Rick Simonson

A Language We Know/1
November 12, 2007

The one-day gathering or 'summit' (rather a low, flat place for a summit, but ...), The Translation Market, staged last Thursday, November 8, at Miami Dade College as an kind of entree into the Miami International Book Fair, felt fairly removed from the warm, sunny weather once it was all brought in for the talking. In a room chilled to make those wearing sport coats, suits, and sweaters more comfortable than those without, the focus of talk was such that we could have been anywhere.

The formal part of this day had two, all-group morning panels, a working/conversing lunch, and then six more afternoon panels, the afternoon's split so that one had to choose between one or the other, which didn't mean many did a bit of sampling of both concurrent sessions. About forty people in all did the presenting and panel talking. ABA's Lance Fensterman and co-instigator of this day, Mitchell Kaplan, made it to most sessions to say welcoming words. It was small enough that you could get a grasp of who all was there and some of  what they were about, but big and elusive enough that you might only make quick acquaintance at best of some people, and not really be able to follow up on the substance of what they were doing.

The morning sessions went from big picture ('Opening Session - The World in Translation') to the very particular but vital small picture ('The Translation Buzz') - books and authors themselves. With PW 's Sara Nelson moderating, the opening session Kent Carroll (Europa Editions), Barbara Epler (New Directions), Daniel Halpern (Ecco/HarperCollins) and Peter Mayer (Overlook Press) holding forth, doing so rather bravely, given the wide-open premise and the limits of time. The marketplace for literary publishing in general, the clout and disinclination of chains for translated work (especially presented as translated work) to support it, were among the areas ventured into and explored. These are all people you love to hear - each has stories that could go on. As happens with good conversation, part of the talk was carried and worked with in other panels and conversations over the day. The second session had moderator (and Words Without Borders guiding spirit and Simon & Schuster editor) Dedi Felman and a panel of agents - Isobel Dixon, Carol Frederick, Lucdina Karter, and Carmen Pinilla - along with World Literature Today editor David Draper Clark all naming names of writers and titles of books. It was good if elusive - the agents were essentially pitching authors and books we don't yet know of, and so names were scribbled without knowing if spelling was accurate or how titles might be translated. (Supposedly, the names and titles discussed will all re-surface and circulate ...). It was good to go from the vast to the particular, though, to know that all are connected and related.

Lunch, presented as a networking opportunity (standing in line to get food was how that worked), was a conversation that surprised. Judith Thurman, who has a terrific new book of essays, Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire, out, and David Rieff, he of the forthcoming Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir, at first did not strike one as a logical pair for the subject presumably at hand. Both certainly travel the world in their work, and could certainly weigh in on the topic, but there had to be another reason. This presented itself in Mitchell Kaplan's informal, and moving introduction, as he invoked David Rieff's mother, the late Susan Sontag. She and David Rieff, of the many who come Miami's way (and the way of Books and Books) over the years, it felt, had much to do with the spirit of the day, some formative influence on Mitchell and why he is doing what he is doing in general and this day dicussing literature translated from other languages and parts of the world in particular. It included David restating the importance of this in Sontag's work, to the point that a great number of the pieces in the posthumously published volume of Sontag's essays that he oversaw publication of, At the Same Time, were introductions or forewords to translated literary works. Thurman and Rieff both made strong observations. One that stuck with me that Rieff brought up was something along the lines of the prevailing tendency in the culture right now to have things made 'easier,' and simplified ... in ways not good or healthy. He was forceful on this, even as it seemed to spring out as a spontaneous musing.

The break for lunch did remind all of where we were, as going to eat meant stepping outside, crossing a street, realizing we were amidst college students (that bustle) and the busyness attendant to getting a big book fair set up, with selling booths and colorful tents all arrayed, the tables arriving, the signs, all of it. And that sun ... that warm, warm sun ...

Posted by Rick Simonson on November 12, 2007 | Comments (0)