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Rafa Lombardino (PLD Blog Editor)
In this new installment of the Literary Corner, I’d like to talk about how great it was to attend the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES) in São Paulo last month.
The idea of finally taking a break to go back home (after almost five years!) and having a chance to meet so many peers―with whom I’ve only interacted online for a few years―sounded very promising and exciting. However, I must confess that I wasn’t ready to see so many people interested in the relationship between translators and authors and so eager to learn more about the world of self-publishing.
Actually, that was the exact theme of my ABRATES session: “The Role of Translators in the New Digital Publishing Age.” Sharing a little bit of what I’ve learned after about four years of interacting with self-published authors and taking charge of my own book publishing efforts was something that left me truly overjoyed!
On top of that, it seems that book translators were on fire this year! There were so many great sessions presented by people from such different backgrounds and with unique experiences that somehow manage to speak to the majority of us who decide to embark on this journey and translate someone else’s work of fiction or autobiography.
Technicalities of using a CAT tool while translating books, techniques on how to render a proper translation (from information accuracy to dialect adaptation), ways to make sure books read naturally in the target language, and the relationship between translators and book editors—all these sessions (see links below) opened our eyes to the intricacies of working in this niche.
I’m thankful for the experience and for the new colleagues that the event brought into my professional life. Whether we already translate books or are passionate about literature and would like to break into the field, learning more about book translation is something that definitely brings us all together.
- CATS & BOOKS
How Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools can help book translators in quality-assurance efforts.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - INFORMATION SOURCES
How a journalist-turned-translator used her interviewing techniques to translate an autobiography.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - NO TRANSLATIONESE ALLOWED
How to make sure books don’t “sound” translated.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - TRANSLATING WITH AN ACCENT
How to adapt a dialect or different register when translating dialogs.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - TEAM WORK
How translators and book editors can work together on a winning publishing project.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - THE SELF-PUBLISHING ERA
How translators can be protagonists in the new digital publishing age.
[ENGLISH] [PORTUGUÊS] - TABOO IN TRANSLATION
What it’s like to translate books into your second language.
[PORTUGUÊS] - BRAZILIAN SHORT STORIES IN ENGLISH
Third volume of Contemporary Brazilian Short Stories series introduces award-winning authors from Brazil to readers of English. - AUTHORS & TRANSLATORS ON EQUAL FOOT
British book awards merge to give books to translations - BOOK REVIEW
Clarice Lispector’s “The Complete Stories” as translated into English by Benjamin Moser ― review by Argentine author Valeria Luiselli - QUOTE
“It’s time to ask why it is that our women editors and the many women translators and agents and publishers are urging us to publish men more often than women.”
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“Chegou a hora de nos perguntarmos porque as nossas editoras do sexo feminino e muitas das tradutoras e agentes e casas editoriais estão nos incentivando a publicar mais escritores homens do que mulheres.”
~ SOPHIE LEWIS, Senior Editor at And Other Stories.
RAFA LOMBARDINO is a translator and journalist from Brazil who lives in California. She is the author of “Tools and Technology in Translation ― The Profile of Beginning Language Professionals in the Digital Age,” which is based on her UCSD Extension class. Rafa has been working as a translator since 1997 and, in 2011, started to join forces with self-published authors to translate their work into Portuguese and English. In addition to acting as content curator at eWordNews, a collective blog about translation and literature, she also runs Word Awareness, a small network of professional translators, and coordinates Contemporary Brazilian Short Stories (CBSS), a project to promote Brazilian literature worldwide.*
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