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Translating Fantasy and Science Fiction : The Peak of Creativity
01/10/2004 . Source: Ilona Hegedus 
We all know that many of the most loved science fiction and fantasy authors' work is admired worldwide, but little do we know about the people who made it possible for them to become so well-known. Apart from the people involved in publishing there are quite a lot of other professionals without whom it wouldn't have been possible. These are the translators. Most people know little about translation, especially literary translation, and never think of these people, as they are regarded merely as translating robots, tough what they are doing is very far from what any machine could ever do.
First of all, knowledge is needed to do the job, but a good command of at least two languages is still not enough. Yes, two. The reason for that is very simple : one language is the one you translate from and the other one is the one you translate to (possibly your mother-tongue). Translators also need to have some knowledge on translation, too. (Actually, there is a special field of study called Translation Studies which is dealing with the theory and practice of translation, but, of course, this is not what I'd like to tell you about.)
And this is nearly not enough. These people also need creativity and talent, as they have to recreate a text in an other language. This is a great responsibility, as the author of the original novel, short story, etc. will be represented by their work, and it will be judged only on the basis of that. Translators spend quite a lot of time dealing with nuances of meaning and also with style, as their aim is to achieve the same effect on the reader as that of the original text. Understanding the content is therefore not enough.
The people who translate science fiction and fantasy must, first of all, know these genres and they also need to know the special vocabulary related to science and technology, mainly to astronomy. This is, again, still not enough. They also have to be the exceptionally creative ones, as these books are full of names for things that do not exist in reality, as they are only the products of a writer's imagination. They deal with everything from food names to names belonging to different life forms, places, objects, military ranks or even names of drinks or institutions.
I would say that this is the type of fiction, where, practically, anything is possible. From the linguists' point of view these are called 'neologisms', which is a term applied to both newly coined words and expressions or old words that aquire a new sense. Sometimes translators take over these words unchanged, which is the easiest solution, but one that can mainly be used in the case of words that belong to places or people. Sometimes the spelling and thus the pronounciation is changed in a way that is more convenient to the reader. At other times, the words get endings that are characteristic of the the language to which we translate.
Words that bear some sort of meaning are much more difficult to translate, as one cannot just open a dictionary and look them up. Sometimes they are simply left out, or a word is added to help the reader understand the meaning, even though translators try to avoid changing the text dramatically, and do not add or omit words unless they find it absolutely necessary to do so. It is widely accepted that there is no translation without any kind of loss, and one has to be able to make such decisions. There are several ways for compensating for such losses, for example if a word-play is lost, you may introduce a similar word-play at an other place in the text, where it is possible to do it. Of course, one has to be very careful when trying to do such a thing, weighing all the possibilities.
This is not an easy task but it is well worth the effort. Sometimes you can simply translate these names on the basis of the context, but it is also possible that you have to find out something that has a similar effect or similar connotations. The most difficult task is, definitely, when you have to create a brand new word, which you think would to be suitable for that particular object or being the writer writes about.
Now you can have an idea about how much work is involved in translation, and what qualities a good translator needs to have. Some of these people take up writing and become famous, but most of them remain unknown and in a lot of countries they are also underpaid and work without getting the respect they deserve.
After writing about all these things, I'm sure that next time you read a good book, which was translated from an other language, you will look up the name of the translator, too.
Ilona Hegedus
(c) Ilona Hegedus 2004
About the Author
Ilona is a young Hungarian writer and literary translator, a graduate with English and Librarian majors, who wrote her thesis on the translation of neologisms in two books of Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). Among other things, she writes a lot of SF, F and Horror (mainly poems). For more information on her writings visit her website: http://www.tar.hu/fairy
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