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When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Marianna Suleymanova’s skills as a translator were put to use translating an anti-war journal called “Roar Review.”
““I thought, ‘well, I think I can help people here understand a little bit of what’s going on,” she said. “I thought, ‘well, I think I can help people here understand a little bit of what’s going on.”
Now, she’s one part of a group of Philly-based translators who turn literature from other languages and cultures into English.
Suleymanova’s skills stem from her time growing up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan when it was still a part of the Soviet Union, where she spoke Russian and English. She moved to the United States at 16 and eventually went to work.
“I translated at NASA, and I translated for other industries,” she said.
Suleymanova practices literary translation in addition to her full-time career. Despite this, she says this is her true passion – allowing her to uplift the voices of Russian-language writers to English speakers.
“I think it’s important to have this alliance across languages,” she said. “Russian speakers are not who I do this for. It’s for Americans and English speakers that I do this for, wherever they may be, whether it’s in Australia. People can read my pieces anywhere they’re on the internet.”
And Suleymanova is not alone. Philly’s literary translating community is vast.
“It will continue to be important”
Literary translation is different from literal translation – authors who are literary translators tend to try and preserve the original voice and tone of the text across languages.
Many popular American books are also translated – including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (translated from the original Swedish written by Stieg Larsson) and Pinocchio (translated from Carlo Collodi’s original Italian).
And literary translation has been around for a long time, said Emily Hunsburger, a Philly translator who translates from Spanish.
“Work has been translated in so many languages,” she said. “It’s kind of conduit for us to read each other’s stories and learn from each other and see what’s universal among us and what things challenge our understanding because it’s so different from the culture that we’re used to.”
Despite this, Hunsburger said there hasn’t been as much visibility and awareness around literary translation in the U.S.
“I took a world literature course when I was in high school, many years ago, and all the books we read were translated works,” she said. “But never once did we learn the names of the translators. Never once did we talk about what translation is, or theories or challenges or dissecting what the act of translation is.”
She said this is part of what inspired her to get into the field. Hunsburger owns a multilingual translation company. She helps to translate content from Spanish and Portuguese to English or from English to Spanish.
She explained that this piqued her interest in literary translation.
“I had always thought that I’d love to do literary translation,” she said. “In my younger years, I did a lot of creative writing, and I took a translation course when I was in undergrad, but I had left it on the back burner. I knew how to translate, but I didn’t really know about the publishing industry or how it worked.”
She entered into the field after moving to Philly in 2020. She said she quickly recognized the value it brought to the city
“Philadelphia has so many eclectic, unique spaces for art,” she said. “And I feel like I’ve talked to a lot of people in different disciplines of art who feel like Philadelphia is a place where you can practice your art, and so I feel like literary translation is just another one of those disciplines where this is a great place to be based, to be doing your art.”
And beyond its artistic impact, literary translation is important to open others up to different worldviews, said Stephanie Schechner, a retired teacher from Widener University who translates from French.
“Because Americans don’t study languages as much as other parts of the world, translation becomes an essential way for Americans to get access to voices that represent other points of view,” she said. “That helps open the world to people who cannot read things in the original text.”
Schechner’s work focuses on a lesbian, working class French author, who goes by Mireille Best.
Schechner said she felt like translating works from an author like this would be important, as it can show Americans who are feeling like their voices aren’t heard that there are models for their experiences around the world.
“I think knowing that there were people ahead of us in the past who were fighting for their right to be individuals can give young people some hope,” she said.
Philly’s literary translation community
Philly’s literary translation community is small, but dedicated.
Hunsburger explained that Philly has an informal collective of translators called Transversal, which has helped connect Philly-area translators.
“Transversal does not have any formal or nonprofit status,” she said. “We don’t have a board or anything, everything is just very organic and informal, and anyone who’s part of the collective can organize a gathering or anything they want to.”
Transversal was started by UPenn graduate students Liz Rose, Hilah Kohen and Kate Meng Brassel several years ago.
The group now holds in-person meetups and co-working sessions, allowing for connection between members.
Schechner said the group has employed creative strategies to facilitate connection between translators in different languages – including structured work sessions.
