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Spanish to English: Balada de la gran Guerra, por Federico García Lorca General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Spanish Balada de la gran Guerra
Yo tenía un hijo que se llamaba Juan.
Yo tenía un hijo.
Se perdió por los arcos un viernes de todos los muertos.
Le vi jugar en las últimas escaleras de la misa
y echaba un cubito de hojalata en el corazón del sacerdote.
He golpeado los ataúdes. ¡Mi hijo! ¡Mi hijo! ¡Mi hijo!
Saqué una pata de gallina por detrás de la luna y luego
comprendí que mi niña era un pez
por donde se alejan las carretas.
Yo tenía una niña.
Yo tenía un pez muerto bajo la ceniza de los incensarios.
Yo tenía un mar. ¿De qué? ¡Dios mío! ¡Un mar!
Subí a tocar las campanas, pero las frutas tenían gusanos.
y las cerillas apagadas
se comían los trigos de la primavera.
Yo vi la transparente cigüeña de alcohol
mondar las negras cabezas de los soldados agonizantes
y vi las cabañas de goma
donde giraban las copas llenas de lágrimas.
En las anémonas del ofertorio te encontraré, ¡corazón mío!,
cuando el sacerdote levanta la mula y el buey con sus fuertes brazos,
para espantar los sapos nocturnos que rondan los helados paisajes del cáliz.
Yo tenía un hijo que era un gigante,
pero los muertos son más fuertes y saben devorar pedazos de cielo.
Si mi niño hubiera sido un oso,
yo no temería el sigilo de los caimanes,
ni hubiese visto el mar amarrado a los árboles
para ser fornicado y herido por cl tropel de los regimientos.
¡Si mi niño hubiera sido un oso!
Me envolveré sobre esta lona dura para no sentir el frío de los musgos.
Sé muy bien que me darán una manga o la corbata;
pero en el centro de la misa yo romperé el timón y entonces
vendrá a la piedra la locura de pingüinos y gaviotas
que harán decir a los que duermen y a los que cantan por las esquinas:
él tenía un hijo.
¡Un hijo! ¡Un hijo! ¡Un hijo
que no era más que suyo, porque era su hijo!
¡Su hijo! ¡Su hijo! ¡Su hijo!
Translation - English Ballad of the Great War
I had a son whose name was Juan.
I had a son.
He was among the arches on the Friday of All Souls
I saw him play on the staircase the last mass
and throw a small tin pail at the heart of the priest
I’ve beaten at the coffins. My son! My son! My son!
I’ve brought out a hen’s foot from behind the moon and later
I understood that my daughter was a fish
over where the carts disappear
I had a daughter.
I had a dead fish under the ashes of the censer
I had an ocean. Of what? My God! An ocean!
I went up to strike the bells, but the fruits were filled with worms
and extinguished matches
were devouring the first spring wheat.
I saw the transparent stork of alcohol
shaving the dark scalps of tormented soldiers
and I saw the rubber booths
where full glasses of tears were swirling
In the anemones of the offertory I will find you, my love!
when the priest raises the mule and the ox with his burly arms,
to scare away the nightly frogs that circle the frigid landscapes of the chalice.
I had a goliath of a son,
but the dead are more powerful and know how to consume the very substance of heaven
If my son had but been a bear,
I would not have feared the stealth of the caimans,
nor would I have seen the sea tied to trees
to be raped and wounded by the wandering regiments
If my son were only a bear!
I shroud myself in this rough canvas to not feel the frigid cold of the mosses
I know very well they will give me a sleeve or a tie
but I will smash the rudder in the middle of the mass and then
to this rock will come the madness of penguins and gulls
and will make the sleeping and those singing on the corners say:
he had a son
A son! A son! A son
who was no one’s but his, because he was his son
A son! A son! A son!
Spanish to English: Nueva York, Oficina y Denuncia; por Federico García Lorca General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Spanish Nueva York
Oficina y denuncia
A Fernando Vela
Debajo de las multiplicaciones
hay una gota de sangre de pato.
