The first professional weekend of the Association of Hungarian Literary Translators (MEGY) was organised at the end of May in Diósjenő with the intention of raising awareness and pooling experience. The association was formed in 2004, it has almost two hundred members, the president is István Géher, literary historian, literary translator, university professor. The weekend was organised for professionals, but in the end, only about one-third of those present were "registered" literary translators (meaning someone who makes their living by specifically translating literary works), the majority of the participants were arts graduates or university students in the faculty of arts who have an interest in the profession, which goes to show that there is genuine interest in literary translation. Lídia Nádori, chief organiser of the programme and member of the presidency, says there is nothing strange about this as a great many students graduate each year from the arts faculties of various universities, and a large proportion of them don't know what to do with their diplomas. They see literary translation as a possible solution, an "escape-route".

Conveying culture

Many people think that just because they can speak a foreign language, they can automatically become literary translators. Thus, deciding who is suitable as a literary translator from among all the enthusiasts is an interesting issue.Of course, the easiest solution would be if there were an accredited, higher-education professional training for literary translators.  But at the moment, the existence of translator's workshops depends on the enthusiasm of individual teachers and professors. From September 1991 to January 31st 2009, there was a specialised programme for literary translators at ELTE, and the students were given a certificate for completing the course, as an additon to their diplomas. "The essence of it was continuous practice, and that the students always received feedback regarding their work," said Anikó Sohár, one of the programme's initiators and driving forces, who is currently associate professor of the faculty of Apáczai Csere János, at the University of Western Hungary.

According to the official explanation, the reason why the course ended was that it did not fit into the Bologna system, and that there was no capacity for it. However, since all the teachers, among them István Géher and László Lator, taught free of charge in their spare time, this was probably just a pretext. The programme had been extremely popular right from the start, and it was not only students from arts faculties who applied, but also doctors, meteorologists, even physicists. "It really annoys me that the course ended, for many of my students told me they had never learnt as much as they had here", said Anikó Sohár. "On the one hand, the seminars enriched the students' knowledge of both languages.  On the other hand, literary translation requires an extensive background knowledge, as well as an aesthetic and moral sensitivity. These classes were suitable for educating learned, open-minded and tolerant young intellectuals."

From now on, it will be possible to learn literary translation at ELTE, as within the Cultural Studies minor, as a specialization. It was at Péter Pázmány Catholic University that they last tried to start an independent department, but the accreditation committee rejected it, saying "there is no professional reason for starting an independent MA course for the training of literary translators, instead, it could be the popular area of other majors". In other words, it should be solved within the various language departments. "The training of literary translators is primarily a financial and educational policy issue, but it seems as if the committee were not willing to acknowledge that literary translation, since it conveys culture as well as texts, is not of the same quality as the usual translation practice at university," says Lídia Nádori. It would be just as important to launch a comprehensive course in the art of translation. It is true that at ELTE's Department of Translation and Interpretation, it is possible to get a PhD in the art of translating, but that is primarily oriented towards linguistics, whereas this profession is interdisciplinary: those doing research in this area can come from any area of the arts or social studies, or elsewhere. Psychology has been interested in it for quite some time now, for it has been found that very interesting processes take place in the brain during translation.

Working for peanuts

Among the different genres of translation interpreting is the most lucrative, but you can make good money with technical translations as well. However, making a living from literary translation is almost impossible. The situation is a little bit better than it was in the first half of the 1990's, but the work of literary translators is still not appreciated properly. Some people say that literary translation is paid work.  In reality, it falls under copyright, which is why the translator signs a copyright contract and not an ordinary contract with the publishing house. In the case of work written in prose, an author's sheet (40 thousand characters including spaces) is considered as one unit, in the case of verse, it's one line. "It is true that in real value the fee is still decreasing, but a lot slower than it was in the 1990's. We managed to stop the plummeting of that period, now we're trying to slowly climb back to the earlier level," explains Lídia Nádori. Although one of the most important aims of MEGY is safeguarding the professional, moral and financial interests of literary translators, the association cannot negotiate with the publishing house in place of the translator. However, with the help of a copyright lawyer, they have prepared a sample contract and a recommendation regarding the fees. "Also, one should not forget that it is the publishing house and the translator together who prepare the book. It is important that they do not look upon the other as their enemy," stresses Lídia Nádori.

In the 1990's, the same thing happened in the area of literary translation as in publishing: an increase in quantity and a decrease in quality. The great state monopolies disappeared, many new publishing houses suddenly appeared, censorship was gone, investigative reports, gulag-literature and pulp fiction appeared out of the blue and had to be sold on the market as soon as possible. All and sundry tried their hand at translating, anyone who felt they spoke a language relatively well, and this resulted in the dilution of the profession and a deterioration in quality. The system is still not as it should be, even today, for the main consideration of publishing houses continues to be profit-making and remaining on the market. It's important for them to find translators for less money, especially someone who is willing to translate anything and does not even require that his/her work is checked by an editor.

"An enormous amount of books are published, that's why so many translators are engaged, some of whom shouldn't actually be translating, but the majority does quite decent work. Of course it's a different issue altogether that publishing houses could be a bit more generous regarding deadlines and fees. Literary translation is a lot of work and little recognition, and yet there are still young talents who enjoy doing it," Anikó Sohár sums up the situation. While the relatively small number of literary translators working before the change of the political system were paid quite decently for their work, those of today often work for peanuts, and can be divided into two groups. There are those who do it for a living, and produce almost industrial amounts of translations, and those who do it for love, two or three translations a year, but make their living in some other way. In The Encyclopedia of Language, David Crystal writes that an average professional translator translates 20 (full) pages a day of familiar texts, while a literary translator does a lot less, about 5-6 pages a day. If they receive 30 thousand forints for 40 thousand characters (20 pages), it's easy to calculate how long it takes them to earn this sum.

