>> From the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. [ Silence ] >> Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention? We are about to begin our program. We are very privileged and honored today to have Dr. James Billington, the Library of Congress -- the Librarian of Congress with us today. Dr. Billington will soon complete his 25th year as Librarian of Congress. During those years he has led the Library forward in numerous initiatives. Here I will only mention two of them. First there is American Memory, a Library of Congress website focusing on the history and creativity of every state in the United States. And the second initiative is the World Digital Library, a cooperative project with UNESCO which was born in the librarian's office. The purpose of the World Digital Library is to create a virtual encyclopedia of humanities cultural creativity. Please welcome Dr. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress. [ Applause ] >> Thank you very much and it really is a pleasure and honor for us here at the Library and here at this -- this important, beautiful reading room to welcome our Georgian friends and particularly welcome you, Mr. Minister, Mr. Ambassador, and various representatives of -- of Georgia, which is a remarkable country. I had the pleasure of visiting Georgia for the first time in -- actually in 1958. It was the first time I ever went to the then-Soviet Union and I remember going up the Georgian Military Highway seeing [inaudible] as well as [inaudible] obviously and then my most recent trip was only a couple of years ago when I went to the Monastery at the -- where you had the early flowering of -- of a scientific culture way back. It was still pretty much the dark ages in most of Western Europe I was familiar with. So it's -- it's been -- and you know, the Library of Congress has as its major aim and I as the first person who's a student of international cultures to become the 13th Librarian of Congress. But it's always been built in to the Library that it should be a universal collection. It should have the major cultures of the world represented in its multi-form collections -- not only its book collections but its -- but its films, its maps, its music and Georgian culture and that's why it's a special honor to have you Mr. Minister with us because Georgia really does have this extraordinary and vibrant culture. I remember the first time I went there, I asked somebody for an explanation of why there was this -- as I remember, this bull's head coming out of this ancient church [inaudible] and the result was about an hour and a half lecture about [chuckle] ours is a Georgian culture and I've been fascinated with it ever since. So anyhow our effort here is to be a universal library and in recent times we've been developing our Georgian collection here. We're lucky to have Mr. Doya [phonetic] and Mr. Krepo [phonetic] working, especially on it and many others taking a new interest in it. So it's -- it's very nice that we will have -- we're both meeting here where the center of the book culture traditional work -- where you can also get access electronically and do comprehensive research. And then we'll be having later in the day, a showing of two of the very, very important Georgian movies that were important not just to Georgian history but to the evolution and the change in important transformations within the then Soviet Union and beyond that, real contributions to world culture. I remember I was personally honored without probably deserving it but I was very appreciative of an honor I was given by Pedici University some years ago and what really impressed me was the -- was the quality of the -- of this kind of a -- of this kind of a ceremony where you're getting honorary degrees because it was done with kind of a universal reach in this Latin scene. There was of course, all manner of ceremony but it was all meaningful and it was infused with that enormous energy that you see in Georgian dancers and Georgian music. And so it was kind of -- they were always sharing and Georgia has always shared in so many ways with the rest of the world, their energy, their vitality and their enormous hospitality. It's funny when I think about it, I've accompanied a number of Congressional delegations that visited different parts of the then-Soviet Union. They always wanted to go -- especially go to Georgia because they'd heard about the hospitality, the energy, the cultural richness. I remember I was with Senator Sarbanes, and his late wife was a classicist, and everywhere we went in the then-Soviet Union, she said, "What do you know about the classical world," and so forth. And she said she got her greatest satisfaction in Georgia where people knew about the classical world because they'd been part of it and of course, way before, and way after in the sort of some of the mountain regions, wonderful things happen. So I -- it's a great pleasure for me -- a personal pleasure for me to be here and I think I can speak on behalf of what I hope is a growing number of Americans who have been more familiar with the -- the wonders, the antiquity. I remember I was involved in the 1,000 Anniversary Celebration in -- about the academic side of it -- sort of baptism of [inaudible] as it was then called. This was -- this was in 1988 and the -- it was the first time that people from the Academy of Sciences who worked on religion met with people who were actively continuing the faith traditions from the different parts of the -- Christian parts of the Soviet Union and frankly the Georgian representatives were the intellectual stars of the meeting. And they all came from -- from the church itself and its great antiquity, its independent language, liturgy and so forth. So from variation times and from most recent times, Georgian culture is something that we're increasingly honored to be able to upkeep -- upgrading and encouraging greater study and greater appreciation of it and somebody I once talked with said, "Well," he said, "maybe you don't