Debajo de las divisiones
hay una gota de sangre de marinero.
Debajo de las sumas, un río de sangre tierna.
Un río que viene cantando
por los dormitorios de los arrabales,
y es plata, cemento o brisa
en el alba mentida de New York.
Existen las montañas, lo sé.
Y los anteojos para la sabiduría,
Lo sé. Pero yo no he venido a ver el cielo.
Yo he venido para ver la turbia sangre,
la sangre que lleva las máquinas a las cataratas
y el espíritu a la lengua de la cobra.
Todos los días se matan en New York
cuatro millones de patos,
cinco millones de cerdos,
dos mil palomas para el gusto de los agonizantes,
un millón de vacas,
un millón de corderos
y dos millones de gallos
que dejan los cielos hechos añicos.
Más vale sollozar afilando la navaja
o asesinar a los perros en las alucinantes cacerías
que resistir en la madrugada
los interminables trenes de leche,
los interminables trenes de sangre,
y los trenes de rosas maniatadas
por los comerciantes de perfumes.
Los patos y las palomas
y los cerdos y los corderos
ponen sus gotas de sangre
debajo de las multiplicaciones;
y los terribles alaridos de las vacas estrujadas
llenan de dolor el valle
donde el Hudson se emborracha con aceite.
Yo denuncio a toda la gente
que ignora la otra mitad,
la mitad irredimible
que levanta sus montes de cemento
donde laten los corazones
de los animalitos que se olvidan
y donde caeremos todos
en la última fiesta de los taladros.
Os escupo en la cara.
La otra mitad me escucha
devorando, orinando, volando en su pureza
como los niños en las porterías
que llevan frágiles palitos
a los huecos donde se oxidan las antenas de los insectos.
No es el infierno, es la calle.
No es la muerte, es la tienda de frutas.
Hay un mundo de ríos quebrados y distancias inasibles
en la patita de ese gato quebrada por el automóvil,
y yo oigo el canto de la lombriz
en el corazón de muchas niñas.
Óxido, fermento, tierra estremecida.
Tierra tú mismo que nadas
por los números de la oficina.
¿Qué voy a hacer?, ¿ordenar los paisajes?
¿Ordenar los amores que luego son fotografías,
que luego son pedazos de madera
y bocanadas de sangre?.
No, no, no, no; yo denuncio.
Yo denuncio la conjura
de estas desiertas oficinas
que no radian las agonías,
que borran los programas de la selva,
y me ofrezco a ser comido por las vacas estrujadas
cuando sus gritos llenan el valle
donde el Hudson se emborracha con aceite.
Translation - English New York
Office and accusation
To Fernando Vela
Under product
there’s a drop of duck’s blood
Under quotient
there’s a drop of sailor’s blood
Under total, a tender river of blood;
a river that lyrically flows
through the bedrooms of the suburbs
and it’s silver, cement or breeze
in the lying mind of New York.
The mountains exist, I am aware.
And in the eye-glasses of wisdom,
I realize. But I haven’t come to see the sky.
I’ve come to see the cloudy blood,
the blood that carries cogs and wheels over the waterfalls,
and the spirit onto the cobra’s tongue.
The daily murder rate in New York is
four million ducks
five million pigs
two thousand doves at pleasure of dying men
a million cows
a million lambs
and two million chickens
who tear the sky to shreds
Better to cry, sharpening your razor
or slaughter dogs in hallucinatory hunts
than stop in the early morning light
the endless trains of milk
the endless trains of blood
and the arrival of bound roses
destined for the manufacture of perfume
The ducks and the doves
and the pigs and lambs
put their drop of blood down
under the calculations;
and the terrible moans of the stampeding cows
fill the valley with pain
where the Hudson gorges itself on oil.