Review and control

Public opinion cannot easily forget what the famous Hungarian writer, poet and literary translator, Dezső Kosztolányi, is quoted to have said:  namely, that translating is distorting, in other words, the translation and the translator are traitors. This is also due to the fact that good translations are rarely lauded, while mistakes always make the news. That is why there is an urgent need for real, analytical criticism of literary translations, which could help translators and publishing houses alike, just like there is in Holland and the Scandinavian countries. But there is no such thing here in Hungary, and Lídia Nádori says there are several reasons for this. One of them is the idea that only literary translators are capable of genuine criticism of literary translations. Of course, this is exaggerating a bit, for a literary man who is familiar with the source language and has read the work in the original must be capable of writing an acceptable review, but a reviewer is usually not paid to read the original, say 300-page novel, after having read the translation, and then to compare the two. Another reason is that a review can be a source of resentment among members of the profession. "The reason we became literary translators in the first place is because we try to avoid conflicts at all cost," says Lídia Nádori, who incidentally does not exclude the possibility of reviewing other literary translators, otherwise there would be no control at all.

As literary translators take their time finding the best solution, there is always (or should be) a need for editors and proofreaders. The task of the latter is to compare the original text with the translated one, but publishing houses often try to save money by leaving out this stage. Also, it would be preferable if, similar to Western practices, we employed test readers, and were able to gauge the reception of the translation, and whether it could fit into national literature. "Today, we generally tend to think that in an ideal situation, the reader doesn't notice that he's reading a translation," says Anikó Sohár, and adds: "There is no such thing as a text that cannot be translated, only word combinations, plays on words that cannot be translated word for word into another language. And that's where the translator comes in, depending on how s/he solves the task. And although creativity is one of the key elements of this profession, it is important that the translator remains loyal to the original work, to the author, and to him/herself, as well as remaining loyal to the publishing house, and of course one must never forget the readers.

PROFESSION OR ART?

István Géher: "The literary translator is a performing artist, like a musician or an actor. A foreign work of art is mute in Hungarian, it is the translator who gives it a voice and lets it be heard, who interprets it, if you like. A literary translator is someone who enjoys and is familiar with the art of deception, who is happy to identify with the role offered by the original, and copies - either with minute brushstrokes, discreetly softening the tone, or with loud, energetic movements - in order to convincingly convey to us, in Hungarian, Mark Twain or Ezra Pound."

Lídia Nádori: "The two definitions are only valid together. It is certain that there are professional tricks of the trade that have to be learnt, and it's also true that a literary translator learns new things all through his/her life. You have to know a great deal about the culture of the source language, the background of the text, but then there is always the moment of inspiration, creation. But we should never let ourselves be fooled into thinking that we are authors or poets, creating texts, for what we do is reproduce texts."

Anikó Sohár: "We actually do both. There are things that can be taught and learned, but the sense (of the language, of style, of humour, etc.), the natural feeling of changing from one language to another is a talent you are born with, and which you have to nurture. But putting yourself into every single text is not necessarily artisitic."

CLASSICS RETRANSLATED

We're a small country, but a nation of great literary translators - that was how we thought of ourselves and that was how the world thought of us. From the Reform Era in the early 19th century up to the present, the greatest representatives of Hungarian literature considered it their duty to translate into Hungarian the works of the greatest authors of world literature. Just think of the Shakespeare-translations of János Arany, Sándor Petőfi and Mihály Vörösmarty, the great efforts of the Nyugat-generations, the huge amount of literary translations done in the 1950's. The Shakespeare Committees, led by academics and poets, evaluating each Hungarian version of the plays, and after making extremely difficult decisions, giving new commissions to the best. It was said that the translation of Hamlet by Arany was irreplaceable, but then after 1990, it turned out to be a false statement. It's true that on this occasion, it wasn't a committee that commissioned the translation, but a theatre. And slowly, new texts appeared. Gyula Illyés' translation of Moliere was replaced by that of the poet György Petri, János Arany's classical Hamlet translation was replaced by that of Ádám Nádasdy (poet and university professor of linguistics), the translations of Romeo and Juliet by Kosztolányi and Dezső Mészöly were replaced by the work of Dániel Varró.

While the various theatres launched the decades of retranslation, publishing houses hardly gave any commissions to have classic works rewritten into Hungarian, even though the profession is well aware of the fact that the Hungarian texts must be reassessed every 40-50 years. After the ruthless exploitation of the 1990's book market, when it was possible to prevent the publication of new translations by quickly publishing outdated works of bad quality, it seems that the situation has improved somewhat. And new enterprises give rise to hope: not only has the publishing house Kalligram decided to publish the complete works of William Faulkner, they are also having some of his novels retranslated. L'Harmattan is having Julio Cortazar's major works translated and published. The leading Hungarian publishing house of world literature, Európa Kiadó, has started viewing the Hungarian versions of Agatha Christie's crime stories more critically, and a dozen or so of her books are now being retranslated. In bookshops, however, there are still lots of bad texts to be found, ones that have a harmful effect on the vernacular, despite the fact that there are lots of talented young people waiting for commissions. And, as the Miklós Radnóti literary translator competition, orgnised by the literary magazine Holmi, goes to show, the middle generation is also ready to recreate world literature in Hungarian. But will there be money for it, and will there still be readers at all?