Three Short Interviews with Literary Translators

Madeleine Stratford

TALI VORON-LEIDERMAN: Has your approach to literary translation changed over time? What is different about your approach today than when you started?

MADELEINE STRATFORD: Yes and no. There’s always been a lot of active reading and research involved, and I’ve always relied on intuition a lot. For me, literary translation has always been about feeling the text as much as understanding it. And I still have butterflies in my stomach at the beginning of every project (welcome jitters that mean I’m truly engaged). I guess with time, though, I’ve become more efficient. I don’t necessarily work more quickly (I like to take things slow), but I waste less time than I used to. I can now predict how long a given book will take me, and which tools I’ll need to tackle it, so I can plan ahead better.

TVL: Is there a considerable difference in the work of translation when you are translating your own writing versus someone else’s?

MS: Yes. When I translate others, I’m in their corner: I defend their stories, their voices, their books. I’m in it for them and them only. I must learn to write like them. I must deconstruct their texts to figure out how they work, and rewrite them in a language in which they weren’t meant to exist. I like to say that the original text is like a wooden house. I just have bricks at hand, but the house still needs to look like it’s made out of wood. A translation is never identical to the original, but it should give the illusion that it is.
When it comes to my own writing, there are no such rules. When I translate my own texts, I tend to workshop them significantly, so that the original and the “translation” might seem quite different in the end. I don’t mind if “the house” looks like a completely new one once I’m done rebuilding it: it’s mine!

TVL: How do you translate things that just … don’t translate? That is, idioms and other culturally specific references that might not work as well in the language the text is being translated into?

MS: I believe that everything can be translated: maybe not now or by me, but by someone (perhaps even me!) at some point, into a number of target languages (if not my own).
Being a translator is about experiencing otherness intimately, about finding yourself in books that you could’ve never written, about strongly identifying with authors who, at first glance, may have nothing in common with you.
When I hit a wall, it’s my job to try and find my way around or through it. Idioms are usually not that big a challenge once you’ve spotted them and know what they mean. It’s my job to spot them and find out what they mean in the context of the book. If I can’t find an equivalent idiom in the target language, I’ll translate its meaning or literary function (and ideally its effect). Sometimes I’ll compensate for stylistic loss elsewhere in the text. Yes, it takes time. And solutions don’t always come to me when I’m sitting in front of the computer. I’ve often had eureka moments when walking outside, working out, or doing house chores. For me, translating is an immersive experience: I carry my projects within me wherever I go until they’re done.

TVL: Writers often talk about their influences or their mentors and teachers, all the examples they might look to that guide the development of their work. Do you have influences that guide you as a translator? Are these different than your influences as a writer?

MS: I became a member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada (LTAC) when I was still a student. I was lucky enough to meet wonderful translators at various LTAC meetings and activities, some of whom I then spent time with at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre (an amazing residence program that sadly doesn’t exist anymore). I couldn’t possibly name all of them here, but those who probably most influenced me at the very beginning of my career were Nora Alleyn, Phyllis Aronoff, Sheila Fischman, Paul Gagné, Patricia Godbout, Lori Saint-Martin, Howard Scott, and Donald Winkler.
The people who impact me most as a writer are poets that I read and constantly go back to. I’ve always loved Anne Hébert, Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, and Anne Sexton. I also spent years studying the work of Ingeborg Bachmann and Alejandra Pizarnik. All of my favourite poets were already dead by the time I discovered their work, so we never got to meet. Still, it feels like they’re with me all the time when I write poetry.

TVL: What is your view of the culture of literature in translation in Canada, and how would you like to see that culture develop in the future?

MS: Canada has a strong tradition in literary translation: it’s been generously funded and highly regarded here at least since the early 1970s. We’ve developed a recognized expertise in literary translation. And we’re rather well paid compared to our European and American counterparts. However, the Canadian book industry translates almost exclusively Canadian authors from one official language to the other. Sure, there have also been a few translations from and into Indigenous languages in recent years, but not nearly enough. Although the LTAC has been advocating for the translation of other source languages and non-Canadian authors for as long as I can remember, little progress has been made. I hope that changes in the near future.

TVL: What is your next project? And what can you tell us about it?

MS: My second poetry book is set to come out shortly. I’ve essentially been publishing translations for the past fifteen years, so this writing project was about finding my own voice. It was a daunting, yet cathartic process. Some of the poems were originally written in English, then adapted and workshopped in French. I wouldn’t want to be the one translating that book into English!

madeleine stratford

is a poet, a literary translator, and an associate professor at Université du Québec en Outaouais. Her translations have been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award in Canada (2016, 2019, 2021, 2023, 2024), as well as for the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature (2017) in the United States. Her recent work includes Québécois classic Swallowed [L’Avalée des avalés] by Réjean Ducharme (Véhicule Press, 2020) and Canadian bestseller Cours vers le danger [Run Towards the Danger] by Sarah Polley (Boréal, 2024).