I denounce all of you
who ignore the other half,
the irredeemable half,
who raise their mountains of cement
where the hearts beat
of those forgotten animals,
of where we will all fall
in the last celebration of drills
I spit in their faces
The other half hears me,
consuming, pissing, soaring in their purity
like children of office workers
who carry fragile little sticks
in the pit where rust
collects on the antennae of insects.
It’s no hell, it’s only a street.
It’s not death, it’s a fruit stand.
There’s a whole world of broken rivers and impassable distances
in a single cat’s paw crushed by a car
and I hear the song of the worm
in the hearts of so many girls.
Rusty, fermented, quaking earth.
The same earth in which you swim through the numbers of offices.
What should I do? Arrange every landscape?
Sort the lovers who after turn into photographs,
those who turn out to be pieces of wood
and mouthfuls of blood?
No, no, no, no; I speak out,
I speak of this plot
of these empty offices
that disguise the hidden torments,
that erase nature’s plans,
and I offer myself as a meal to the stampeding cattle
when their lowing voices fill the valley
where the Hudson gorges itself on oil.
Japanese to English: スプートニクの恋人/Sputnik Sweetheart General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - Japanese ２２歳の春にすみれは生まれて初めて恋に落ちた。広大な平原をまっすぐ突き進む竜巻のような激しい恋だった。それは行く手のかたちあるものを残らずなぎ倒し、片端からに巻き上げ、理不尽に引きちぎり、完膚なきまでに叩きつぶした。
そして勢いをひとつまみもゆるめることなく大洋を吹きわたり、アンコールワットを無慈悲に崩し、インドの森を気の毒な一群の虎ごと熱で焼きつくし、ペルシャの砂漠の砂嵐となってどこかのエキゾチックな城塞都市をまるごとひとつ砂に埋もれさせてしまった。みごとに記念碑的な恋だった。恋に落ちた相手はすみれより１７歳年上で、結婚していた。さらにつけ加えるなら、女性だった。
それがすべてのものごとが始まった場所であり、（ほとんど）すべてのものごとがおわった場所だった。すみれはそのころ職業的作家になるために文字どおり悪戦苦闘していた。この世界に人生の選択肢がどれほど数多く存在しようとも、小説家になる以外に自分の進むべき道はない。その決意は千歳の岩のように堅く、妥協の余地のないものだった。彼女という存在と、文学的信念とのあいだには、髪の毛一本入りこむすきまもなかった。すみれは神奈川県の公立高校を卒業すると、東京都内にある小ぢんまりとした 私立大学の文芸料に進んだ。しかしそれはどう考えても彼女向きの学校ではなかった。その大学の非冒険的 で生温いく実用に適さないーーーもちろん彼女にとって実用に適さないということだがーーーものごとのあり方に心の底から失望することになった。まわりにいる学生たちの大半は、救いがたく退屈 で凡庸な二級品だった（実を言えばぼくもその中の一人だった）。そんなわけで、すみれは三年生になる前にさっさと、退学届けを出して、学窓の外に消えてしまった。こんなところにいたって 時間のむだだという結論に達したのだ。おそらくそのとおりだろうとぼくも思う。でもあえて凡庸な一般論を言わせてもらえるなら、我々の不完全な人生からすべてのむだが消えてしまったら、それは不完全でさえなくなってしまった。ひとことで言えば、彼女は救いがたいロマンチストであり、頑迷でシニカルで、よく表現して世間知らずだった。いったんしゃべりだすときりなくしゃべっていたが、気の合わない相手とは（つまり世の中を構成する大多数の人とは）ろくに口もきかなかった。煙草吸いすぎたし、電車に乗るときまって切符をなくした。なにかを考え出すと食事をとるのを忘れる傾向があり、昔のイタリア映画に出てくる戦災孤児みたいにやせて、目だけがぎょろぎょろしていた。言葉で説明するよりも写真が手もとにあればいいのだが、残念なあら一枚もない。彼女は写真をとられるのが極端に嫌いだったし、「若き芸術家の肖像」を後世に残したいという希望もとくに持たなかった。もし当時のすみれの写真があれば、それはきっと、人間の持ちうるある種の特質についての得難い記録になったはずだと思うのだけれど。話が前後するけれど、すみれが恋に落ちた相手の女性の名前は「ミュウ」という。
Translation - English [Translator's Note: The express purpose of this project was to preserve as much of the Japanese syntax as possible in the final target language translation.]