have quite as many ethnic Georgians in the United States because whatever the problems are at home, it's like the fascination with being a part of this continuous variation and yet very modern also, very vibrant cultural world of culture, the total sense of the very unique and original culture. So they tend to stay in Georgia and anyhow, we're glad to have you here. We hope that [inaudible] Georgian American community but also a broader number of Americans will become more fully aware of and we -- we as I say, developing excellent people working on it here and hopefully the collections will continue to grow. And we're just very grateful to have you all here today. Former professors always talk for 15 minutes and I don't want to do that because we want to hear from our Georgian friends. So I will just say once again, "Welcome, thank you for being here and we look forward to having a continuing relationship with Georgia and its wonderful culture as expressed in so many important ways." So thank you and Mr. Minister, thank you especially for being with us. [ Applause ] >> We indeed are very fortunate to have with us Mr. Nikoloz Rurora [inaudible] sorry, the Minister of Culture and Monument Protection of the Republic of Georgia. The Minister was born in Tbilisi and studied at the [inaudible] Musical College and later studied TV directing at the Tblisi State Shota Rustaveli s Institute of Theater and Film. In 1994, the Minister came to the United States to continue his studies and in 1998, became a student at Georgia State University, that is our Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta. Upon finishing there, the Minister returned to Georgia where he initially worked on bringing Georgian commercial legislation in line with the European Community's commercial legislation. Subsequently he entered into politics and he is now, as I said, the Minister of Culture and Monument Protection. Please let us welcome the Minister. [ Applause ] >> Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, dear hosts, I'm extremely delighted to be here in the Library of Congress, in this beautiful building and place that I've never been to although I've been many times in Congress itself when I was the Member of Parliament but never in the Library of Congress. It tells you something how much Parliamentarians are fond of books and reading [chuckle]. But finally I made it and this is, you know, a place that creates conflicting feelings, you know because I know a little bit of its history and I'm very anxious to take little short trip around this place. But what brought us here today is two initiatives which will be taking place in Washington, D.C. in this -- in this beautiful town. The first thing I would like to talk to you about briefly is the Georgian films that we brought here to your attention. These are two pictures made in my place in Georgia when Georgia was part of Soviet Union. One of them was directed by famous Mikhail Kalatozishvili. To the west he is known as Mikhail Kalatozov. He's you know, one of the brightest stars of Soviet Cinema but he was Georgia. He was born and raised in my country and in early '30s; he made a film about one particular mountainous region in Georgia. That film has interesting story. It was meant as fiction, as a feature film. But because of censorship and the project was cancelled and he was given one last chance director to finish it was a documentary. So basically 95 -- 95% of the film was shot and he was basically forced to reedit it into a documentary. And you can see it -- that some characters are fictional. However, the film is documentary. It shows that very tough conditions living in Svaneti in one of the beautiful places in Georgia. This film is considered as a classical of Soviet Cinema and also classical of Georgian Cinematography. Another film is really something extraordinary. It was made during Paris [inaudible] years and initially the project was supported by authorities because Soviet Leaders were trying to convince the west that [inaudible] was something workable. And the film was allowed to go on. I mean the project of filmmaking was allowed to go on. However, in the middle of the process, authorities realized that that would open up a Pandora's Box of Soviet -- real Soviet history. And there were attempts to shut it down. However, it was 1986 if I'm not mistaken and information was already public that extraordinary film about Soviet history was being made and the public awareness about it was quite high. So authorities didn't really date to kill the project and the film was finished. And then it was released. And the result was totally extraordinary. Basically that film without exaggeration made [inaudible] irreversible because it showed although allegorically, it showed what -- where conditions under Stalin Regime under regime which was responsible for killing tens of millions of its own citizens. And after that film, Soviet Union basically started collapsing. So it's not the single cause for that of course, single reason was -- there is no single reason. I mean, Soviet Union imploded for many contributing factors but one of those factors was this movie for sure. And I'm glad to finally -- we brought it to the United States. We had screening in New York yesterday and it went quite well and I hope that you will find it interesting. About this book, the book I'm holding by the way for the first time. I haven't seen the final copy. This is a breakthrough for Georgia Literature even though Georgia has its own alphabet and Georgian Literature goes back to 4th Century, our first manuscript that we have in our Museum of Manuscripts, it dates back to 4th Century. Georgian Literature hasn't been translated basically at all. There were several you know, very, very modest attempts of doing that during Soviet period but that was it. And this book basically shows how colorful, how diverse Georgian Literature is. I know this is a statement that may sound a little exaggerated but it's not because this book has most of the names of