Adriana Hunter is one of the most experienced British translators of French books with more than a hundred under her belt. She is the recipient of multiple literary prizes and awards.
She has been the official translator for the English version of the Asterix series of graphic novels since 2018, when she replaced Anthea Bell, and has worked on the last four of them.
She loves ‘juggling with words’ and has been honing her craft to bridge the gap between both languages.
This can mean anything from unravelling the intimacy of Amélie Nothomb’s bestselling novels or conveying the play-on-words and puns in Asterix.
The Connexion interviewed Cédric Sapin-Defour for Son odeur après la pluie, an unexpected bestseller telling the intimate relationship between him and Ubac, his Bernese mountain dog, who died in 2017.
He was asked for his opinion about whoever would be chosen for the English translation.
A challenging translation
The following excerpt is taken from page 116:
‘C’est une décision. Lorsqu’il entre dans une pièce, il ressent sans délai si l’humeur est à l’accord ou au malaise, je crois d’ailleurs qu’il la mesure, quelque chose dans l’air lui énonce et par quel je ne sais quel tour de passe-passe, il en régule la teneur pour en faire une plénitude, sa seule présence est un bienfait, il avale toutes les biles et par d’invisibles fanons les filtre en allégresse, j’espère qu’aucune saleté ne reste en lui ; ceux ne comprenant rien au chien, surpris d’aller bien, doivent se demander ce qui subitement se dénoue dans leur vie.’
Sarah Henshaw from The Connexion produced the following translation:
‘It’s a judgement call. When he enters a room, he immediately senses whether the mood is one of ease or discomfort. I believe he weighs it up. Something in the air tells him and, as if by magic, he recalibrates the atmosphere to make it better. His mere presence is a blessing. He swallows all the rancour and, as if filtering it through an invisible gill, releases joy. I hope it doesn’t taint him. Those who aren’t used to dogs, surprised to be feeling suddenly so much better, must wonder what has imperceptibly loosened in their life.’
He was not sure how that person would accomplish what he considered an almost impossible task.
“I am a little bit anxious,” admitted Ms Hunter, who was offered the job and gave us an interview on her first day working on the project.
“I would put it in the ‘difficult’ category,” she added when asked to rank it among all the other books she has to translate.
“There is something unique about his style,” she said, agreeing with the general consensus that his writing is immensely poetic while carrying deep emotional and social meaning.
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The Connexion spoke with Ms Hunter about her challenges in translating Son odeur après la pluie and the fun involved in translating Asterix.
Readers will have to be patient, as Harwill Secker (who won the foreign publication rights) has not announced any official release yet.
Did you put yourself forward to translate it or were you invited?
Ms Hunter has translated four volumes of Asterix since 2018Les Éditions Albert René Publication
I published an abstract of this book a year ago when it first came out in France for Stock Editions because they wanted something to help sell the foreign rights.
Back then, it was a little book about a man and his dog. Nobody thought it would be such a big deal. But I really enjoyed the extract I translated.
Not least because I love dogs myself but also because I love how it is written and how he uses this story as a springboard for so many wide-ranging ideas, about life, people, and interactions.
It is such a fascinating way of creating a book about society.
There were a couple of articles in the United Kingdom (in The Sunday Times and The Guardian), then the book went to hyperspace and I got back in touch with Stock and Harwill Secker.
I had worked for them years ago and asked to be the translator. I am so pleased to have been given the job.
Are you anxious about the translation? Since you first read it in French, have you familiarised yourself with its various intricacies ?
I am a little bit anxious.
Usually when I read a book, I kind of already scan sentences and think “Ok, this bit is easy, I can write it in such-and-such a way” and then I sit down, leave it to rest, and think: “Wait, hang on a minute. What does the author mean here? Is this bit correct?”
With this book, I wondered how I would translate it before I even started.
I have a little system where I underline areas that I am not sure about. I put a Post-it note on that part to sort out later by asking a French friend.
With this book I have a query on every page so far (laughs)...
Is ‘Son odeur après la pluie’ sophisticated or ‘lighter, commercial work’, as you have described some other books?
The writing is sophisticated and contains a lot of ideas. But it is also sophisticated because of the slightly unusual turn of phrase.
The way he structures sentences might not be immediately obvious to English readers.
Will it be both prize-winning and commercially successful?
It is about a dog and the love that this man has for him. But it is also very literary, philosophical and it has sold many copies.
It is a ‘crossover’ book. It is quite difficult to classify.
Do you agree with the British newspapers’ choice of title, ‘His smell after the rain?’ Would you have translated it like that?
I would say that this title is incredibly difficult to translate from the French but you are asking me this on my first day of working on the text. Perhaps if you ask me further down the line I will feel differently.
Mr Sapin Defour’s writing style has been praised by many French readers and by the press for being extremely poetic. Do you agree? How would you describe his writing?
Yes, it is poetic but it is also ‘playful’, since he plays with words.
He is hyper aware of how words work. Some of the sentences are very spare, some of the clauses are short and stripped down to the bare essentials, while some of them are longer. His style is unique.
Is it more difficult to translate poetic language? Where does he rank among the authors you have translated so far? Can you put him in a category?
I would put it quite high in the ‘difficult’ category, but you are asking me this on Day 1 of the project.
The confidence in my abilities to translate him will grow. The more days that pass, the easier it will become.
You always speak with the author at some stage.
What do you expect from that conversation?
You can never have a closer reader than a translator. Most authors come back with huge gratitude because it is such a precious, intricate process.
That intricacy proves a love of the language, the author’s language.
The fact that I ask questions means that I care. thing about translations needing to sound as if they originated in the translated language.
Despite this, I’m not absolutely sure that I will use this expression in my own version.
The translator has divided this section into several separate sentences, which helps to make sense of the passage, but in the process it dilutes some of the author’s idiosyncratic style.
Perhaps some other subtleties have also been lost – “as if by magic” feels more mundane than “par je ne sais quel tour de passe-passe”.
But it’s not very fair of me to comment until I have done battle with that passage myself and I have plenty of other pages to tackle before I get to it!
What is your greatest challenge?
Doing the book justice. Because English has a slightly larger vocabulary than French, I always end up reducing the content by about 10%.
If it goes below that 10% threshold, it means I have been lazy.
Although it is poetic and beautiful, it is quite restrained and tight. I need to try to recreate that to do it justice.
The challenge is to keep it succinct while keeping the imagery and breadth of his writing. I hope that my questions prove how much I value his work, and not just that I rattled through it to send to the editor.
How do you rate our translation [see above]?
I think it mostly reads very smoothly. I really like “It’s a judgement call” because it feels so idiomatic in English.
You have translated four Asterix comic books now. Does the work become easier over time? Is there such a thing as ‘getting into the mind of the author’?
Yes and no, really. Asterix is very different to what I usually do because there is a much bigger element of creativity and independence from the original text.
Not that I can change the story, but the original cultural references do not mean anything to British people. I have to change it to make it relevant.
Would you like to have a go at translating the extract from Son odeur après la pluie? Send us your translations at news@connexionfrance.com
