Literary translation 

The British writer Anthony Burgess said: “Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.”

 

This is the whole complexity of literary translation, whose main challenge is to ensure that the reader can identify with the text, the characters and the original context, even if he or she has no knowledge of the country or of the culture where the plot takes place. This is what  makes literary translation so exciting. As a literary enthusiast myself, I, it is very important to me to transcribe the initial message of the author as faithfully as possible in my translations.

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I took part in several literary translation workshops, organized by the Nouveau Centre Néerlandais (Dutch institute) in Paris. Each year, these workshops bring together translators and aspiring translators to work and discuss Dutch-French literary translation. They are led by Isabelle Rosselin, who has been translating from Dutch and English into French for over thirty years for the publishing, press and audiovisual sectors as well as international organizations. This has allowed me to work on Dutch essays written by contemporary authors.

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