contemporary Georgian writers who are extremely popular now in my place. Because of the lack of translation basically, our rich literary tradition was unknown to the world. So I hope that this book will be an icebreaker. I would like to thank the Dalkey Press, the publisher who came up with the idea -- I would like to say thanks. To the translator, the American translator who did -- and she did great, great job and I would like to ask you to tell your friends to read it. And of course I would like to ask you to read it as well because you won't regret it. This is quite an extraordinary book, telling a lot of untold stories. So this is I guess all I have to say. Again, I'm delighted to be here in this beautiful place of knowledge and talent and wisdom and I hope to see you this evening at the show of the picture. Thank you very much. That's it. [ Applause ] >> All right, I just want to thank you very much for this book. This will help I'm sure -- we are the Library of Congress and our job is to -- is to -- particularly the Congressional Research Service is to service better understanding and thinking and -- and clarity and all the many issues that our country has to be concerned about. But also the creativity that is in the outside world. So this wonderful contemporary Georgian fiction as another tribute to the creative imagination of the Georgian people which does go back such a long way. So thank you for not only being with us but also calling our attention to this book and even presenting it to the Library of Congress collection so that it will be I'm sure, help with the ongoing effort that we have to promote serious scholarship and understanding of the various cultures of the world. And this is one of the most -- one of the most ancient original and in need of greater appreciation and a more broad understanding. So thank you very, very much Mr. Minister for being with us and bringing these films and also for bringing this book and reminding us sometimes it's the case in your country and many other countries that the best gateway of understanding is very often what people have said and what has been now so effectively communicated in English. So thank you very much for this. >> [Applause] Mr. Minister and Dr. Billington, thank you so much. We are now going to begin the second part of today's program. But before Mr. John O'Brien and Ms. Elizabeth Heighway tell us about the book just received by Dr. Billington, I would like say a very few words about who we are here in this Reading Room. I'm Chris Murphy; I'm the head of the Near East Section here in the African and Middle Eastern Division. On behalf of my chief, Dr. Mary Jane Deeb who is right down here and all my colleagues, I wish you all welcome. The African and Middle Eastern Division is responsible for developing the Library of Congress' collection from and about some 78 countries. The Republic of Georgia is among those countries and the area specialists for Armenia and Georgia is Dr. Leah Doyl who is in the second row there, is among the staff of this division. I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Deeb for all her support and to Dr. Doyl, Dr. Paul Crego who is there beside Leah, Ms. Angeline Newburn and of course, Ms. Irma Kavtaradze, I'm sorry for the mangling of the names, who is first secretary of the Georgian Embassy and Ambassador Temuri Yakobashvili. All of these individuals have worked very hard and diligently to make today's events happen. At -- hopefully at the end of the presentation that's about to begin, there will be time for questions and answers. We appreciate the audience asking questions but we request that they make questions not statements and you should know we are videotaping this for a later webcast. And if you ask a question, you're thereby giving your consent to be videotaped and webcast on the Library of Congress website which gets about 4 billion hits a year. So without further adieu, I would -- Mr. O'Brien and Ms. Heighway, please come up. [ Silence ] >> I'm going to make two very brief introductions and then I'm going to turn it over to our guests. And they have approximately 25 minutes to speak and then there'll be a couple of minutes for questions and answers if there are any and then there's a reception in the Northeast Pavilion. Mr. John O'Brien directs Dalkey Archive Press which is the publisher of the book just received and he eagerly seeks ways to make the cultures in literature of non-English speaking peoples and nations available to the English language reading public which is why this book was one of his press' projects. Ms. Elizabeth Heighway -- and I hope that is how it's pronounced, the translator of the works contained in this book is a professional translator of Georgian and French. She works and resides in the United Kingdom where she is also currently undertaking graduate studies in addition to her translation work. Let's all welcome them. [ Applause and background conversation ] >> Libby, I'm not sure quite how we do this so -- I feel like Martin and Lewis with both of us standing here. The -- I have a few questions I'll be asking Libby. I just want to say a few words about the anthology itself and about Libby. It was not the easiest thing to find a translator and editor for this book. We were quite fortunate to come across Libby who in many ways is so responsible for this turning out as well as it has. But also the Minister of Culture who supported this along the way and there had to be a great deal of faith [inaudible] on both sides during that period of support. Were we really going to come out with the anthology? And we had oh -- suggestions going back and forth about the cover and everything turned out [chuckle] to be quite delightful in dealing with the Ministry and also in dealing with the Embassy here in Washington. So there's been ideal cooperation throughout this entire process. Now I was -- I was not the editor for this book, the in-house editor; somebody else was. So I saw it along the line and really towards the end of the project and I