[Through the front door, February 4 2012]

Last week I watched one of the longest tennis matches in history – the longest Grand Slam, the longest in Australian Open history. You feel pleased with yourself after something like that – I was there, I remember that match, it was epic. Then it fades from the news and your sense of belonging to something extraordinary fades even more quickly.

This week, I’m experiencing along with all of Europe what must be the longest cold spell in decades, in my life anyway. After a very mild winter with the thermometer only going below freezing perhaps once, we are suddenly picked up and moved to Russia, with temperatures a balmy minus six during the day and minus twelve at night. Add some native Swiss wind, the dreaded Bise, which is anything but a kiss, rather a cause of headaches, dry eyes and bad temper, and your ambient outdoor temperature is more like minus nineteen. All night long the shutters rattled - something they never do - and the atmosphere was definitely Gothic.

I try to recall other cold winters - did I experience this same feeling of helplessness and defeat? Places I’ve been: Russia in 1969 but when you’re young you’re less sensitive to the cold; you remember the people swimming at the open air pool in Moscow, the clouds of steam. Norway off and on in the 70s and 80s: they’re equipped, it’s a way of life there. But there was one day that it got so cold that a Coca-Cola bottle exploded, and even the locals were surprised. Bulgaria too; a freezing New Year’s Eve where the power went out and it must have been somewhere between five and ten Celsius in the bedroom, not more. But there was champagne, and snow, and friendship; people didn’t need blogs and Facebook in those days to comment on the weather.

My oleander will probably not make it this year, despite being wrapped by two somewhat clueless Albanian gardeners who may not have such cruel winters where they come from (although this year, anything’s possible). There is ice – indoors –  around the edges of my skylight. The cat licks the condensation from the wall in the niche by my bed. The front door sticks and I worry about it freezing to the frame altogether. Or maybe I won’t be able to turn the key to let myself out, and will be stuck here until the thaw. I cannot see (through the binoculars) whether the lake has begun to freeze yet, but I worry about the ducks and swans.

These are perfectly ordinary things for many people around the world; they are used to it and know how to deal with it, for the most part. Vodka in the radiators and that sort of thing. I suppose if it goes on long enough I will deal with it in my fashion too, although mopping up the condensation is a major inconvenience, and I suspect that is the architect’s fault, not the weather’s. What is strange and new is the feeling of powerlessness, of looking at the forecast every day and seeing that nothing is about to change, because of a huge high pressure zone:  relentless sun with a bit of cloud, temperatures minus thirteen to minus six. Wind 25km an hour. People have it far worse in Ukraine and Poland, in Serbia and Bulgaria. Cut off from the rest of the world, buried under huge drifts of snow. Living in a place like California you become accustomed to a predictable, benign climate. Those summer winds in the Bay Area are nothing in comparison to this, even if they do mean you don’t have any summer to speak of. Earthquakes have no forecast (tomorrow’s outlook on the Richter scale, 4.3, with a balmy 3.2 forecast for Wednesday); they happen and then they’re done and you deal with the aftermath. This cold wave is incremental, and you don’t really know what you can do other than try to stay warm in the present moment and try not to obsess about how much warmer it is in Paris (minus five). The sun is warming my back through the window. I suppose that compensates for wind chill factor when you’re indoors: sun warmth factor?

Last month I was re-reading Dr Zhivago and the most beautiful and moving passages are the chapters set in wintry Yuryatin and Varykino. Poetic and evocative, lovely to read about from your warm bed, your mild winter; be careful what you wish for, poetry notwithstanding. Now I’m translating a book set in the Pyrenees in the middle of winter, a grisly murder mystery with snow and ice everywhere, including on the corpses. And appropriately titled: “Iced.”

I had my groceries delivered two days ago, something I only do in extremes of weather. They made a mistake and brought me five litres of milk! I think the message is: drink lots of hot chocolate.

Wherever you are, keep warm.

No, you can’t start singing, “Oh, I got them ole translation blues…” First of all, because you don’t have time to sing, and secondly, there’s no such thing as “ole translation blues.” It’s not like love, or life, or being poor or getting old or one of those shared human experiences that we can all confess, at some point or another, to having felt blue about. No, translation blues are pretty rare and I defy you to find anything (else) about them on the internet. They’re not even ole by my standards, since this is actually the first time I’ve ever had them.

