The Off Topic Topic

[DGuller]

I imagine you were not watching this Morgan guy regularly.

That is correct.  In fact, this is the first time ever I've watched him.  I never even watched him when he was on CNN.

[garbon]

I'm waiting till my husband is off the phone to see if there's anything about how Met ranks are feeling about this.

Your husband is a copper? Do you ... roleplay?

No he is not. And he got an earful from me when he briefly considered being a detective.

[garbon]

I'm waiting till my husband is off the phone to see if there's anything about how Met ranks are feeling about this.

Your husband is a copper? Do you ... roleplay?

I now imagine Garbon has a large collection of hoodies precisely for this reason.

[celedhring]

We have a mini-controversy over here because Amanda Gorman's reps have vetoed her Catalan translator (a white dude) and asked preferably, for a "black young woman activist". This is going to be a bit difficult to satisfy... 

[Sheilbh]

We have a mini-controversy over here because Amanda Gorman's reps have vetoed her Catalan translator (a white dude) and asked preferably, for a "black young woman activist". This is going to be a bit difficult to satisfy... 

I think this is probably just the after-shocks of the Dutch story:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-white-translator-quits-marieke-lucas-rijneveld

'Shocked by the uproar': Amanda Gorman's white translator quits
International Booker winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld will not translate inaugural poet's work into Dutch after anger that a Black writer was not hired
Alison Flood
Mon 1 Mar 2021 11.48 GMT

The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black.

Dutch publisher Meulenhoff had announced Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker prize, as the translator of the Joe Biden inaugural poet's forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, last week. But the move quickly drew opprobrium. Journalist and activist Janice Deul led critics with a piece in Volkskrant asking why Meulenhoff had not chosen a translator who was, like Gorman, a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black".

"An incomprehensible choice, in my view and that of many others who expressed their pain, frustration, anger and disappointment via social media," wrote Deul. "Isn't it – to say the least – a missed opportunity to [have hired] Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for this job? They are white, nonbinary, have no experience in this field, but according to Meulenhoff are still the 'dream translator'?"

Rijneveld had previously welcomed the assignment, saying that "at a time of increasing polarisation, Amanda Gorman shows in her young voice the power of spoken word, the power of reconciliation, the power of someone who looks to the future instead of looking down". But in a statement, they subsequently announced their withdrawal from the project.

"I am shocked by the uproar surrounding my involvement in the spread of Amanda Gorman's message and I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff's choice to ask me," Rijneveld wrote. "I had happily devoted myself to translating Amanda's work, seeing it as the greatest task to keep her strength, tone and style. However, I realise that I am in a position to think and feel that way, where many are not. I still wish that her ideas reach as many readers as possible and open hearts."

Meulenhoff said it was Rijneveld's decision to resign, and that Gorman, who is 22, had selected the 29-year-old herself, as a fellow young writer who had also come to fame early. "We want to learn from this by talking and we will walk a different path with the new insights," said the publishing house's general director Maaike le Noble. "We will be looking for a team to work with to bring Amanda's words and message of hope and inspiration into translation as well as possible and in her spirit."

"Thank you for this decision," Deul wrote on Twitter.

Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate in the US, gave a tour-de-force performance of her poem The Hill We Climb at Biden's January inauguration, hailed by names from Michelle Obama to Oprah Winfrey. Her forthcoming books, The Hill We Climb and children's book Change Sings, subsequently shot to the top of book charts.

I imagine Gorman and her team are wanting to avoid similar issues so have made clear to international publishers that they want young black translators.

[celedhring]

Yeah, but finding a young black female writer in Catalan... sometimes people from the US should stop thinking all countries are like the US.

[garbon]

Yeah, but finding a young black female writer in Catalan... sometimes people from the US should stop thinking all countries are like the US.

It was Dutch citizens who were outraged, not Americans.

[celedhring]

Yeah, but finding a young black female writer in Catalan... sometimes people from the US should stop thinking all countries are like the US.

It was Dutch citizens who were outraged, not Americans.

Over here (I'm speaking of the Catalan translator) it's been reported as a demand from Gorman's camp. I'm just pointing out that finding someone with that profile is a fool's errand. We are a very small language, and one that sees little adoption from PoC (they tend to chose Spanish).

[Maladict]

We have a mini-controversy over here because Amanda Gorman's reps have vetoed her Catalan translator (a white dude) and asked preferably, for a "black young woman activist". This is going to be a bit difficult to satisfy... 

I think this is probably just the after-shocks of the Dutch story:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/01/amanda-gorman-white-translator-quits-marieke-lucas-rijneveld

'Shocked by the uproar': Amanda Gorman's white translator quits
International Booker winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld will not translate inaugural poet's work into Dutch after anger that a Black writer was not hired
Alison Flood
Mon 1 Mar 2021 11.48 GMT

The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black.

Dutch publisher Meulenhoff had announced Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker prize, as the translator of the Joe Biden inaugural poet's forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, last week. But the move quickly drew opprobrium. Journalist and activist Janice Deul led critics with a piece in Volkskrant asking why Meulenhoff had not chosen a translator who was, like Gorman, a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black".

"An incomprehensible choice, in my view and that of many others who expressed their pain, frustration, anger and disappointment via social media," wrote Deul. "Isn't it – to say the least – a missed opportunity to [have hired] Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for this job? They are white, nonbinary, have no experience in this field, but according to Meulenhoff are still the 'dream translator'?"