was just astounded at the quality of the stories. I'm not sure how to tell this little anecdote without making it sound condescending but when I was visiting Georgia three years ago, I asked about modern literature and whoever I was talking to at the time immediately started talking about 16th Century Literature. So in a country that has such a long history, modern starts much further back than it does if you're talking about the United States. So when doing the anthology, I did not know what to expect or what was going to show up when it finally arrived, but thanks to suggestions from the Ministry of Culture and the work that Libby did, it's turned out to be an extraordinary book I think and there are copies that we've donated sitting on this front table that you're all welcome to, and I believe that there's more copies than this. So please pick up a copy and I think you're going to -- well some of you I'm sure are quite familiar with contemporary literature there. But I wasn't and I was just delighted to see the range of writing that's present here and how contemporary it is. my hope in the future is that we're going to be doing what I hope other publishers around the world will do as well, begin translating some of these authors who are in this anthology and I think a number of them -- I'll be asking -- that's one of the questions for you, which writers and which writers is Libby perhaps most interested in, in translating herself. But we're now going through the anthology in-house and deciding which writers do we want to be pursuing. So I hope this is just the first step in a series of steps that will be bringing a large number of Georgian writers into English and the long-term effect of that -- well English is our lingua-franca is that publishers around the world then get to read it and with so many of our books, they then get picked up in other countries and translated to other languages. So it's going to be an exciting time and this is just the beginning of a process. Let me ask you -- what were the biggest in -- we haven't talked about this. I really am interested in finding out the answers to these questions. What are the biggest challenges you had in undertaking this book and getting it done? >> The biggest challenges, I think, could probably be divided into normal translation challenges that any translator faces working with any language which has to do with being up to date with cultural references in the text, making sure your own language is up to date and finding the voice of the particular text you're working on. And then there were Georgian specific challenges which I would say primarily there were resources. I think translators rely not only on the knowledge they hold in their brain of the language and culture but to a very great extent, on the material that's available to them to research by the references in a text and also linguistic issues they may come across. As John mentioned, I work for Georgian and French and with French, really, everything that you need is available to you. For the Georgian translator, even a workable dictionary of a very good size is something you can't take for granted. So I think for me as I start this off, it would be resources would be my most specific Georgian -- Georgian related difficulty. But I was very blessed to have a good network of Georgia speakers to help me with the language. I was able to contact all [inaudible] which was invaluable. People obviously want you to help as much as they could and we were able to clear up nuances that maybe I wasn't getting all that I wanted to be sure I was getting. And thank Goodness, there is now, a very good dictionary available, at least as a starting point which again was just invaluable. >> There's a -- my true background is academic and I now that at most universities, translation is seen as a kind of messenger service and usually does not receive any credit for purposes of promotion or tenure. The assumption is that anybody who knows the language, that's enough to be able to be a translator. So there's an attitude on the part of academics about this and I think it generally spreads to others, book reviewers for instance that all that a translator has to do is know the language and you probably have to have a good dictionary and that's it and then you go to work. So almost anybody and I've heard a number of people say that one day they want to do a translation and all I can do is hope that they never get around to that day because they're ill-equipped. So how would you response that all you need is the language? >> I'd respond by saying, "I don't think that's true obviously." But it's maybe a little bit more difficult to quantify why exactly why. My Master's that I just finished, my Master's Studies are in translation and there have been reams written about translation theory and what it is that makes translating difficult, why it isn't just a matter of looking up a work in a dictionary and putting it into the other language assuming that's even possible. And having studied that for the last two years, I'm really none the wiser as to why sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. From a personal standpoint, I think it's -- there's an ingredient in the middle that somehow seems to be lost. You have to have knowledge of the source language that the test that you're translating and you have to have a very in-depth knowledge of your own language, its nuances and the connotations that words carried, the extra meanings that might not be found in a dictionary but which make a word a living thing unless there's something in the middle, something between those two areas of knowledge that just has to click in and it sounds a little bit of a not a satisfactory answer to your question but it seems to be an intuitive -- an intuitive thing sometimes why something works, what was the feel of the original and how best to put that into -- into English. And I hope [inaudible] [chuckle], so we'll see. >> Oh I think you have. My view from -- from the time I first started