Maybe other people have had them but didn’t want to write about it. One of the symptoms of translator blues is that you’re so sick of words (yes, like Eliza Doolittle) that you can’t stand the thought of another keystroke. I’m only resisting because my cat is happily purring on top of my arm as I type, and I hate to disturb such a contented creature: I’m sure a warm cat purring on your arm while you type, even if it doesn’t help RSI, is good for translation blues.

So thanks to my cat I am able to venture into this unexplored, somewhat taboo territory that is a combination of burnout, wanting a vacation, wanting to sleep or read trashy novels or do anything that doesn’t have to do with unraveling words and trying to sound good while you’re at it. A number of things brought on this attack of the blues, besides just the usual job attrition of doing something repetitive for months and years on end. A few outside incidents that make you wonder if you’re not doing something utterly thankless and pointless, or whether you ought to take up your case with some human rights organization, after all.

Two things came in the mail this morning that drove home the nail. One was a FedEx parcel from New York with five copies of a recent translation I did. Never mind which one; I’ve done so many recently to try to fill the exchange rate gap between dollar and Swiss franc that I’ve forgotten which order they come in. Still, seeing the lovely cover of the book, with two smiling young people, I recalled that the last time I checked, a week or ten days ago, there had still not been a single review for this novel anywhere on line. Not even the usually unavoidable Kirkus or Publishers’ Weekly. Nothing. Not even one Amazon reader. And I worked so hard on that book; I’d been skeptical at first, not really sure where it was going, and then the more I worked on it, the more I liked it, saw where the author was trying to take me (as a reader); I overcame immense difficulties of language, a generation gap, minefields of slang and double entendre. I thought I’d done a good job, that the author/publisher/outside world would be pleased, and all there has been: silence. Resounding, thudding, clamorous silence. All that work for silence.

The other, sharper barb, also from New York (what is it with that place? Was it jealous because I just spent two days in Paris?) was in the form of a, yes, form letter (note to any nitpicking translators out there: deliberate repetition) from an organization that provides grants to translators and their publishers in order to promote more works in translation in the United States. I had written to them, submitting an exhaustive application dossier, including a (brand new, bought by me) copy of the book in question; I had taken the bus to France, to mail it from there, as the cost of mailing registered parcels is much cheaper in the Republic than in the Swiss Confederation, but still it set me back ten or fifteen euros, plus the bus fare. I was quite hopeful for this grant, as the book had already been excerpted in a journal, and in the meantime I had even found a publisher. But no. My pet project did not cut the mustard with the powers that be in New York City. I looked at the names of the judges and had a moment of politically incorrect seething about cosseted nitpicking academics and their snooty preferences for inaccessible, edgy, experimental, ethnic, male, onanistic Bolañesque or nihilistic Houellbecqian fiction. My sweet little project, a fictional biography of a poetess – get real, Alison. Or try wasabi next time, maybe it’s easier to cut.

And of course the ever-worrying threat of indigence. I have lived relatively successfully, financially, as a freelance literary translator for the last three years, but now for the first time my Swiss franc account is almost as low as my euro account. And we all know where the euro is headed. Euro as in Neurosis. During those two days I just spent in France I looked at every euro coin that left my palm as if it were an endangered species. Well, at least if they bring back the franc notes, we might get those lovely portraits of Saint-Exupéry and Delacroix again. Or Victor Hugo – remember the little blue and yellow Victor Hugo five-franc note? Sigh.

Still, I’m not too worried, I have a major project lined up that will be paid in Swiss francs. What was it the Monty Python said: the cold antiseptic sting of the Swiss franc? Nothing like it to get you over a case of translation blues.

Back to work.

Swiss franc notwithstanding, there have been a few small victories over the past few months:

This month Words Without Borders is devoted to the Arab Spring, and I am pleased to contribute to that ongoing and far more important struggle, with the translation of a story by Leila Marouane, Is This How Women Grow Up? Leila writes eloquently and harrowingly of another, more pervasive battle, that of women’s rights, and while her story is set primarily in Algeria, it is hard not to read it and recognize a certain universal disillusionment shared by many women.

On a lighter note, my translation of Anna Gavalda’s novel French Leave (Breaking Away in the UK) has been getting good reviews and even a mention in that bastion of anti-translation book reviewing, The New York Times. It’s a perfect summer read, short and sweet, like a literary basket of strawberries. Although you might find yourself headed for the corner store to buy some pet food at the end. You can read an excerpt here.

