>> Shari Werb: Hello.
I'm Shari Werb, Director
of the Center for learning,
literacy and engagement.
Have you ever wondered
how books written
in foreign languages
make it into the hands
of English language audiences?
What does it take to bring
the unique world of a book
into another language?
Well, I'm happy to tell you
about this evening's program
because it marks the
premiere of another
in our series we
call Behind the book.
In the past, we have featured
great American editors,
publishers and the authors
whose books they have shaped
into literary classics.
Now, we are featuring one of
the great American translators
with one of the world's
most renowned writers.
Great American translator,
Edith Grossman,
will be in conversation with
Peruvian author and Nobel Prize
in Literature winner, Mario
Vargas Llosa, whose books,
in the original Spanish,
she has translated
for English speakers everywhere.
They will be joined
by the Library's former
Literary Director, Marie Arana,
herself a writer
of great repute.
Over to you, Marie.
>> Marie Arana: Thank
you, Shari.
I'm absolutely thrilled to be
back at the Library of Congress.
I'm joining you for this
very special program.
The first of a brand new
series honoring great
American translators.
And I'm even more thrilled
that the first translator
to be honored in this
way is Edith Grossman,
a virtuoso of the
form whom I've admired
and been fortunate enough
to know for decades.
But this program promises
to be even more rewarding,
for yet another great.
We are joined this evening
by Mario Vargas Llosa,
one of the great literary
masters of our time.
A fellow native Peruvian whom
I'm proud to count as a friend.
Edith, Mario, a very
warm welcome to you.
Thank you for joining
us in this celebration
of Edith's extraordinary career.
>> Edith Grossman:
Thank you, Marie.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Thank you.
>> Marie Arana: I want to start
by giving our viewers a
very brief introduction
to both of you.
So let me start with Edith.
For 50 years now, Edith Grossman
has been tearing down walls
and opening universes for
English-language readers
by producing magnificent
translations of works
by Spanish language writers.
Among those writers are two
groundbreaking Nobel laureates,
Mario Vargas Llosa and
Gabriel García Márquez;
as well as the world's
very first modern novelist,
Miguel de Cervantes.
Edith's list of published
works is a veritable cavalcade
of masterworks.
From Don Quixote, originally
published in Madrid at the dawn
of the 17th century, to
Mario's novel published
in English just a few years ago,
Cinco Esquinas, The
neighborhood.
Among Edith's many feeds
of translation are García
Márquez's Love in the time
of cholera, News
of a kidnapping,
The General in his labyrinth,
Of love and other demons;
Vargas Llosa's Death in the
Andes, The feast of the goat,
The notebooks of Don Rigoberto
and The discreet hero.
And there's also poetry of Ariel
Dorfman and memorable novels by,
among so many others,
Álvaro Mutis, Mayra Montero,
Antonio Múñoz Molina
and Carmen Laforet.
Her career has won her numerous
awards including the PEN/Ralph
Manheim Medal for Translation,
a Guggenheim Fellowship,
the Academy of Arts and
Letters award in Literature
and the Officer's Cross of
the Order of Civil Merit,
awarded by King Felipe
VI of Spain.
Mario Vargas Llosa, or I
should say, the First Marquess
of Vargas Llosa, really needs no
translation -- No introduction.
Needs translation
but no introduction.
As a renowned novelist,
journalist, essayist, playwrite,
professor, presidential
candidate and Nobel Laureate,
Mario has had more
international impact
than any other Latin-American
writer of his generation.
His work is wildly
various and prolific.
Straddling an array of genres,
he has written Historical
novels, such as The war
of the end of the world,
as well as comedies
such as Captain Pantoja
and the special services,
or even deeply analytical novels
such as Conversations
in the cathedral.
But he's also written Murder
Mysteries, Political Thrillers,
Erotic novels and penchant
works of literary criticism.
A number of his narratives,
among them Julie
and the scriptwriter,
have been made into films.
Apart from the Nobel, he has
won a stunning number of prizes,
far too many to mention here,
but I'll cite just a few.
The Premio Planeta, the
Miguel de Cervantes Prize,
the PEN/Nabokov award, the
French Legion of Honor,
the Rómulo Gallegos Prize.
Ten years ago, Mario was raised
into the Spanish nobility
by King Juan Carlos I
with the Hereditary title
of Marquéz de Vargas Llosa.
