Marlene van Niekerk and Michiel Heyns on translation

A discussion with Marlene van Niekerk and Michiel Heyns on the translation from Afrikaans into English of the novel AGAAT.

by Marlene van Niekerk
Translation by Michiel Heyns

"A good translation does not just convey the same meaning, but it gets the music of the words right." Orhan Pamuk

Where: BOEKEHUIS,
Cnr. Lothbury and Fawley streets, Auckland Park
When: Saturday 25 November 2006, at 12:30
RSVP: by Thurs 23/11 on
011 482 3609 or boekehuis@vanschaik.com

In his review of the English translation of Agaat, Chris Dunton says in the Sunday Independent, that given the novel's length, stylistic range, and its linguistic virtuosity, Heyns' translation itself "constitutes a remarkable labour of love."

'In Mouse Or Rat? - Translation As Negotiation' a book of essays on the problems a translator encounters when translating literature, Umberto Eco suggests that translation is a negotiation not just between words but between cultures.

Writer and translator Michael Hofmann talks of "the strange bi-authorship of translation".

Miguel de Cervantes says in Don Quixote, "translating from one language into another... is like gazing at a Flemish tapestry with the wrong side out: even though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that obscure the view and are not bright and smooth as when seen from the other side."

What is lost in translation? And what are the gains?

Is Agaat, a linguistically intricately embroidered novel, translatable?

The author and the translator of the novel Agaat talk together at BOEKEHUIS about the problems and negotiations of translation.

About the novel:

In Agaat, Marlene van Niekerk skillfully reinvents the genre of the farm novel. On the farm Grootmoedersdrift, tragic and unexpected events are triggered by a number of fateful shifts of power and dependence in the intimate relationships between family members, in particular the relationship between Milla, a 67 year-old white woman in the terminal stages of ALS (motor neuron disease), and her coloured caretaker Agaat. The acute helplessness of the mute and completely paralysed patient makes extraordinary demands of her caretaker, who goes about her duties with a mixture of infinite tenderness, sadistic precision and a desperate and passionate undertow of anger about the past, as well as sadness of the anticipated loss of her "mistress". Love and hate battle it out until they are indistinguishable.... Through flashbacks and lyrical intermezzos, the history that leads up to this situation is revealed.

Van Niekerk uses a broad range of literary devices to illustrate the cultural framework of the Afrikaners. The deep bond with the land, the flowers, plants and animals, receives extensive attention. There are numerous references to children's songs, the Bible, poets and classical music. The language tilts and soars, almost dizzying the reader, and never stalls.

About the author:

Marlene van Niekerk is a poet and author of satirical short stories and a novel, the widely acclaimed and internationally translated Triomf. She is Professor at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, University of Stellenbosch.

Her most recent book, Memorandum, published in both English and Afrikaans is a collaboration between herself and the artist Adriaan van Zyl who recently died after a long illness. In this beautiful and unusual book about a hospital experience the text and visual images offer parallel narratives that resonate poignantly with each other.

About the translator:

Michiel Heyns is the author of the well-received first novel, The Children's Day, which has just been translated into Afrikaans as Verkeerdespruit. His second novel, The Reluctant Passenger, was published in October 2003 and his third, a biographical novel on Henry James, The Typewriter's Tale, in 2005. Before he started writing full-time he was professor at the Dept of English at Stellenbosch University.