readers (and the day it no longer is will be the day I quit). What did Hunter S Thompson say? ‘I haven’t found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as sitting at a desk writing’. I guess he and Jordi Cussà knew a thing or two about that. But even better is knowing that people have enjoyed what you’ve written, so it’s been brilliant to see The Song of Youth shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for book of the year and longlisted for the Oxford-Wiedenfeld Prize for translation of the year. Lows? A few. But the main one has been the discovery that literary translation doesn’t pay a living wage (note: not lots of money but a living wage). Having said that, having a day job and another source of income means I have greater artistic freedom and can - to a point - pick and choose the books I translate, which suits me to the ground because the bestsellers will always get done (or not, who cares) and what interests me more are the margins.
3. Which author(s) is/are on your dream translation wish list?
Joan Barceló, more Cussà, Adrià Pujol, Jaume C Pons Alorda, Marià Vayreda, Miquel Creus, Miquel Baucà, Maria Antònia Oliver, Antònia Vicens, Marta Rojals, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Lola Miquel...
4. Please tell us about your translation process: do you listen to anything while you work? If so, what? And where do you most like to translate?
Set up is very simple: laptop, two wooden clothes pegs to hold the pages in place, phone. I translate at home with lots of coffee and Vichy. Normally, late-stage revisions are done at the library with the novel printed because there are less distractions there and it’s a welcome change of scenery (I’d say that Lleida public library is one of the best in Catalunya). I pretty much always listen to music but what I listen to depends on my mood and the words on the page. Anything from Debussy to Dead Kennedys to Abba. Anything but flamenco.
5. Any peeves about the publishing industry? Anything you would change?
A living fucking wage... I also resent how everything is separated, the editors from the translators, the translators from the proofreaders, the critics from everyone, with each little group scrapping desperately to protect their interests from imagined invasions and coup d’etats. It reminds me of the Federal University of São Paulo where each faculty sits in a separate building connected by a one-way circular road. A more collaborative approach would revitalise what, for me, comes across as a grim and tired industry. Oh yeah, and did I say a living fucking wage?
6. Three songs that sum you up?
Kurious Oranj by The Fall; Jennifer by Faust; Land: Horses / Land of a Thousands Dances / La Mer(de) by Patti Smith
7. What draws you to Cussà's work?
When I first read Wild Horses it was the frantic, almost Beatnik, rhythm of its prose, the linguistic invention and what I saw as an important sociological record of 80s Catalunya. Having read more of his work since that virgin experience, I can say that it’s his sense of the epic that attracts me most. Cussà was a great storyteller and he told great stories, but ‘great’ in the epic sense. He was drawing on Greek and Roman literature, Shakespeare, Kurosawa, even when he was documenting drug abuse and the existential high seas, and he did it all from a position of relative obscurity. He was a hero and I would have loved to have met him.
Tiago Miller the translator of THE OTHERS, THE SONG OF YOUTH and WILD HORSES.