And, in 2016, the Library
of Congress proclaimed
him a living legend.
We're very fortunate to have him
with us this evening to tell us
about his experiences
working with Edith Grossman.
So, Mario, let me
start with you.
How did the relationship
between you and Edith begin?
And give us some thoughts about
your work with her in general.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: Well --
Well, thank you very much
for this extremely
kind presentation.
I think the first time I heard
about Edith was in 1995 or 1996.
Gregory Rabassa, my
previous translator,
was quite ill at that time.
So she couldn't do my new novel.
And so, my publisher --
-- proposed me a different
kind of translators.
I think two translators
and the first translator
that I read, it was Edith.
And so, I decided immediately
that she was the one
but she was a perfect
translator.
And so, it was like that
but Edith translated
my first novel later
and my new publisher, that
was about that time --
Well, the publisher that
I have had until now.
>> Marie Arana: So that was
Death in the Andes, I think?
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
That's right.
Absolutely.
Yes, it was like that.
Lituma en los Andes.
That's alright, yes.
When we start to change --
Exchange letters with Edith,
I think the understanding
was immediate.
I respected very, very much
the way in which Edith managed
to identify with the
text, the original text
and I thought immediately
that her versions
of the novel in English where --
I wouldn't say perfect
but precise
and that it was something
that it didn't seem
to be a translation of
the novel, but something
that had been written
originally in English.
And I think this is the major
achievement of a translator,
to give the impression that
this is not a translation,
but something that
has been written
in the foreign language
directly.
>> Marie Arana: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Not an --
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
[Inaudible] of Edith,
the way in which he managed
to translate is something
that doesn't seem
to be a translation.
And I think it is
very, very curious
but because a translator
can be a very great writer
but not a very good translator.
And I think when you have
a strong personality,
a literary personality,
you are not --
-- necessarily a
very good translator
because if your personality
is something that is present
in the language, so you
must be, in a certain sense,
a failure as a translator.
But my impression is that
Edith has these extraordinary
and very rare quality of a
translator that she disappears
in the language in
which she translates --
-- a foreign book.
Her English is something
that it seems to be,
because I think it is
different, but it seems
to be transparent exactly
as it'd be a Spanish-language
text would be present
or the time in the translation.
>> Marie Arana: It's
an amazing talent.
It's an extraordinary talent.
The fidelity that you speak
of, which is fidelity,
not only to the words in the
language but to the spirit
and to the actual soul of
the book that she is --
That she's engaged with.
Edith, tell us a little bit
about how this began for you.
Tell us about, first of all,
you know, where were you born?
How did you grow up?
How did you -- How did you
fall into this profession?
How did it begin for you?
>> Edith Grossman: I was
born in Philadelphia,
known as the most boring
city in the United States.
And I went to public school
and I went to the University
of Pennsylvania and
I stayed there.
I did a BA there, an MA there,
started to do a PhD there.
Had enough of Philadelphia and
the University of Pennsylvania
and I went to California, to
the University of California
in Berkeley and I finished
the doctorate in Berkeley.
What else do you want to know?
How did I get started?
In a very strange way.
A friend of mine, Ronald Christ,
was editing a magazine
called Review,
which was the publication
of what used to be known
as the Center for Inter-American
Relations and one day he said --
Called me and said
"Edith, I would like you
to translate a piece by
Macedonio Fernández.
I said "Ronald, I'm
not a translator.
I'm a critic."
He said "You can call
yourself whatever you like,
just do the damn piece."
And so, I said "Alright.
I will." And I discovered
that I loved the work.
I loved it.
First of all, I didn't have
to get dressed to go outside.
I could be in my sweatshirt.
Secondly, I could
-- I used to smoke.
I could smoke like a chimney
and nobody would tell me
to put out my cigarette.
And so, I was very happy sitting
at my computer and smoking
and translating, listening
to the voice in my head
because when I read, there
is a voice in my mind
that speaks the words
that I'm reading.
And so, that's the voice I
listen to when I translate.
>> Marie Arana: You were drawn
to Literature, obviously,
from the very beginning, and
how did that begin for you?
How -- What was -- What
was about stories and words
that fascinated you
from the very beginning?
>> Edith Grossman:
Just what you said.
They were stories and words.
Words are fascinating to me
and stories are wonderful.
We live by stories, don't we?
Every child wants to
hear stories and we,
as adults, want to hear stories.
