Lost in translation and politics of wokeness

American poet Amanda Gorman reads a poem during the inauguration of US President Joe Biden. Picture: Patrick Semansky/AFP

To speak formally in a language other than one’s own is to risk ridicule, which is why everyone except professional linguists should avoid it as much as possible.

For example, during his visit to Australia in 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron paid his compliments to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife, Lucy, but not the way he intended.

“I want to thank you for your welcome — thank you, and your delicious wife,” he said.

Not as awkward as it was for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who during a visit to France was asked by local journalists whether he would adopt any of the host country’s policies. “I desire your prime minister in many different positions,” he replied.

If a translator is used, he or she must be properly vetted. US President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Poland in 1977 was a public relations disaster, thanks to his freelance interpreter, Steve Seymour.

Like Blair, Seymour walked straight into a double entendre. But his gaffes were even worse. Officials from the then communist state chortled when Seymour translated Carter’s reference to departing America for Poland as “When I abandoned the United States”.

The US State Department, which had contracted Seymour, had mistakenly assumed his expertise in translating written Polish also extended to interpreting.

As for what we will hear when someone attempts to translate US President Joe Biden’s speeches into English, that is anyone’s guess.

That could be a job for Thamsanqa Jantjie, the sign language interpreter at the memorial service of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

Had officials done their job, they would have learned Jantjie rescheduled his appointment at a psychiatric hospital to perform that role, which culminated in him translating President Barack Obama’s address by flapping his arms nonsensically.

Compared to interpreting for prime ministers and presidents, translating poetry would be a doddle, right?

The Hill We Climb controversy

Wrong. A brouhaha has erupted in Europe over the translation of The Hill We Climb, a poem written by activist and youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman, which she recited at Biden’s inauguration. Predictably it was lauded for its sentiment, but as for its composition, it is unremarkable – schmaltzy, if anything, and a tad self-indulgent: “We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.”

Commissioned by Biden’s inauguration team, the poem laments the dark days of the Donald Trump presidency and juxtaposes this with the usual dawn of a new era stuff, although Gorman maintains she was not given any direction other than told the event theme of “America United”. It made for good if cheesy aesthetics, a beaming 22-year-old hailing the country’s liberation.

The Trump camp, if I recall correctly, did not feature anything similar at the 2017 inauguration. Admittedly it would be very difficult to capture in verse “Hillary illegally downloaded top secret emails onto her private server”. And have you ever tried to find a word that rhymes with “deplorables”? Sheesh.

Last month Dutch writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, winner of last year’s International Booker Prize, relinquished her assignment to translate Gorman’s work. This followed protests by Dutch “cultural activist” Janice Deul, who has Surinamese heritage, over a white person translating the work of a black woman.

“An incomprehensible choice, in my opinion and that of many others who expressed their pain, frustration, anger, and disappointment via social media,” wrote Deul, in an op-ed for Dutch outlet De Volkskrant. “[Gorman’s] work and life have been coloured by her experience and identity as a black woman. Is it — to say the least — not a missed opportunity to hire Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for this job?”

Poetic politics of penance

Evidently this outrage imbecility was such that Deul did not recognise the significance of Gorman having written this in English, a language that certainly did not originate from Africa. Clearly stunned at being outwoked, Rijneveld – who identifies as non-binary – acknowledged “the people who felt hurt” by the original decision. As part of identity politics penance, Rijneveld has written a poem about the experience.

The best way to express my thoughts and feelings and to respond to the upheaval surrounding the translation of @TheAmandaGorman was by writing a poem. Today my poem ´Everything Inhabitable´ is in De Volkskrant, The Guardian, De Standaard, FAZ and in Marianne. ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/p0n1IsWzN2

— Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (@MLRijneveld) March 6, 2021

I would do the same, but mine would be something along the lines of “I lost a writing gig today / It’s because that I am white / They said for this they need a WOC / Oh what a load of shite”.

This lunacy is not abating. Another European, Victor Obiols, had been commissioned to produce a Catalan version of Gorman’s poem. Despite having completed it, the Barcelonan resident was told last week via he “was not the right person”.

His publisher had received a follow-up request from US group Viking Books that a female activist with African-American origins instead perform the task. Obiols was unimpressed.

“If I cannot translate a poet because she is a woman, young, black, an American of the 21st Century, neither can I translate Homer because I am not a Greek of the eighth century BC,” he said. “Or [I] could not have translated Shakespeare because I am not a 16th-Century Englishman.”

It’s ‘complicated’

Still, he observed the usual caution when confronted with minority outrage. “It is a very complicated subject that cannot be treated with frivolity,” he stated.

Oh yes it can. Lampoon these petulant charlatans for what they are – drivers of ethno-protectionism. They would be screeching racism if publishers denied them the opportunity to translate the works of white authors William Faulkner, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Harper Lee. Does one really need to consume 18 straight shots of whisky to translate the poems of Dylan Thomas? God help the publisher who has to distribute internationally the works of Helen Keller.

For someone so outspoken, Gorman herself has been uncharacteristically reticent on the decisions to ditch the two white translators. She has not responded to numerous requests via her Twitter account to address this. Yet this was the same poet who wrote in The Hill We Climb “And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us / We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.” And “That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious / Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.”

I am no poet, but excluding others because of their race from translating one’s work fits my definition of sowing division. That is the disadvantage — or advantage — of climbing these metaphorical high hills. Conveniently, someone cannot see this, for her head is in the clouds.