publishing is that translation is an art when it's practiced by the right person. And so it's a combination of vast knowledge, not just of the language but of the country and the culture. Then having the references, being able to spot the references -- then the enormous difficulty of getting that into the new language without making it sound as though it got somewhere stuck in the Atlantic or the Pacific and hasn't quite made it into the new language and that usually involves taking risks. The great translators are ones who realize that something isn't working in the new language and it can't work and this gets us to that question of do you have a sense of something being lost in the translation and if it is, do you find ways of making up for that loss? >> I think the point you raised is very, very valid and I think going on from what I was saying earlier by intuition, the fact is there aren't really hard and fast rules about you can say this -- this kind of thing is translatable and this kind of thing isn't translatable. Every time you come across a particular linguistic structure, you have to take that in isolation from another instance of that same linguistic structure. If you find a cultural reference, you can't say as a blanket rule, anything that relates to for example Georgia's [inaudible] History can't be translated because an English or American reader won't get it. There are things they will and there are things they won't. so I think it's not possible to say, "Yes, this is lost in translation." I think there are going to be occasions where you have to let something go. You can sit up for -- you know you can have sleepless nights thinking, "How -- how am I going to get that thing into English?" Sometimes you have to let that go but it may be possible to introduce a similar thing elsewhere in the text to make a similar linguistic play or to substitute a cultural reference which has the same force in English in a different place. So I think it's always a balancing act between trying to slavishly shoehorn everything in that's in the original and giving up when -- when you hit the first hurdle. You can't do either. I think you have to take every -- everything as it comes and see what you can do with it. >> You are as good as I thought you were [chuckle]. Now Libby and I have just met over this occasion so as I said I was not the editor for the book but the things that you're saying now demonstrate a translator who knows what the real issues are and how to be addressing them which means an awful lot of work and probably some sleepless nights. >> That -- to be honest, I think that's where the fun is. If it was a matter of just replacing the Georgian words with the English words, it would have no soul. The job would have no soul -- the job -- the task. I think it is an art and I think what makes it interesting is that challenge of -- of trying to get the right -- knowing what to let go or feeling what to let go, feeling what to keep. And I think the amount of work that goes into that is hopefully what gives you a text that comes some way to meeting the standards of the original. >> Did you have to deal in a great deal with the authors or would it be asking them specific questions? >> It depends a lot on the stories actually. Now some of them were relatively straight forward linguistically. They weren't particularly complex structures, the vocabulary was relatively straight forward and the -- they followed a chronological sequence. So it was relatively clear what was going on. Then sometimes I'd still be checking the odd word to make sure that it didn't have a meaning I wasn't familiar with or an extra added meaning. There were other stories where the Georgian was really so complex, the sentence structures, the chronology of the text was so involved that I had to really rely on the authors to help me unpick those because I sometimes thought I was really missing the point or going a big mad -- you know, what's going on here and if it was then confirmed that was what you were supposed to think, then that's fine. And other times it was really -- things again weren't Georgian -- Georgian specific references. Some of the authors, I'm thinking particularly of Aka Morchiladze's, 'Once upon a time in Georgia' which is almost an essay style. It's very discursive, lots and lots of cultural historical references, references to film scripts where I had to either on my own or with him, sit down with the script of 'Once upon a time in America' to find particular lines because he'd quoted them in Georgian but obviously the original was in English so I couldn't just make that up you know. It wasn't a matter of thinking, "Well this is what the Georgian means -- so let's retranslate that." So having to sit down or at least say, "Please roughly where is this in the film?" So I can sit with the script and find it. Similarly, in -- I think in Archil Kikodze's story, 'The Drunks' in the second part of that, the narrator or the main character has a conversation with someone who refers to illustrations in children's books and the only reference -- he doesn't ever name the books, but the reference is what's written under the illustration. So from that having to piece together which book it was and then if that was an English book, try to find again, a quotation in the original form -- all sorts of things. I think if you had to do those on your own, you'd really lose your mind and the authors were without exception really helpful, very keen to be involved and to help me do the best job I could. There were only a few authors who for reasons outside anyone's control weren't contactable. Somebody was up the mountain I seem to recall and couldn't get to email [chuckle] but everyone was -- was really unfailingly helpful. >> I've only one question left but before that to -- do you have any questions and please don't make me revert to my professorial days of calling on people if no one wants to ask. Usually people do want to ask and feel uncomfortable. So please take this as the