We want to read stories,
we want to see stories,
we go to the movies,
we watch television,
we listen to the radio.
Stories matter enormously to us.
And whether they're traditional
stories out of Mythology,
or stories that are
made up like geniuses
like Mario, it doesn't matter.
The stories are important
to us as human beings.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: May
I ask you a question, Edith?
>> Edith Grossman: Yeah, sure.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: How was
that you discovered Spanish?
Why you learned Spanish?
>> Edith Grossman:
Well, the truth, Mario,
is that I hated school.
I hated being in school and the
only teacher I could tolerate
was a Spanish teacher.
And I said -- I remember it,
very clearly, saying to myself
"Whatever that -- Excuse me.
"Whatever that woman
does, I'm going to do."
And that's why I
went into Spanish,
because she was a kind woman.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Did you ever thought
of yourself as a translator?
Because my impression is that
very few translators think
of themselves as translators.
They are accidents in
their rides that push them
in the direction of translation,
but my impression is
that it's very rare that someone
chooses to be a translator
since the beginning,
since they're young.
>> Edith Grossman:
No, I never thought
of myself as a translator.
I thought I would be a scholar.
I thought I would
be an academic.
That I would be doing
great things
in the Spanish Renaissance
and, you know, discovering
yet another poem by Góngora,
and I thought that's
what I would do,
but translation was wonderful.
When I began to do that, I
thought "I like this more
than research and I like
it more than scholarship."
>> Marie Arana: That says
to me that, you know,
you as a translator,
as a scholar,
you were looking at literature.
As a translator, you are
looking at literature
but also entering it and the
entering it is interesting to me
because that says to me that
you are naturally a writer,
that you have the writer in
you and it makes me want to ask
if you were writing
stories yourself
and if you were imagining
those worlds yourself.
>> Edith Grossman: Well, I
wrote a couple of stories
when I was very young,
but I'm a failed poet.
I've written lots of poetry
which I keep in the drawer
and I look at it from time
to time and I think "Oh,
mostly this is not very good."
A couple of poems I like.
And so, that was in me.
>> Marie Arana: So --
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
[Inaudible] A great admirer
of translators because I think
you might be extremely --
-- generous to be a
very good translator
because if you have a
strong literary personality,
you cannot be a very
successful translator.
I think that a real translator
is someone who is able
to renounce of this
personality in order
to be a very effective
servitor of the original
that you translate into English.
And this, I think,
is very incompatible
with what writers used
to be and usually are.
>> Edith Grossman: Well,
I always thought of myself
as someone with a huge ego.
So I'm charmed to hear
Mario say that about me.
I never thought of myself as
a servant of anybody but --
[ Laughter ]
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
But it's very difficult
to renounce your personality,
your literary personality
in order to be an
efficient translator.
>> Edith Grossman: But
that's why it's so hard
to translate than writing.
I much prefer to
translate great writing
because that resonates with me.
>> Marie Arana: Right.
So, Mario, you've indicated a
little bit about your feelings
about translators,
but how, in general,
do writers feel about
translators?
Not -- Not you about Edith in
particular but just in general.
How -- Is there -- Is there
a natural affiliation?
Is there a -- Is
there gratitude there?
Is there the frustration,
at times?
What -- How do you think --
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: Let me
tell you, Maria, I am terrified
with translators, particularly
since I received the visit
of a Russian woman, a young
woman who was having a, I think,
a Doctorate in Moscow
University.
And she came to see me
and she told me something
with was terrifying.
She told me "You know
that your translations
into Russian are
absolutely awful, awful?
Because they are done
by different translators
and what I have discovered
reading these translations is
that the mistakes are so
enormous, so enormous that most
of your novels translated into
Russian are absolutely faders."
And from the literary point
of view, I was never contacted
by my Russian translators.
I've seen the books.
I have received the books but
the translators, apparently,
never had problems with
my books, my novels.
And I understood exactly why
after talking with this --
And since then, you know,
I have many anecdotes
about my translations.
For example, my first novel,
The city and the dogs,
was translated into Sweden
and was told by an Spanish
that had been teaching in Sweden
and he spoke very good
Swedish, I suppose.
And he told me "You
know that in your novel,
in the Swedish language,
when the young Cadet smoke,
they smoke marihuana."
Wait, what?
There is no marihuana in
my first novel, not at all.