Rijneveld had previously welcomed the assignment, saying that "at a time of increasing polarisation, Amanda Gorman shows in her young voice the power of spoken word, the power of reconciliation, the power of someone who looks to the future instead of looking down". But in a statement, they subsequently announced their withdrawal from the project.

"I am shocked by the uproar surrounding my involvement in the spread of Amanda Gorman's message and I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff's choice to ask me," Rijneveld wrote. "I had happily devoted myself to translating Amanda's work, seeing it as the greatest task to keep her strength, tone and style. However, I realise that I am in a position to think and feel that way, where many are not. I still wish that her ideas reach as many readers as possible and open hearts."

Meulenhoff said it was Rijneveld's decision to resign, and that Gorman, who is 22, had selected the 29-year-old herself, as a fellow young writer who had also come to fame early. "We want to learn from this by talking and we will walk a different path with the new insights," said the publishing house's general director Maaike le Noble. "We will be looking for a team to work with to bring Amanda's words and message of hope and inspiration into translation as well as possible and in her spirit."

"Thank you for this decision," Deul wrote on Twitter.

Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate in the US, gave a tour-de-force performance of her poem The Hill We Climb at Biden's January inauguration, hailed by names from Michelle Obama to Oprah Winfrey. Her forthcoming books, The Hill We Climb and children's book Change Sings, subsequently shot to the top of book charts.

I imagine Gorman and her team are wanting to avoid similar issues so have made clear to international publishers that they want young black translators.

I don't know the Spanish guy, obviously, but it doesn't quite sound the same as the Dutch situation.
As the article notes, the Dutch translator was approved by Gorman herself, and they actually do have a lot in common.
There has been a fairly large backlash against Deul's critique, from the black community as well, in that she's verging on the intolerant herself. But the damage is done.

Rijneveld responded with a poem:

Everything inhabitable

Never lost that resistance, that primal jostling with sorrow and joy,
or given in to pulpit preaching, to the Word that says what is
right or wrong, never been too lazy to stand up, to face
up to all the bullies and fight pigeonholing with your fists
raised, against those riots of not-knowing inside your head,

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld writes poem about Amanda Gorman furore
Read more

tempering impotence with the red rag in your eyes, and
always announcing your own way with rock-solid pride,
watching someone reduced to pulp and seeing the last
drop of dignity trickling away, you are against craniometry,
against bondservice, against all of humankind's boxing in.

Never lost that resistance, that seed of wrestling free, your
origin is dressed in mourning attire, your origin was fortunate,
it had an escape route, not that your experience is aligned,
not that you always see that the grass on the other side may be
withered and less green – the point is to be able to put yourself

in another's shoes, to see the sea of sorrow behind another
person's eyes, the rampant wrath of all wraths, you
want to say that maybe you don't understand everything,
that of course you don't always hit the right chord, but that
you do feel it, yes, you feel it, even if the difference is a gap.

Never lost that resistance and yet able to grasp when it
isn't your place, when you must kneel for a poem because
another person can make it more inhabitable; not out of
unwillingness, not out of dismay, but because you know
there is so much inequality, people still discriminated against,

what you want is fraternity, you want one fist, and maybe your
hand isn't yet powerful enough, or maybe you should first take the hand
of another in reconciliation, you actively need to feel the hope that
you are doing something to improve the world, though you mustn't
forget this: stand up again after kneeling and straighten together our backs.

[Maladict]

Yeah, but finding a young black female writer in Catalan... sometimes people from the US should stop thinking all countries are like the US.

It was Dutch citizens who were outraged, not Americans.

Over here (I'm speaking of the Catalan translator) it's been reported as a demand from Gorman's camp. I'm just pointing out that finding someone with that profile is a fool's errand. We are a very small language, and one that sees little adoption from PoC (they tend to chose Spanish).

No, Gorman's camp was not involved. She also didn't pick the Dutch translator as the article suggests, but approved the publisher's suggestion.

[celedhring]

I'm not talking about the Dutch translator. I'm saying that the veto to the Catalan one is reported to come from Gorman's camp.  Maybe, as Shielbh suggests, they just want to lay down ground rules to avoid what happened in the Netherlands, but hopefully they'll be a bit more flexible.

[garbon]

I'm not talking about the Dutch translator. I'm saying that the veto to the Catalan one is reported to come from Gorman's camp.

Which isn't because of Americans think all countries are like the US but that à non-American country had citizens that went off when they didn't have restrictions.

[Josquius]

Translating novels always sits uneasy with me, but it can be done with success.
Translating poetry though?
Isn't the choice of words the entire point?

[celedhring]

Translating novels always sits uneasy with me, but it can be done with success.
Translating poetry though?
Isn't the choice of words the entire point?

Oh, translating poetry is imho futile. You have to change so much from the original in order to make the metric work that it is nearly a different work, and some of the choices are often pretty controversial. Particularly when you're translating from outside the language family.

[garbon]

Translating novels always sits uneasy with me, but it can be done with success.
Translating poetry though?
Isn't the choice of words the entire point?

Oh, translating poetry is imho futile. You have to change so much from the original in order to make the metric work that it is nearly a different work, and some of the choices are often pretty controversial. Particularly when you're translating from outside the language family.

On the balance, probably better for a work to have a translation available than not. I don't know about you but my classical latin and greek have never been up to scratch.