opportunity. Sir? [Chuckle] Good. [ Inaudible question ] >> I think -- I think it's -- I think with a collection like this, with -- with several short stories, it's quite difficult to make generalizations about how the language has changed especially because there are so many different styles represented in the book. So to make a statement about the language overall I think is quite difficult. I think the -- the younger authors in this tended to have stories that were of a very, very different style but that style overall, not just relating to the structures that they used or the vocabulary that they used. So I mean there are -- I think there are maybe unsurprising things like the influence of Russian seems to have shifted, died off a little. There was less Soviet terminology but I think more probably it would be safer to say that there have been maybe some literary shifts in that period rather than linguistic ones per se. I don't think I have enough -- enough knowledge to make statements on that. >> Sir? Your hand was up before I think? >> [Inaudible] >> That was it? >> [Inaudible] [Laughter] [ Inaudible question ] >> Of course. I think [inaudible] especially in something this long, you know you're going to hit one of those problems sooner or later either idioms or sorry the first one was? >> Images. >> Images -- I think hopefully as I said before, sometimes you lose one but you get -- you can -- you can somehow compensate for it elsewhere and I think -- I think hopefully overall, I hope I've maintained the balance really. But yes, absolutely -- there's no point including an image that's going to mean nothing to the target reader because you've lost them. If there's -- if it's possible to think of a similar one that's not going to be too specific to the culture that you're translating into, I think there was a job about somebody being well-endowed and I think the reference in the Georgian was having breast like the pistons on a -- and then there was a Soviet model of car [laughter]. And I think I remember that one being particularly troublesome. I -- I wrangled about for many hours whether I could refer to someone's body parts as you know, related to a Soviet car or not. and in the end I think I went with a -- I had to in one of my stranger sort of straw pulls, trying to think of American sports cars that had large pistons you know [laughter]. In the end I think I went with a particular year Chevy. But you know this kind of thing -- yeah you could lose it entirely if you left it in the original. So -- so yeah. >> My question is kind of an extension of her question. That is like when you have culturally specific colloquialisms or adages or something, did you find something that meant somewhat of a thing in English? >> I think so as far as possible. It was interesting because I'm actually obviously an English translator and working with an editor based in the U.S. and there was a fair bit of backing and forthing about some of the words I'd use or some of the idioms I'd use which it turns out were peculiarly British which I hadn't been aware of or more British than I thought. So yes, I think finding -- I think there are degrees again. You can find an idiom that's so clearly rooted in the source that it would stand out and look a little false. But then there are maybe slightly more neutral ones that you can use that have a similar effect or similar force for the -- for the target reader, the target audience. But interestingly actually -- I must say that so many of the references were to English and American Literature. I was really quite ashamed at the amount of research I had to do into my own literature and at one point I -- I remember seeing something that was clearly some sort of euphemism or set -- set phrase and asking the author, "Where does this come from?" Knowing that it would be some literary great and he emailed me back straightaway saying, "It's from your Chaucer." [Laughter] I was absolutely mortified that I had to be told by a Georgian about a Chaucer quotation. Such is life. >> Yes? [ Inaudible question ] >> I think it's -- the -- yes the difference -- the question was how I find the... >> [Inaudible] >> ...as a translator, what the differences and challenges are of translating French into English as opposed to Georgian into English and I would say yet again really, it's the cultural references on the one hand and the language -- mostly the language. Cultural references I think are there for every language so even if you're neighbors as England and France are, there are going to be very many things that France refers to that the English reader won't get. So the big [clears throat] -- the bigger problem I think was that French is just so much closer to English, the structures are so much closer. Both languages have gender in them, both languages have you know, verbs that do particular things where as with Georgian really, it's anything goes sometimes [laughter]. You know, you're faced with a sentence where you can really take very little from the Georgian and just transfer it straight into English. You have to restructure the verb because you can't -- you know it's just so different. You have to assign gender to something that isn't marked in the Georgian. It's just sometimes the -- the Georgian is there, the English is there and some kind of mysterious thing happens to turn the one into the other. Whereas with French, it's -- it's a lot more guided I think. >> I want to thank you -- I'm sorry that I've been told and for good reasons because there's a reception now for us to go to, that we should stop so my question's going to have to wait until [chuckle] we're by ourselves. And the question's going to be which writer should [inaudible] archive be focused on translating first. So it will be a business type question. Thank you enormously for being here. I'm very excited about this book. Again, please feel free to pick up a copy. We have several copies available. Thank you and thank you Libby. >> thank you very much. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.