Nobody smoked marihuana.
And he told me "Probably, as
there are so many brutal things
in your first novel,
the translator thought
that when the cadets smoke, they
smoke something very audacious.
And so, they smoke marihuana."
So the Swedish readers of
my first novel have a --
-- very absurd idea of the
cadets because at that time,
in Peru, I think nobody
smoked marihuana, you know?
>> Marie Arana: No.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
So my impression is
that when I discover
a new translator,
I am usually terrified,
you know?
But not with Edith, of course.
No. But I am totally reassured.
>> Marie Arana: So, Edith,
how would you characterize
your profession?
Are you -- Are you
-- Are you a writer?
Are you an avatar?
Are you a ventriloquist?
Are you -- What -- To my
mind, you have to be a writer.
You are a writer.
You are a writer who actually --
-- has linguistic
abilities to carry a language
from one culture
to another culture.
And I say that this --
You're not just bringing it into
a language, you're bringing it
into a culture because
it's a whole apparatus
that you're doing.
>> Edith Grossman:
What's [inaudible] there's
no [inaudible] to set.
Every time I hear the word
culture, I pull out my pistol.
>> Marie Arana: Oh, okay.
[Inaudible] for me.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
A Nazi leader, you know?
>> Edith Grossman: Well, I
don't know about cultures.
I translate languages.
I don't know if I'm
translating cultures.
I don't know what that means.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: So
don't you think, Edith,
that a language is not
just a collection of words?
There are feelings, there are
sentiments, there are passions,
there are obsessions and
you translate all these
with the words, with the --
There is a complex collection
of feelings and intuitions and
also a way to understand nature
and society and other
people and the tradition.
And so, you use words to express
all these complex apparatus, no?
Edith Grossman: I only translate
what the writer writes.
So if the writer understands all
of those things, as the author,
the first author
understands all those things,
then my job as a translator
is to bring that into English.
But I don't know.
I don't want to be grandiose
in talking about what I do.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: Well, no,
not grandiose but you have --
You have problems, you know?
With words.
You use words trying
to use everything
that those words represent
or implicate, you know?
Feelings --
I think, for example, comparing
the Spanish that we talk in Peru
and with the Spanish
that is talked in Spain,
there are enormous differences,
enormous differences.
And, particularly, in
the Peruvian Spanish,
I think a psychological
quality which is largely shared
by Peruvians is represented,
impregnated, and
this is timidity.
The shyness of Peruvians, in
comparison with the quality
of the Spaniards who are so
convinced of what they believe,
on what they do, you know?
And, in Peru, you are never so
convinced of what you are doing.
You are hesitating all the
time and we are using, Spanish
and Peruvian writers,
the same words
to express very different
kind of feelings, you know?
>> Edith Grossman: I don't have
anything to say about that.
>> Marie Arana: I have
a feeling that it's just
so intuitive for you, Edith.
That it's just second nature
for you -- For you to do that.
I'm really struck by
the fact that you --
You both are interested and
have said you've been interested
in the same writers, the
same literary figures, the --
You share an interest in
Madame Bovary, for instance,
or in Anna Karenina,
or in Don Quixote.
And there's a kind of common
and I wonder if that sort
of affiliation helps in
the process of translation.
>> Edith Grossman:
Are you asking me?
Is that addressed to me?
>> Marie Arana: Yeah.
Just some comment on the
ways that your tastes
and Mario's taste
happen to align.
It's which interests me a lot.
>> Marie Arana: Well,
there's a part of me, Marie,
that wants to say that if
you don't love Don Quixote,
you shouldn't have anything
to do with literature.
I think Don Quixote is the
greatest book that's ever been
written in any language
that I know of.
And everyone who reads loves it.
And I've read it I don't
know how many times
and each time I read it, it's
a brand new experience for me.
Flaubert's Madame Bovary is
one of the most stunning novels
that was ever written.
I can't remember the third book,
you mentioned the third
one and I don't recall.
>> Marie Arana: Anna Karenina.
>> Edith Grossman:
Anna -- Oh, yes.
Well, how can I forget Tolstoi?
Yeah. So, I mean these
two women, Emma Bovary
and Anna Karenina, to find the
sensibility of the 19th century,
they are astonishing characters.
And so --
-- as I said, it's sort of like
saying that you like Shakespeare
or that you like
Cervantes, how can you not
like Emma Bovary
or Anna Karenina?
