LitfestI’ve just heard of Volta, a new translation magazine with wide reaching ambition: one poem, seventy five transations. Now that’s multilingual. Each translation is available as a downloadable pdf.
The English language version of the poem is the original, written by the compiler of translations, Richard Berengarten, and is a lyrical homage to the sun. A gift in this country, less so in others. I wonder how the poems reads in Yoruba compared to, say, in Faroese. Since language is a cultural signage there must be small yet significant differences in the weight of the words and their meaning. For this reason, alone (well, also because I don’t speak another language well enough) I’d love to have audio files accompanying this publication; to hear these transgressions set closely against each other.
The introduction says the publication throws up questions: Is translatability a universal feature of language itself? What does ‘originality’ actually mean? What difference is there between writing and translating a poem?
Great questions. Is there going to be a follow-on discussion for some answers?
