Jeffrey Zuckerman

@jmz.bsky.social

980 Followers 501 Following

knight-errant + anti-vampire

INTERVIEWER How did the idea for Blindness develop? SARAMAGO As has been the case with all of my novels, Blindness emerged from an idea that suddenly presented itself to my thoughts. (I am not sure this is the most precise formula, but I cannot find a better one.) I was in a restaurant, waiting to be served lunch, when suddenly, without any warning, I thought, What if we were all blind? As if answering my own question, I thought, But we really are blind. This was the embryo of the novel. Afterward, I only had to conceive the initial circumstances and allow the consequences to be born. They are horrific consequences, but they have a logic of steel. There is not much imagination in Blindness, just the systematic application of the relation of cause and effect. INTERVIEWER I liked Blindness very much, but it is not an easy read. It is a hard book. The translation is very good. SARAMAGO Did you know that Giovanni Portiero, my longtime English translator, died? INTERVIEWER When? SARAMAGO In February. He died of AIDS. He was translating Blindness, which he finished, when he died. Toward the end, he himself started to go blind as a result of the medication his doctors gave him. He had to choose between taking the medication, which would sustain him for a bit longer, and not taking it, which would create other risks. He chose, shall we say, to preserve his vision, and he was translating a novel about blindness. It was a devastating situation.
THE YEAR I A storm of white petals, Buds throwing open baby fists Into hands of broad flowers. II Red roses running upward, Clambering to the clutches of life Soaked in crimson. III Rabbles of tattered leaves Holding golden flimsy hopes Against the tramplings Into the pits and gullies. IV Hoarfrost and silence: Only the muffling Of winds dark and lonesome— Great lullabies to the long sleepers. CARL SANDBURG, "The Year" 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 CORNHUSKERS (1918)
"Adèle Rosenfeld’s surreal exploration of deafness and intimacy arrives in English through Jeffrey Zuckerman’s luminous translation. As the protagonist slips further into hearing loss, the novel immerses us in a shifting sensory world, rendered with nuance and lyricism. Zuckerman masterfully preserves Rosenfeld’s balance of melancholy and absurdity, attuning English to the novel’s pulse of sonic absence. Jellyfish Have No Ears expands the vocabulary of loss—and listening—in a translation that feels both precise and otherworldly."
“I worry that it’s unfair to appropriate a novel in this way, to inscribe the circumstances of my life onto a painstakingly written book that has nothing to do with me. Or simply unprofessional. But are there that many other ways, once grief has grabbed hold of you, to seek solace, apart from identifying a similar sadness somewhere, anywhere? From finding parallels and borrowing words for a thing you can’t or won’t name? Here, listen closely, this is how I will say I’m hurting. And here, here’s how I will say I love (still, more, never again).” —Lara Vergnaud, “Winged Creatures” in the LARB
[Interview with Sandra Smith about translating Albert Camus’s letters] …important to do but it takes its toll. Even the Camus, the letters, because I know what happened to him, and I’m reading these letters—poor Maria! *You’re involved in that timeline.* You are. It’s very upsetting sometimes. But sometimes she writes six, eight, ten-page letters, because they write three times a day. When I was doing it alone, and there was so much more pressure on me, every time he would say, ‘Oh, Maria, write me a letter, write me a really long letter,’ I would be thinking, ‘No, no don’t, please don’t!’ *Have you ever considered writing fiction?* I cannot tell you how many people have asked me that. I wouldn’t feel confident about doing it. And also, I think the things that I might consider writing about would be very personal. I don’t know. A couple of people have asked me to write about my experience as a translator, but again, it’s partly [that it takes] time. There are some really good works by translators about translation. *So you don’t see translation as a form of creative writing?* Oh, no, definitely. I definitely do.
Omar El-Akkad’s ONE DAY, EVERYONE WILL HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AGAINST THIS
(From an interview with Sam Taylor) *How did translating The Heart compare with translating some of your other works, such as the novel “HHhH?”* It was the most difficult (and rewarding) book I’ve ever translated, bar none. With some books, I can translate 6,000 words per day, and feel fine; with The Heart, I translated 3,000 words and felt like I’d been run over by a freight train.
Note: The Vietnamese words in the original version of this essay used diacritical marks. To comply with New York Times style, the marks were removed before publication. Unfortunately, this practice alters the meaning of the words. In the case of Hỏa Lò Prison, for example, “hỏa” means “fire,” and “lò” means “furnace”: the Burning Furnace Prison. Without the marks, “hoa” means “flowers,” and “lo” means “worry,” rendering the term “Hoa Lo” meaningless. I look forward to the day when The Times and other Western publications celebrate the richness and complexity of Vietnamese, and of all other languages, by showcasing them in their original formats.