>> Marie Arana: Yeah.
And yet, there are very
strong differences between.
I should also mention
William Faulkner,
who was very influential
in Mario's life.
And then, a new deal with that
Faulkner influence in many
of the writers that
you've translated, Edith.
And there is a --
There is a kind of --
There's a permeable quality
to literature in the way that,
you know, when you
think about it,
that Faulkner influences Mario,
Mario influences, you know,
a Danish writer or a Romanian
writer and there's this sort
of permeability to
language in general
and translations in general.
I'm thinking, of
course, of your book.
This says Why translation
matters.
This happens to be
a page proof of it,
which I got about 10 years ago.
>> Edith Grossman: I've
just recognized the cover.
>> Marie Arana: It's
an extraordinary book
and anybody who's interested
in Translation should read it.
But it's in there,
you talk about the --
The sort of the fundamental love
and respect for great literature
that brings you to the table
to do the work that you do.
And, you know, that I think
that there are those common
interests make you a literary
translator, whereas
other translators
who might just be doing
words, moving words
from one language to another.
There's a very different
quality in the way
that you approach the
literature that you translate.
So --
>> Edith Grossman: Marie,
flattery will get you
anything you want.
You know that.
>> Edith Grossman: That's
very kind of you to say that.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: Let
me tell you what happened
to me with Madame Bovary.
I read it.
I bought the book the
day I arrived in France.
That was at the end of
August, 1968, I think.
And that I was so impressed that
I read the novel the whole night
and I finished the
novel the next day
and for me was extremely
important as a writer
to discover this novel
because this novel showed to me
that it was possible -- The
kind of literature that I wanted
to do but I didn't
know how to do it.
At that time, it was very
popular in Latin-America,
among writers, the realism.
But the realism that
was practiced
by Latin American writers
was a kind of literature
that was very poor from
a literary point of view,
from an artistic point of view.
And I wanted to be a
realist writer but I didn't
like the kind of realism that
was practiced in Latin America.
On the contrary, my
impression what realism was not
incompatible with elegance,
with even preciosity,
with literary kind of
texts, that at the same time
that express a real word would
be beautiful and very attractive
and very original from a
literary point of view.
And this was Madame Bovary
for me, a realist story
in which elegance was present
in every phase of the novel.
And I started to read Flaubert
immediately, the letters
and all the novels,
and I thought
that Flaubert was a fantastic
influence to the kind
of writer that I wanted to be.
He had managed to produce, you
know, novels that were realist
as Madame Bovary or La
educación sentimental, que --
At the same time, were masters
of aesthetic values, you know?
And so, it was not incompatible,
the realism with the beauty,
with the elegance
within the preciosity
of a language, of a style.
And since then, I think
I have been very --
-- humbled each time
that I have read Flaubert
because he has been,
in a way, my master.
Someone who told me to
produce a realistic literature
that was not the void
of aesthetic values.
>> Marie Arana: Were
you reading Flaubert
in French or in Spanish, Mario?
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
In French.
I was a very french admirer
at that time, when I was a --
I went to the university
and at the same time I went
to the -- To learn French.
And after a few months,
I could read French.
I thought I could read in
French when I arrived in France.
My French was not understandable
for the French people,
but I read a lot when I
was young in French, yes.
>> Marie Arana: Well, this is
-- This is -- This is the magic,
of course, because --
Because you could read French,
you could appreciate
Flaubert in the original.
And so many cannot.
And so, you know, you --
For instance, you must have
read William Faulkner initially
in Spanish, right?
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
In Spanish, yes.
And I learned English to learn
-- To read Faulkner, yes.
>> Marie Arana: In Spanish.
And he had a wonderful
translator in Spanish.
And this is why he influenced
so many people in Spanish.
And so, that act of
leaping across a language
and appreciating
another's sensibility is --
Was easy for you in French
but not so easy for others
who need the translators.
And that, of course, is where --
The importance in
the unifying force
of translation comes into play.
I think of -- One of the -- One
of the most important things,
I think, that Edith says in her
book Why translation matters is
because -- I mean, you --
How could we possibly
understand, for instance, the --
-- the spirit or this
sort of the culture --
I'm sorry to use
that word, Edith,
of let's say the Japanese, if we
could not read Haruki Murakami
in a translation, right?
