SMALL PRESS SPOTLIGHT: JODY GLADDING

by admin | Aug-08-2008

Pierre Michon, Small Lives, Archipelago Books, 2008.

Jody Gladding was the recipient of the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1993. Her translations include Jean Giono’s The Serpent of Stars (Archipelago Books, 2004). Her most recent collection of poetry, Rooms and Their Airs, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. She teaches at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Your co-translator for this book written originally in French is Elizabeth Deshays, who lives in Provence. Can you speak to the process of translating with a collaborator? And what were some of the challenges in translating this project, which has a very distinct and sometimes intricate prose style?

Elizabeth Dehays and I have known each other for almost ten years.  Though she lives in Provence, she is originally British, and is perfectly bilingual.  I spent 1998-99 and 2006-07 in Provence, and did conversational French with her biweekly during both stays, so we had already developed a good working relationship before starting on this translation project.  As a working method, I sent rough translations of each chapter to her, she commented and corrected my work, I incorporated her edits, and then we went over each chapter again, either by phone or in e-mails.  So it was a long and thorough process.  One surprise was how often the differences between British and American English tripped us up.  Her expertise was indispensable on this particular project because of the complexity of Michon’s prose.  Michon manages to use archaic language so deliberately it sounds avant-garde.  Together, I think we found a way to convey that in English, without sacrificing the elegance and precision of the original.  The biggest challenge was carving out the necessary time!

Small Lives is book about searching and finding the artist within. Michon explores eight different lives—which don’t seem that small whatsoever—and weaves them into his experience and consciousness, allowing the reader to create a larger portrait of Michon, the complex and complicated man. As a reader, how did you respond to Michon’s portraits, and did you find his perspective at odds with your own sensibilities as a writer and an artist?

The original French title is Vies Miniscules, which has a slightly different feel, perhaps a bit of irony.  My responses to Michon’s portraits varied widely.  I loved “The Life of Andres Dufourneau” and “The Life of the Bakroot Brothers”;  I hated “The Life of Claudette.”  But as a translator, you don’t really “read” the text, you write it.  So if, as a reader, and especially as a woman reader, I found myself completely at odds with Michon’s sensibility, as a translator, I had to embrace it—a fairly difficult exercise.  It made me think quite a bit about virtuosity.

As a translator, you’re helping introduce English-reading audiences to important voices in French literature, like the renowned Jean Giono (1895-1970) and the more contemporary multiple award-winning Michon. Who lesser-known writers, French or otherwise, should American readers be reading? Have you come across writers who have yet to be translated or who merit more attention in the U.S.? What are your next translation projects?

Both the titles you refer to were published by Archipelago Books, and I would send any readers interested in your question to their website. Archipelago has been around for five years, and has brought into print some 35 titles from some 15 languages.  The quality of their books is impressive, as is their commitment to contemporary world literature.  My current project is a translation of Five Meditations on Beauty, by Francois Cheng, who has written extensively on Chinese art and poetry, and is a member of the Academie francaise.  It will be published by Inner Traditions next year.  I also just translated some extracts from new French novels for a publication called Fiction France 3.  The French government is very supportive of its writers.  Cultures France, in conjunction with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy is producing this publication, and distributing it to English-language publishers, to help place the novels!  Can you imagine NEA doing anything like that?

(Author Photo: Nina Subin)