“We do what’s called a Pomodoro,” she said. “You work for 25 minutes and we set a timer, then we take a five minute break in the middle, and say hello to each other. Then, we work for 25 more minutes, and then chat briefly at the end and then we leave. We’re just creating a space and an accountability where people could sit with each other and be in community.”
Sean Gasper Bye has worked in literary translation for many years, including time as the interim executive director at the American Literary Translator’s Association – the only national organization in the U.S. dedicated to supporting literary translators.
He said he initially got into the Philly literary translation community after moving back to the area from New York City.
“I had always thought that Philly had the makings of a great translation town, because it has such strong cultural infrastructure,” he said. “I feel like people in Philly are very worldly, are very interested in culture and are readers.”
He said with the creation of Transversal and conversations with other translators, a solid community was formed. He said local collaborators, like bookshops, have also been receptive to events and partnerships.
Suleymanova emphasized that the morale of Philly’s translation community helps to keep her motivated.
“To look across the table and see people that are as hell bent as you are about bringing these stories across borders and languages, it could feel like you have a team in this, even if somebody’s working from entirely a different language,” she said.
Hunsburger said she is excited to see community partnerships and interest around the topic growing, and hopes to continue with the momentum.
“We want to continue, this year, with doing more of that kind of community outreach and bringing in the people interested in translation, or who are already involved in literary translation in Philadelphia who we haven’t managed to meet up with yet, and doing more things with these other organizations that are doing important work in the community,” she said.
‘It’s quite solitary’
There are obstacles literary translators have to face.
“What we do is very niche,” Suleymanova said. “There’s not a lot of spotlight on it. It’s quite solitary. It takes years for this work to see the light of day.”
Philly’s literary translators try to get together to combat these issues and offer each other support. There are even events different translators will often host.
Hunsburger said there have been bigger events the community has put together as well – including a Literary Translation Workshop she hosted late last year.
“We co-sponsored the practical literary translation workshop that I led at The Head & The Hand Books last November,” she said. “It was called the ‘Translingual Remix,’ and it was meant to be small, because if you’re going to have it was a two hour time block, and if you’re going to have translators working on a piece, reading, and sharing, you you can’t have too many people in the room,” she said.
“So it was intended to be a small workshop, but it was really, really cool, because the languages that people were bringing of who signed up was Hungarian, Ukrainian, Bangla, Yiddish, Italian and Spanish.”
Schencher said it can also be hard to find time for literary translation, as it often doesn’t pay enough to be a primary career.
“Many translators are otherwise employed to pay their bills, or they’re in school, and carving out translation time for almost all of us is tricky,” she said.
There can also be a lack of recognition for translators and the effort it takes to rewrite books into English, said Mahmud Rahman, a translator who translates from Bengali.
“We want translators to be more recognized, and some of us feel that the name of the translator should go on the cover of the book,” he said. “Some publishers do that. Many do not, and it’s a constant tug of war, because essentially, when you’re translating a book into a language, you’re essentially recreating it, and it’s more your work.”
Rahman emphasized Philly’s literary community oftentimes does not get recognition compared to other big cities like New York.
Bye explained there is also a lot of thought that goes into literary translating – work he says cannot be replicated by a machine.
“It’s easy to think that we’re just kind of walking dictionaries who sort or swap one word in for another, and that it can be done quite mechanically,” he said. “And that’s really not the case.
While artificial intelligence is a concern, Hunsburger said that the machines can’t replicate much of literary translation.
“The point that machines can’t really get at this point in time when it comes to literature or translation itself, is that what you would get from one translator would be different than what you get from another translator,” she said. “Because there’s also an artistic component.”
“Communication and connection”
Despite these challenges, Hunsburger said Philly’s literary translation community is special.
“I think it’s almost like an infinite well of conversation and connection,” she said.
Bye said practicing literary translation also helps to challenge our traditional ways of thinking.
“Something that is really special about translation, is that you have access to these works that came up in a different cultural context, a different historical context, a different literary context, and you can see them breaking our rules or not paying attention to our rules, because those aren’t the rules over there,” he said.
He said that Polish writing, for example, oftentimes focuses less on the genre of story and more on the writing quality – which he says may not be the same in America.
If you are interested in literary translation or joining Philly’s Transversal group, you can send them an email at transversalphl@gmail.com.