And it's that translation
that brings us --
That has us leap across those
frontiers and those borders
to understand a different
kind of sensibility.
I was really struck, Edith,
by what you just said earlier
about you hear a voice when
you read a book that you are
about to translate and
you actually hear a voice
and it almost inhabits
your head, and I want you
to talk a little bit more
about that voice that you hear.
>> Edith Grossman: Well,
it's not only a book
that I'm going to translate.
It's any book that I read.
When I read, I hear the --
I hear the language in
my head as I'm reading.
And I don't know if that's
because I'm a poor reader.
I don't know what it
means, but I do hear --
I do hear a voice when I read.
And --
-- as the voice speaks,
and if I'm translating,
I try to speak --
-- in English, what the voice in
my head is speaking in Spanish,
if that makes any sense.
>> Marie Arana: It makes
absolutely perfect sense to me.
And here I'd like to tell
the audience a little bit
about the PALABRA Archives
at the Library of Congress,
in which you can actually
hear the voices of hundreds
of Spanish and Portuguese
language authors reading
from their work.
And the archives date back
to, I think, it's 1943,
and include a stunning
number of great artists.
Mario, of course, is part
of the PALABRA Archives
because he recorded
at the Library
of Congress a number
of times, I think.
But also, Gabriela Mistral and
Pablo Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges,
Cortázar, Julio Cortázar
is there, Jorge Amado.
So just hundreds of really great
writers in this great collection
at the Library of
Congress given to us
by the Hispanic reading room.
And I just want to play with you
a little bit, Edith and Mario,
by playing three recordings
from the PALABRA archives
and the record is just so that
our audience can hear, perhaps,
in a way, what Edith is saying
that you actually hear very
different voices in the words
in stories that are being told.
These are 30 second recordings.
And the first one is Gabriel
García Márquez reading
from Autumn of the patriarch,
which he recorded in 1977.
Let's hear that now.
>> Gabriel García Márquez:
Y a las voces insepultas,
el horror de las miradas
póstumas que acechaban por las
cerraduras, el rastro de
sus grandes patas de saurio
moribundo en el pantano humeante
de las últimas ciénagas de
salvación de la
casa en tinieblas.
>> Marie Arana: And
that was, as I say,
Gabo García Márquez reading
from Autumn of the patriarch.
And now, listen to
Laura Restrepo reading
from her novel Delirio, which
was translated as Delirium.
This is a recording from 2015.
>> Laura Restrepo: Supe que
había sucedido algo irreparable
en el momento en que un hombre
me abrió la puerta de esa
habitación de hotel y ví
a mi mujer sentada al fondo,
mirando por la ventana
de muy extraña manera.
Fue a mi regreso
de un viaje corto,
solo cuatro días por cosas
de trabajo, dice Aguilar,
y asegura que al
partir la dejó bien.
Cuando me fui no le
pasaba nada raro,
o al menos nada que fuera
fuera de lo habitual.
Ciertamente, nada que anunciara
lo que iba a sucederle durante
mi ausencia; salvo sus propias
premoniciones, claro está.
>> Marie Arana: Laura
Restrepo with Delirium.
And now, I want you
to hear, Mario.
This was recorded way
back in 1977, Mario.
It's you reading
from Tía Julia,
from Aunt Julia and
the scriptwriter.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Le pusieron Seferino para
halagar a su padrino de bautizo,
un portero del Congreso
que llevaba ese nombre,
y los dos apellidos de la madre.
En su niñez, nada permitió
adivinar que sería cura,
porque lo que le gustaba no eran
las prácticas piadosas sino
bailar trompos y volar cometas.
Pero siempre, aún
antes de saber hablar,
demostró ser persona
de carácter.
>> Marie Arana: So these three
-- These three examples which,
to my mind, show you a
great spectrum, really.
I mean, there's that mesmerizing
quality of García Márquez.
There is a kind of intimate
quality to Restrepo,
very intimate, almost as if
she's in the room with you.
With Mario it's this
unbelievably crisped,
defined narrative
that is very clear
and very sharp and repertorial.
And I just want to talk about
those voices and how you slip in
and out of them, in your
ability to go from say,
from Mario's work to Cervantes's
work to García Márquez's work
to Muñoz Molina's work, Edith,
and the different
voices you inhabit.
>> Edith Grossman: Well,
the joke is I do
that with difficulty.
I don't know quite how to
answer the question, Marie.