In the spring of the year she turned 22, Sumire fell in love for the first time in her life. It was an intense love, like a cyclone of enormous proportions descending from the skies to rip through a plain – tearing the land to shreds, crushing everything to pieces. The wind doesn’t slow in the slightest as it crosses over the ocean, cruelly destroying Angkor Wat, burning through an Indian jungle, tigers and all, burying an exotic fortress city under the sands of the Persian desert. It was a grand love, one to remember. The person Sumire fell in love with was 17 years older than her, and was also married. And, on top of that, was a woman. This is where everything began, and where everything almost ended.
At the time, Sumire was studying literature and struggling to become an author. No matter the choices life might throw at her, she was focused on success. Her determination was as hard as a rock, tough and unbreakable. Sumire’s life was completely tied up with her literary pursuits; nothing could separate them.
After graduating from a public high school in Kanagawa Prefecture, she enrolled in the literature program of a small private college in Tokyo. She thought little of this college. Their lukewarm, passive approach was subpar – at least according to her – and she found it frustrating. More than just that, she found her fellow students to be hopelessly dull, average people (who, truth be told, I was one of). For these reasons, Sumire dropped out just before her junior year. Staying there any longer, she concluded, was becoming increasingly useless. I think it was the right decision. However, if I might be permitted a mediocre generalization, if we remove every useless thing from our imperfect lives, then we lose even its imperfection.
Sumire was an incurable romantic, unrepentantly so – to put it nicely, she was a bit naïve. She could talk on and on at length about something, but if she met someone she didn’t like (in other words, most of the rest of the world), she would barely speak. She smoked far too much, and usually forgot her ticket when she got on the train. She was so caught up in her thoughts that she would forget to eat, and thus resembled one of those war orphans from an old Italian movie, with large eyes on a thin frame. I can’t explain her in words nearly as well as a picture could, but unfortunately I don’t own a single photo of her. She really hated having her picture taken, and had no desire to leave behind a so-called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Person. If there were a photograph of Sumire taken at the time, it would be a valuable record of her rare qualities that are all too hard to find.
Before I mix up this entire story, I should mention that the woman Sumire fell in love with was named Miu. Everyone called her that, anyway. I don’t actually know her real name (a fact that caused me some problems later on, but that’s a story for another time). Miu was a Korean national, but couldn’t speak a word of the national language until she decided to study it in her mid-twenties. She was born and raised in Japan; she studied later in a music conservatory in France, and thus spoke French and English as well as Japanese. She always dressed elegantly, in a refined way, with small yet expensive accessories, and drove a twelve-cylinder navy-blue Jaguar.
The first time Sumire met Miu, she spoke to her about Jack Kerouac’s novels.
Sumire was completely absorbed into Kerouac’s stories. Her literary idol changed every month, and the author of the moment was Kerouac. She always had a copy of On The Road or Lonesome Traveler stuck in her coat pocket, and flipped through it whenever she got the chance. When she ran across a line that moved her, she would mark it with a pencil and memorize it like scripture. The most meaningful lines to her were about the fire lookout in the Lonesome Traveler. Kerouac lived as on top of a mountain for three lonely months, working as a fire watchman. Sumire loved to quote this one passage: “Everyone should take the opportunity to go to the middle of nowhere, and live in healthy, and maybe somewhat bored, solitude. Only after depending solely on yourself can you uncover your own truth and your hidden strengths.”
“Isn’t that cool?” she said. “Every day you stand on top of a mountain, turn in a 360-degree sweep, looking for the signs of fire. And that’s all. After you’re done you can read, or work on your writing. At night, shaggy bears hang around the cabin. That’s how life should be lived. Compared with that, studying literature in college is as bitter as the end of a cucumber.”
