Lewis Jones and Dr. Alma Keith Lawrence, English

Currently many readers are beginning to turn to translated literature to add some spice to their readings. Magazines such as Harper’s and The New Yorker are publishing more and more translated literature as the demand for it continues to grow. Much of the translated literature which is published is Asian literature; however, it is mainly Chinese and Japanese literature which is currently being translated. When I searched online to find the Thai literature available, I was disappointed to find that it consisted mainly of cook books. I thought that the Asian literature audience, if given the chance, would appreciate Thai literature such as short stories in addition to the recipe for the latest Thai curry craze. In order to facilitate this, I decided to translate two of Gonokpong Songsomphan’s short stories: “On Colosseum Road” and “Waterfall.”

I chose to translate Songsomphan’s stories because his literature has already received international recognition: it has been awarded the South East Asia Write Award and has been translated into Japanese. I had read many of his stories and found all of them enjoyable and on the same aesthetic level as the other Asian literature which is currently popular in America, including authors such as Amy Tan and Chitra Divakaruni.

The translation process, however, was not exactly what I had expected. When I dusted off my knowledge of the Thai language and began to translate “On Colosseum Road,” I found that there are many frustrations involved in translating. Some of these frustrations stemmed from a lack of knowledge of the Thai language, as I found my nose continually buried in the Thai-English dictionary to pinpoint an exact definition. However, the bulk of the frustrations were those that are intrinsic to the translating process. I discovered that the roadblocks on my road to translation included the following: many phrases could not be translated directly, the syntax of English and Thai are completely different, and cultural assumptions which are assumed in the Thai stories do not even exist in America.

In order to solve these problems I checked with other Asian-English translations and I consulted with my faculty mentor, Professor Lawrence. While perusing other translations, I found that often times the author would use footnotes to explain aspects of the story which would otherwise be lost on the English-speaking audience. I found this to be a great alternative to my idea of including a foreword for the stories, because how most readers do not read introductions, forewords or prefaces, and as a result, getting a foreword published would be difficult. However, since footnotes appear as the norm in translated literature, I believe that their inclusion in my stories does not in any way detract from the story. In fact, the people who have read the translated stories have expressed that they believed the footnotes to have enhanced their overall enjoyment of the stories.

As I mentioned, Professor Lawrence also offered some advice. He explained that authors also have some artistic license (and even an obligation to the author being translated). He said that the integrity of the story and its artistic value must be conveyed in English. In order to do this there were aspects of the stories that I had to alter in order to avoid redundance. In the Thai language these passages did not seem redundant, but in English they felt monotonous so I found ways to alter them and still stay true to the original story.

Professor Lawrence also pointed out that while the body of the stories were intriguing, the dialogue was flat. By this, he meant that the characters did not seem real–a direct result of the literal translations of the dialogues in the stories. In order to correct this I had to take what the Thai dialogue said and then consider the situation in English. Then I had to write, in English, conversations that would seem real to an English speaker when reading them. With these dialogues fixed, I was ready to have them looked at by native Thai speakers to check the accuracy of my translation.

Once I was assured that the translations were accurate, the stories were ready to be submitted for publication. Unfortunately, this part of the project is where I am currently stuck. Many of the different publications have differing guidelines for submitting translations. Some publications require the translator to obtain permission prior to submitting the piece, while others will obtain the permission from the Thai publisher on their own. I have written to the Thai publisher in order to find out their policy on having their literature published as translations, and I am compiling a list of publications that accept simultaneous submissions so that once I receive the permission, I will be able to submit the stories to several journals and magazines to get these stories published as quickly as possible.

I wish that the publication process was quick and painless, but as I discovered for myself this past semester, it is not. The translation process and all of the Advil and Tylenol it took to overcome them was nothing in comparison to trying to get a piece published. I hope that I can find the right market for these stories and that the audience will receive them as well as those who have already read them in Thai and Japanese. I believe that whatever the result, I have learned many things about translating and publishing fiction.