I think I begin each book as if
I had never read another book
and never heard -- I'm sorry.
Never heard another voice.
And I begin fresh with each
author and with each book.
And I think you have to do that
because, Mario may disagree,
but I think an author's voice
changes from book to book.
It doesn't stay the same.
It's not a constant and --
-- what I hear is not so
much the physical voice
of the author, as the
voice speaking the novel,
if that makes any sense.
>> Marie Arana: Absolutely.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
That makes sense, Edith,
but let me ask you a question.
I'm very curious
about what you said,
but when you read a book
you discover a voice.
Is that common, it
happens always
or in certain cases the
voices are dissipated,
the voices are confused,
mixed with other voices
that you have in your memory?
>> Edith Grossman: Well, it
only happens with good books.
I don't hear voices if
I am unfortunate enough
to read a poor novel.
But I do hear a voice in my
head when I read something
that I really like and value.
And I think that voice exists
alone and it's the voice
of the book in my mind.
I'm not sure if that
makes much sense,
but these are -- I
do hear the book.
>> Marie Arana: Well
-- What you say
about voices having different --
Authors having different
voices is so true.
I mean, with Mario, I mean the
narrator in Death in the Andes
and the narration in Death
in the Andes is so different
from The bad girl, or Cinco
esquinas, or The neighborhood
and very different from
Conversation in the cathedral.
Those voices are all
very different and
yet they are all
Vargas Llosa and, Edith,
you need to enter
each one depending
on its own terms, I suppose.
>> Edith Grossman: Yeah.
Well, I guess we're all kind
of characters and we put
on different masks,
depending on what we're doing.
>> Marie Arana: Right, right.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Absolutely.
You know, there are different
voices because the people
who are expressing themselves
are from different regions
in which we talk about
different ways, you know?
And if you go from Cusco
to Lima and to Lima --
From Lima to Cura, you
have three different voices
which are so, so different
that they seem, you know,
different versions
of the Spanish --
Of the Spanish language, no?
The --
-- Spanish from the Andes is
very different from the Spanish
of the coastal region in Peru.
The coastal region, Spanish is
much more humorous, for example,
than the Indian Spanish which
is very severe, you know?
Very --
-- intimate, you know?
So you cannot --
-- give the kind of Spanish
of the coastal region
to a Cusqueño or
to an Arequipeño
because they are completely,
completely different, you know?
In spite of the fact
that they --
That we speak the same
Spanish, you know?
Which is more or less the
original Spanish, you know?
>> Marie Arana: That's so
true with a dialect because,
you know, I'm thinking for the
first time Miraflores dialect.
You know, that's way
that Miraflorinos speak
and you capture it, Mario.
And somehow, Edith manages
to get it into English,
which is some [inaudible]
digitation
that we will never understand,
but that magic happens
in Edith's voice in
her head somehow.
It must be really difficult
with slang, however, Edith.
I mean, there is lots of --
There's this -- How
do you do slang?
There are untranslatable
words, right?
>> Edith Grossman: Oh,
see, I don't believe that.
I believe all words
are translatable and --
-- I'm helped by the fact that
English is a very slimy language
and we have all kinds
of colloquial ways
of saying things.
>> Marie Arana: I'm thinking,
Mario, you'll appreciate this.
I'm thinking of the word
huachafo in Peruvian Spanish.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
[Inaudible] to translate,
you know?
Huachafo.
>> Marie Arana: How do you --
How do you translate huachafo?
Huachafo is meant to be someone
who is pretentious beyond,
you know, his social
station, his -- His --
Well, how would you translate
huachafo in one word?
It'd be difficult.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
It is very difficult
because there are no words.
I mean, Edith, my impression
is that there are no words
in English that express
huachafo.
Huachafo is something
very complicated.
Now, I think, is a
vision of society.
It's also a language in which
you communicate, you know,
your feelings, your sentiments
and -- But, at the same time,
it's a -- There is some poverty
of the quality of the language
in the huachafo expression,
you know?
And so, it's a caricature
in a way.
It can be very caricatural,
the huachafo language.
But, at the same time,
it's the language
in which we express musically,
for instance, in the valses,
in the huaynitos, in
marineras, you know?
The best music of
Peru, you know?
And it's musical of -- Music,
huachafa music, you know?
>> Marie Arana: Right,
right, right.