“The problem is, you do have to come down from the mountain.” I said. But as always, my common, practical opinion didn't register.
Sumire desperately wanted to live with the wild arrogance of a character in a Kerouac novel. She’d hunch over with both hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, her hair fashioned into an uncombed bird’s nest, wearing Dizzy Gillespie glasses in spite of her perfect vision. She was almost always wearing a herringbone coat bought at a second-hand store and a pair of sturdy work boots. If she’d been able to grow a beard, there was no question she would have.
Sumire wouldn’t be considered a beauty by normal standards. Her cheeks were sunken in, and her mouth was too wide for her face. She had a small, upturned nose. Her face was expressive and she had a rich sense of humor, although she rarely laughed out loud. She was short, and had a way of talking that sounded like she was picking a fight, even in a good mood. I don’t think she ever had used lipstick or an eyebrow pencil. Whether she knew that bras even came in different sizes was also doubtful. Despite her looks, people were still won over by Sumire’s glowing personality. There’s no easy way to explain what it was exactly. But if you looked deep into her eyes, you could always see it reflected back at you.
It’s better at this point that I don’t deny it - I was in love with Sumire. From the first words I exchanged with her I knew that I’d fallen for her hard, and it only got worse at time went on. For a while, Sumire was the singular focus of my existence. I tried to tell her countless times how I felt. But every time I stood in front of her, I suddenly couldn’t transfer the feeling into words. But really, it might have been for the best. If I had told her the truth, she probably would have laughed it off.
When I was friends with Sumire, I went out with two or three other women (it’s not that I don’t remember the number. Depending on how you define “went out”, it’s two or three). If you also count the women I slept with only once or twice, the number is a little higher. Sometimes, when I was fucking whoever it was that time, I was thinking of Sumire. Or really, my mind was just so focused on her I couldn’t not think of her. And when I came, it was always with her in mind. It probably wasn’t a decent thing to do. But fair or not, I just couldn’t help myself.
Let me backtrack to the story of how Sumire and Miu first met.
Miu had heard of Jack Kerouac and had the vague idea he was an author. She couldn’t remember, though, what kind of author he was.
“Kerouac, Kerouac…um, wasn’t he a Sputnik?”
Sumire had no idea what she meant. She paused for thought with her knife and fork in the air. “Sputnik? You probably mean the first Soviet satellite from the fifties. Jack Kerouac was an American author. But he was from the same era, though.”
“But didn’t they call the writers back then by that same name?” Miu asked. She drew a circle on the table with her fingertip, like she was digging to the bottom of a box of memories.
“Sputnik…?”
“The name of the literary movement. You know, a name based on a description. Like the new White Birch School.”
Sumire suddenly came to the realization: “Beatnik!”
Miu lightly dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. “Beatnik, Sputnik…I’m always forgetting the difference. It’s like the Kenmun Restoration or the Treaty of Rapallo. In any case, it’s ancient history.”
An easy silence fell upon them then, reminiscent of the flow of time.
“The Treaty of Rapallo?” Sumire asked.
Miu smiled. A loving smile filled with nostalgia, like a treasured antique pulled out from a drawer of an old box. The way her eyes narrowed was so charming. She stretched out her hand and ruffled Sumire’s hair, mussing it up a little more than it was. It was such a casual and natural thing to do that Sumire couldn’t help but smile.
From then onward, Sumire’s personal nickname for Miu was “Sputnik Sweetheart”. Sumire loved the sound of it. It always made her think of the dog Laika. The satellite silently sailing through the darkness of space. The dark, lustrous eyes of the dog peering out of the small window. Whatever might that dog be staring at in the infinite loneliness of the universe?