So while these two recent publications might be said to typify the aim of any literary translator, getting there is no easy thing, and is not getting any easier. This month the Centre National du Livre in France has published a report, The Condition of the Translator by eminent Le Monde literary critic and blogger, Pierre Assouline, devoted to the situation of literary translators in France primarily but the rest of the world tangentially, and it makes sobering reading. It also makes pounds and dollars sound like not such a bad currency after all, as despite the dearth of literary translations published in English (the famous 3%) we are still much better paid than our colleagues in France or Spain, although they may have a more constant source of work (primarily novels translated from English). Assouline underlines other points which are also a major issue for English language translators: the “féminisation” of the profession, which reflects the fact that fewer and fewer men are opting to take up a profession that cannot support a family; the increasingly fraught relations with publishers regarding contracts and the basic right to have one’s name mentioned on the book, in reviews and on websites.

I have often thought about my own grievances where my profession is concerned, and in comparison to many of my colleagues I realize I have been extremely fortunate. (Swiss franc notwithstanding.) A smash-hit bestseller of a translation; a Nobel-prize winner; a major memoir by a public figure; and the luxury, thus far, to promote primarily novels by women, who as always are underrepresented here too. But. But. The precariousness of my situation was driven home to me recently on a trip to the United States during a lovely lunch with other translators and people active in the literary world.

For some months now I have been concerned about the rise of the ebook—not of the medium per se; if people want to have the complete works of Charles Dickens or Henry James in their pocket that’s their look-out. No. It is the risk of ensuing piracy that worries me. My doomsday scenario—which I hope someone can pull to pieces for me—goes that publishers will begin to lose money on books because they will be pirated instead of bought (see what happened to the music industry, or so we hear); translations are always perceived as bad investments by publishers and so they will be the first to go when said publishers begin to go belly-up because those few readers left on the planet are downloading Harry Potter for free. You can see where my logic is leading (hopefully it is faulty logic). Still, I shared this scenario with my neighbour at the lunch table, a professor at a prestigious New England college who translates on the side/ in his spare time/ for the fun of it and the free lunches. Was he worried? No, not really, because he had his job at the prestigious New England college. Not his main source of income. Not a Swiss franc in sight.

Recently, too, I was approached by a small (university) press to translate a fairly long, difficult work. I was very tempted, but they were offering half my usual rate. (Let’s say they were offering a Spanish rate—bring on the tapas.) I protested, diplomatically, suggesting they contact the French government for some of their generous grants to American publishing houses. I was told, simply, that I was asking too much, grants or no grants: the editor himself was a translator, and based on personal experience such sums [as I was requesting] were not available. (Note the use of the impersonal third person.) His loss, or ignorance. But then again, he was… a university professor, with tenure and a fat salary. Or fatter than mine, at any rate.

Which leads me to the crux of my grievances. Something Assouline touched on briefly, but all the more searingly:
The literary translator would like greater recognition for her work. She is not looking for consecration, but to get credit where credit is due. But she is caught between frustration and paradox: on the one hand, she is cruelly aware that a university professor, in a comfortable situation materially, only translates from time to time, yet benefits from a prestige that is all the greater. On the other hand, the translator has been long convinced, for it is the creed of her profession, that the more self-effacing she is, the more her work will be acclaimed, loud and clear. [Assouline Report, p. 122]

Read: invisible. Like Harry Potter, in his invisibility cloak.

There is a perception, in the English-speaking world, that translations are difficult, or unreadable. I believe this perception is held primarily by publishers, because if The Elegance of the Hedgehog is anything to go by, or the Stieg Larsson trilogy, the public wants more, not fewer, translations. And why is this perception so pervasive among publishers and, perhaps, some readers? Because academia, in the United States at any rate, has co-opted a large segment of the works that will make it into translation, and a lot of these works are indeed difficult and unreadable, why? Because most university professors would not want it known they are translating a “best-seller” like Harry Potter, or even a “commercial” author like Gavalda; it wouldn’t look good on their c.v. Translations, full stop, don’t look good on their c.v.s, according to the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Even those edgy experimental works that seem, to me at least, to make up the bulk of works in translation available in the United States. And which, fair enough, are better suited to a select audience of literary students, academics, poets, and writers, not the hundreds of thousands who belong to book clubs or still read on their way to work. If more good commercial fiction were published in translation, perhaps the overall perception of translation as something difficult and academic would begin to wane. After all, our parents and grandparents grew up on diets of  Camus and Tolstoy and Françoise Sagan and Alberto Moravia: what has happened since then?