I'm sure Edith will pull out --
Will pull out the right
American slang, too.
>> Edith Grossman: You just have
to give me a minute
to figure it out.
>> Marie Arana: Alright.
I want to talk about -- In
closing about the attitudes
of publishers to translators
because I think it's just
something that you've spoken
about quite a bit, Edith, that
in Europe and Latin America,
for instance, 25% to 40% of all
published works in those areas,
in Europe and Latin America,
are actually translations,
the translations
from other languages.
In the United States of America,
the percentage is
very, very low.
Three percent of
all published works
in this country are
translations.
So this -- This fever that you
have, Edith, to bring to sort
of cross those boundaries
and bring --
-- great works into
the English language
that you wouldn't be able to
read otherwise in, from Spanish,
is actually practiced
very little.
There is a very small percentage
and publishers are very wary
of publishing translations
because they're never sure
whether they will sell.
I think that a lot of that was
broken, that ceiling was broken
by the Latin American Boom
of which Mario was a part,
in which suddenly we were
getting these translations
by you and Rabassa and
Helen Lane and others
who were bringing great quantity
of Latin American writers
into -- In the English language.
But there -- Do you feel
there is still a resistance?
Do you -- What would you
say about this [inaudible]
of publishing translations now?
>> Edith Grossman: I think
that's reduced a great deal.
Publishers never would put the
translators name on the cover
to try to hide the fact that the
book was a translation and --
I had a wonderful feisty
lawyer back in the day
who would do my contracts
and he would fight very hard
to get my name on the cover,
under the author's name.
And I think that broke a
precedent in the United States
and now translators usually
have their names on the covers
under the author's name.
And that was going
on the assumption
that buyers would not buy a book
if they knew it was
a translation.
So the publishers were trying
to present translated works
as if they had originally
been written in English
or some bizarre ideal like that.
But I don't think that's been
the case for quite a few years.
>> Marie Arana: Mario, do
you have comments on that?
>> Mario Vargas Llosa: Well,
I think it's very important
to read translations --
-- particularly because I think
literature is exactly this,
you know?
The possibility of know
different ways of expression
in the order of imagination
of inventions, you know?
I think in the United States
the problem is reduced
because the different
kind of people who arrived
in the United States and
who usually are attacked
to their origins.
So they -- They have this, let's
say, worldview of the world.
But in a country, let's
say Sweden or Holland --
-- the only way in which
you can translate yourself
to different countries, to
different kind of invention,
is through translations.
And that is the reason
why I think the tradition
of good translators is
very, very important
in the Swedish countries
and, in general, in Europe.
I don't know what is the
percentage of the foreign books
that are reading in Europe
but my impression is it's
that it is a larger portion
of books than in America.
>> Marie Arana: Yes,
that's true.
And then, an interesting
sort of corollary to that is
that the English translations,
because English has become
such a universal language, the
English translation is the one
on which the other
translations are based.
So I would say, when
we were talking
about your Russian
translation and how horrible
that Russian translation
was, Mario,
it was probably a translation
that was done from --
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Retranslation.
A retranslation from
a different language.
>> Marie Arana: Right, right,
through another language.
So -- So the English language
translation becomes absolutely
cardinal, central to
the whole process.
>> Mario Vargas Llosa:
Absolutely.
Yes.
>> Marie Arana: Yeah, yeah.
So -- So -- It's -- So if
our percentages are lower
in the United States of America,
we're not producing enough
for the rest of the
world, as well.
I want to read just a
passage that Edith wrote
in her book Why translation
matters,
and it did really says
what you just said, Mario.
"Translation permits us to
savour the transformation
of the foreign into the
familiar and, for a brief time,
to live outside our own skins,
our own preconceptions
and misconceptions.
It expands and deepens our
world, our consciousness
in countless, indescribable
ways."
And I think, Edith,
that says it all.
>> Edith Grossman: I couldn't
have said it better myself.
[ Laughter ]
>> Marie Arana: So Edith,
Mario, thank you, really.
Thank you so much for this
wonderful opportunity to talk
to you and honor Edith
for her brilliant
and enduring work
in translation.
Thank you both so much.
>> Shari Werb: I
hope you enjoyed
that fascinating conversation.
The library plans on
bringing you more programs
on how books go from mere ideas
to published masterpieces.
Please join us for more literary
events which you can learn
about by going to
loc.gov/engage.