This Sputnik-centric conversation happened at Sumire’s cousin’s wedding reception at the fanciest hotel in Akasaka. Sumire wasn’t particularly close to this cousin (she really rather hated her), so even though going to this reception was equivalent to torture, there was no reasonable way to escape it. She and Miu were seated next to each other at the same table. Miu didn’t say much about it, but she did mention that she was Sumire’s cousin’s piano tutor when she was taking entrance exams for college music programs. It wasn’t a long or intimate relationship, but she still felt an obligation to attend.
In the moment Miu touched her hair, Sumire fell in love with the violent shock like being hit with a bolt of lightning. It was something close to an artistic revelation. For that reason, the fact that she’d fallen in love with a woman didn’t cross Sumire’s mind as an issue.
As far as I know, Sumire had never had any kind of lover before. In high school I think she had “boyfriends”. They were the guys she went to the movies or went swimming with. Whatever kind of relationships they were, I don’t imagine they were particularly romantic. Sumire was so obsessed with becoming an author that I don’t think she had any space in her life for a real relationship. If she ever had any sex in high school (or something close to it), it probably was motivated more by intellectual curiosity than sexual desire.
“But really, I don’t get it – being horny” Sumire said (I think this was just before she quit college. She was pretty drunk off of 5 banana daiquiris) as she made her most sober face at me. “You know all about it. What do you think?”
“Sexual desire’s not something to understand.“ I said, sharing my usual common-sense opinion. “It’s just a thing that is.”
Sumire drunkenly focused on my face, inspecting me like a machine run by a new, strange technology. Then, losing interest, she stared at the ceiling. The conversation was done. She probably thought that it just wasn’t worth talking to me about that.
Sumire was born in Chigasaki. Her house was right near the ocean, and she spent her childhood listening to the dry sound of sand in the wind hitting her windows. Her father had a dentist’s practice in Yokohama. He was an astoundingly attractive man, with a nose reminiscent of Gregory Peck in Spellbound. Tragically, neither Sumire nor her brother inherited that beautiful nose. Sumire sometimes wondered where the genes responsible for this beautiful nose had gone. If they were truly sunk forever to the bottom of the gene pool, then it was a loss for the entire world. That’s how beautiful this nose was.
So naturally, among the women needing dental care in the Yokohama area, Sumire’s exceptionally handsome father was almost a mythical figure. In the clinic he always wore a surgical cap and a large mask. The patient in the chair could only see his eyes and his ears. Even so, his Adonis-like good looks were obvious. His manly, beautiful nose swelled suggestively under his mask, making female patients blush and – in a single moment, and in spite of not having medical insurance – they fell in love.
Sumire’s mother passed away at thirty-one. She was born with a congenital heart defect. At the time her mother died, Sumire hadn’t yet turned 3 years old. Sumire only had a single faint memory of the scent of her mother’s skin. So few pictures of her mother remained. There was a posed shot of her at her wedding, and a candid shot of her right after Sumire’s birth. Sumire used to pull out these old photo albums and pore over these old photos. To speak of her looks, we can politely say that Sumire’s mother left a very small impression. A small woman with a boring haircut, rumpled clothes, and a faint smile on her face. If she had taken one step back, she would have melted into the wall behind her. Sumire wanted so desperately to remember her mother’s face. Then she could meet her mother in her dreams. They could shake hands, have a conversation. But of course, it just wasn’t possible. Every time she tried to remember her face, it disappeared. Even if it weren’t in a dream, if they had passed each other on the street in broad daylight she probably wouldn’t have recognized her own mother.
Her father almost never reminisced about her dead mother. He wasn’t the kind of man to talk about himself, and in every situation (as if it were some sort of mouth infection) he avoided expressing his emotions at all costs. To her knowledge, Sumire had never asked her father about her dead mother. Except for one time, when she was still small, she asked him “What was my mother like?”. She remembered his response vividly.
Her father looked into the distance for a moment, and thought. Then he replied. “She was a sharp woman, with good handwriting”.