Now, you can argue that, like novelists who become professors of creative writing because they cannot make a living as novelists, these academic “translators” have become professors of Russian/Japanese/French/Afrikaans literature because they cannot make a living as literary translators. There might be a few, I’ll grant you that. But I think it is rather the opposite. Why they translate is somewhat mysterious to me, as it does not help tenure, apparently. A true love of language? Fair enough. But the fact remains that they don’t need to make a living from translation, and this ultimately drives down the rates publishers are willing to pay, as these academics are simply happy to be in print. And this also disinclines translators from forming any sort of association that is truly devoted to the economic/professional status of its members, an association which could work for ensuring both the quality of translations submitted to publishers and a living wage for its practitioners. This is not utopia, such an association does exist…in Norway. (According to Assouline, they went on strike for five months in 2006 to impose a model contract on their publishers. Heja Norge.) Furthermore, as Assouline has pointed out, the universitaire enjoys a certain prestige, which may make him/her look better on a jacket flap than a humble full-time translator.

Finally, there is the indifference of the media. Look at the New York Times Book Review, for a start. Michael Orthofer at the Literary Saloon seems to have made it his life’s mission to point out the repeated failings of the NYT to review translations, and while I disagree with him about many other things I do believe he is absolutely right on this one. Can one imagine Sam Tannenhaus, the book review editor, putting together a report the way Le Monde’s Assouline has? Dream on.

I realize I am staring into this battle not on one front, but many. The economic crisis, for a start (perhaps I should move to Greece). The drop in readership generally. The rise in self-publishing. (Everyone wants to write/be published, no-one wants to read, as my friend Molly Giles used to say.) The ongoing resistance of publishers to translations—and when they do decide to publish a translation, the frequently detrimental conditions offered the translator. The pervasiveness of the academy’s role in what gets published in the US in translation and who translates. The indifference of the US/UK print and internet book-reviewing media.

I don’t really have time to fight these battles, alas. I prefer my battles a word, a sentence at a time, helping Leila to find an audience in English, helping, however indirectly, her Algerian sisters to make their plight known and ultimately have a better life. That still makes what I do worthwhile, and is far more important to me than the fluctuating exchange rate.

Ah. I forgot to mention: who is the enemy? That’s the irony: there is no enemy, not really. We all love literature—publishers, editors, translators, authors, readers. Even book reviewers. There might be a few hard-hearted accountants or executives running things who want more profit and never pick up a book, but they’re not the ones directly responsible. It would be so much simpler if they were.

Assouline sets forth a number of powerful recommendations for improving the Condition of the Translator, applicable to France but easily transferable to the United States and Britain (and Australia, and Canada, etc…) He voices them more eloquently than I could in any summary here, but for anyone who does not read French and would like me to translate them, I will be glad to, for the same reasons I translate Leila’s stories. I’ve always been much better at doing things in writing than at going down into the street to protest. Let’s hope I don’t have to move to Greece, actually.

For my most recent birthday I was given a magic box that converts old slides and negatives to digital photographs. For the last four months I have been patiently traveling back through time and revisiting my school years, my first boyfriends, my grown niece and nephews as children, countries as diverse as Norway and Greece and Russia. Today I came upon a box of slides:  Anatolia 1986.

Of all the photos I have seen over these months, and there have been hundreds, none have been so strangely moving and beautiful as these shots of Turkey. Granted, the country is beautiful, and I found the people, especially the children, extraordinarily photogenic. But I did not expect to find so many pictures, nearly an entire roll, of near-perfect shots, at least for an amateur like myself, speaking so eloquently of some strange process that was going on despite my anger and sadness and depression. Perhaps I channeled all my unhappiness into my camera lens. I am glad I have been able to preserve something, for otherwise I might have felt there was a hole in my life. Instead, it was a shutter that took twenty-five years to close.

Translated with the collaboration of Sarah Llewellyn.

And it has its own website: www.thegoodnovel.com

Nominated for the Florence Gould French American Foundation Translation Prize 2011.