Translator goes more speed than projectile from a gun
The Literary Saloon points us to a story in the Vietnamese newspaper Nhan Dan about a 64-year-old translator named Le Khanh Truong who is built for speed. Truong translated, among many other things, a 500-page Soviet novel in 10 days and Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago in 60.
From 1970 to 1980, he translated 50 books on philosophy, history, sociology, literature, economics, diplomacy, and even archeology.
In 1983 alone, he managed to translate all 50 volumes on economics, which the Soviet Union donated to the Ho Chi Minh City government. This later served as a guideline for state economic policy at the time.
This just confirms what every editor and author feels: when it comes to translators, the most important asset is reckless, almost inhuman speed.
(NOTE: The article itself seems to have been translated in a bit of a hurry.)
This also can’t help but put Quillblog in mind of a cartoon from the late, great Spy magazine, in which a translator asks an author, “Do you not be happy with me as the translator of the books of you?”
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