It was such an odd way to describe a person. In my opinion, Sumire’s father should have said something to his daughter to ease her troubled heart. With those words she could have built a fire of sustaining heat. She needed something – a pillar, an axis – to help prop up her uncertain reality on this third planet from the sun. Sumire waited for these needed words with bated breath, her white notebook open to the first page. Unfortunately, Sumire’s handsome father couldn’t be the person she needed.
Sumire’s father remarried when she was six, and two years later her brother was born. Her new mother also wasn’t pretty. On top of that, she had a poor memory and handwriting that was shoddy at best. But she was thoughtful, kind, and fair.
Sumire was lucky to have her as a stepmother. No, lucky isn’t the right word. Her father chose her stepmother. He was flawed as a father, but at least he was consistently good at picking a partner.
Sumire’s stepmother stood by her through her teenage years with an unwavering love, even during her “I’m quitting school to become a brilliant novelist” phase, and although she had her own opinions she respected all of Sumire’s decisions. She was so proud that Sumire was an enthusiastic reader, and had always encouraged her ever since she was young.
Her stepmother eventually persuaded her father, and they decided to pay for her tuition and living expenses until she turned 28. If she wasn’t independent by then, she would be on her own. If her stepmother hadn’t defended her, Sumire would probably have ended up penniless and without the social and personal skills necessary to confront a humorless reality – a world full of people without joy or laughter dragging itself in a circle around the sun – and would have been tossed out into the wilderness. For Sumire, her parents’ generosity was probably a blessing.
Sumire met her Sputnik Sweetheart a little more than two years after she dropped out from college.
She was living in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Kichijoji, where she got by with the minimum amount of furniture and the maximum number of books. She would wake up before noon, and with the zeal of a traveling monk would make her ritual walk around Inogashira Park. If the weather was nice she would sit on a park bench, chewing on bread and chain smoking with her head buried in a book. If it was rainy or snowy, she’d go to an old-fashioned coffeehouse where classical music played, tuck herself into a well-worn sofa, and make serious faces as she listened to Schubert’s symphonies and Bach’s cantatas. In the evening she would drink a single beer along with some ready-made food she bought at the supermarket.
At 10 o’clock she would sit in front of her desk. She’d have a full thermos of coffee, a large mug (I gave it to her on her birthday. It had a picture of a Snafkin on it), a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, and a glass ashtray in front of her. And, of course, her word processor. One key for each letter.
There was a deep silence. Her mind was clear like a winter’s night sky. Polaris and the Big Dipper were both in place, shining down brightly. There were so many things to write. There were so many things to say. If she could find the right outlet, then these thoughts and ideas could flow out of her like a wave of magma, which would solidify into a single innovative piece of intellectual genius. A picture of Sumire’s sophisticated smile would feature in the newspaper’s cultural section, and editors would fight their way to her door.
But of course, it never went like that. Sumire never had a complete work with both a beginning and an end.
To be honest, she could just write endlessly. She didn't have any problem with finding the words. She could translate everything in her head into word on the page. Her problem was rather that she wrote too much. If she wrote too much it might have been good if she just deleted the surplus, but that was easier said than done. She would read her own words out loud after she printed them, and not finding anything she could erase, would think about just whiting out the whole thing. In those moments of indecisions she would rip the entire thing up and throw it in the trash. If it were a winter night and the room had a fireplace, like in Puccini’s La Boheme, there would have been a warmth to it; but Sumire’s apartment not only lacked a fireplace, but a phone as well. There wasn’t even a nice mirror.
On the weekends Sumire would come to my apartment with her arms full of manuscripts. Even of the manuscripts that escaped the slaughter, there was still a good number. I was the only person in this whole world who Sumire would show her manuscripts to.
Because I was two years ahead of her in college and our majors were different, it was entirely by chance that we met. It was a Monday in May after back-to-back holidays, and I was standing at the front gates of the university with a novel by Paul Nizan that I bought at a second-hand book store when the short girl peering over my shoulder next to me asked me why in the hell I was reading Nizan. She asked me as if was trying to pick a fight. It seemed like she wanted to hit something, and without a suitable target she attacked my book choice – or it seemed like that to me, at least.
Sumire and I had a lot in common. We devoured books as naturally as we breathed. Any free time we had we’d spend sitting in a quiet place, flipping through the pages of our newest books. Japanese novels, foreign novels, new and old, avante-garde and best-sellers, we read whatever book was the most intellectually stimulating. We spent all of our time in the library, or would waste a full day in Kanda, the used bookstore district. I had never in my life met someone who loved books so much and read as widely, deeply, and enthusiastically as her, and I’m sure she felt the same.
I graduated around the time Sumire dropped out of college, and after that she would come by my place about two or three times a month to hang out. I rarely ever went to her apartment; there was barely room for her there, let alone the both of us, so she ended up at my place a lot. We’d talk about books we’d read and trade for those we hadn’t. I cooked dinner for her a lot. I didn’t mind, and Sumire was the kind of person who would go without eating rather than cook for herself. To return the favor Sumire would bring me presents from her various part-time jobs. Once, when she was working a part-time job in a drug company’s warehouse she brought me six condoms. They’re probably still stashed in the back of a drawer.
The novels (or fragments of them) that Sumire had written really weren’t that awful. True, her writing wasn’t that skilled, and sometimes her writing style resembled a patchwork quilt sewn by a group of tight-lipped, stubborn old women with their own tastes. Add to that Sumire’s own manic-depressive nature, and the situation could get out of control. Even worse, Sumire was committed to writing some 19th-century-style “complete work”, a magnum opus filled with the destiny and fate of the human soul.
But in spite of these problems, there was real intensity to her words and a precious honesty inside her writing. Her writing was at least not an imitation of someone else, and she didn’t try to cobble together these little pieces into something great. I liked that about her writing. It wouldn’t have been right to compress all of her creative powers just to make her writing shorter. She still had plenty of time, though. There was no need to panic. Like it says in the old proverb, that which grows well grows slowly.
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Translation education
Graduate diploma - University College London
Experience
Years of experience: 7. Registered at ProZ.com: Jul 2014.
Adobe Photoshop, CafeTran Espresso, MemSource Cloud, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office Pro, Microsoft Word, Lilt, Powerpoint, Trados Studio
CV/Resume
CV available upon request
Bio
I am a freelance Spanish>English and Japanese>English translator/editor/proofreader with 9 years of professional experience and an M.A. with Distinction in Translation Theory and Practice from University College London.
During my M.A. studies I pivoted toward researching translation technology, so that instead of choosing one focus between my language pairs I was able to focus on the platforms through which I engaged with those languages. Through my work, I was better able to investigate the tools that I would use upon returning to freelance translation. My dissertation compared Lilt, an interactive and adaptive computer-assisted online translation tool, to the AdaptiveMT tool developed by SDL Trados.
During my M.A. studies I began an internship with Trint, a tech startup that developed an automatic transcription tool. I continued working for them after graduation as a full-time employee, coordinating with larger enterprise clients and conducting research on automatic speech-to-text technology.
I have experience in a range of different projects, and am interested in working with new and different texts. In early 2020 traveled to Ecuador and volunteered to translate the website and marketing materials for El Quetzal de Mindo, a combination chocolate factory/farm/restaurant/hotel which needed bilingual support for their international guests.
My current personal projects include experimentation with new CAT tools and familiarizing myself with knitting/crochet pattern translation phrasing, terminology, and norms. Translation theory still remains a core interest of mine,
and in my spare time I enjoy reading translated literature and journalism focused
on the translation industry. Recently I have been creating a casual fan
translation of El informe de Brodie by Jorge Luis Borges.
Keywords: Spanish, Japanese, medical, linguistic, linguistics, cultural, culture, cultural sensitivity, literature, literary. See more.Spanish, Japanese, medical, linguistic, linguistics, cultural, culture, cultural sensitivity, literature, literary, timely, accurate, technology, software, accurate, computers, SDL, Trados, English. See less.
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