« A long race, with for competitors, the text, the shadow of the author, time and me »: this is how Robert Amutio evokes his experience as a translator. From this experience, which leads him to marry for long months « voice, rhythm, momentum » of an author, he admits never to go out « unharmed Especially if the author in question is called Roberto Bolaño, a rough diamond from South American literature, discovered by chance », whereas this one was not yet « the writer praises that he became after his death ».
We know the rest. Since Chile Nocturne (éditions Bourgois) , which he translated in 2002, Robert Amutio will not cease to make accessible to French-speaking readers the labyrinthine writings of the Chilean writer, author – among other masterpieces – of Wild detectives and 2666. At the end of this titanic adventure – the Editions de l'Olivier have just published the sixth and final volume of the Complete works of the writer, including many unpublished works – Robert Amutio, who received the Grand prize for the translation work awarded by the Ministry of Culture and the SGDLhas not yet finished with its engine: meeting » with the universe of a Spanish-speaking author. « I don’t read to translatehe says, I await the meeting Maintenance.
What is your background?
I was born in Algeria to Spanish parents. At school, French was spoken outside, several languages intertwined and, at home, Castilian and Valencian. When we arrived in France, all this was lost, or at least impoverished: in less than two years, in France, I only spoke French, even with my parents. I read a lot at that time – mostly science fiction, Black River Publishing, with Brantonne covers. It was around the age of fifteen that I began to read «literature», a word I did not use anyway, especially Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Kafka, Bataille, Artaud and Le Clézio. For a time, I had the ambition to read everything, and then, more reasonably, everything that at least mattered to me. During these years, I felt like I had entered a cave of Ali Baba full of wonders. One could dream of spending a lifetime reading.
How did you come to translation?
After my studies, I worked as a teacher of «French as a foreign language» in Ethiopia, Algeria and Morocco; then I arrived in Mexico. I then began to speak Spanish again with an unexpected joy, in that the language seemed to me at the same time to be neither quite the same nor quite another. Back in France, I tried to keep this experience alive, to renew it. I spoke Spanish again with my parents and I translated my first books: some Gomez de la Serna, Fables for black sheep of Augusto Monterroso, Distant star and Chile Nocturne of Roberto Bolaño, The disgust Horacio Castellanos Moya, Both of Daniel Sada.
You are Roberto Bolaño’s translator in French. Under what circumstances have you had to translate the great Chilean author?
At the time I seek to translate Roberto Bolaño, he is alive and is not the praised author he became after his death. He is above all a writer whose works I like and whom I would like to translate. Then I make the mistake of believing that publishers will rush on his works. In truth, it will take two or three years: Christian Bourgois agrees to have Roberto Bolaño translated and accepts at the same time that I am the translator. It is therefore by chance that I became Bolaño’s translator.
A wandering that leads you to know where, or with whom, a prodigious and terrible conversation that you would not want to end
What is the challenge of translating such a work that includes novels, short stories and poetry?
Roberto Bolaño has written poetry, novels, short stories, texts for newspapers or magazines. One of the characteristics of Bolaño’s writing is the «proliferation», its «fractal character» so that many of his texts could be found in several genres. It is therefore useless to search in which single box to put a particular work. I will not speak of a challenge, the word is too strong. Each text engenders a series of researches, which often branch out in senseless ways and are for me part of the pleasure of reading and translating, the results of which are often invisible, or barely perceptible, in the translated text. It is also necessary to take into account the writing and sometimes rewriting dates since Bolaño’s work was published in disorder. This captures the “seams” of texts, the moments when a text was repeated later, sometimes several years later, and sometimes integrated into another text. «The investigation» deals, for example and in bulk, with pastiches, parodies, the appearance of «real» characters, quotations, self-quotes, modified or apocryphal quotations, literary and historical allusions, pseudo and autobiographical, registers of languages, word games, variants of Spanish, various slangs including at least one invented…
Can you talk about that “long distance race” that was probably the translation of 2666, his great posthumous work? What particular pleasure do you derive from this experience?
Yes, a long race, with for competitors, the text, the shadow of the author, time and me. Time always wins. I don’t even know how many years it took me to translate 2666, the unfinished work of Roberto Bolaño. And yes, there was pleasure every day to enter 2666, as in a wandering that leads you to know where, or with whom, a prodigious and terrible conversation that you would not want to end. Once, despite everything, that everything stops, you still live in the voice, the rhythm, the momentum, for weeks, until it runs out of steam. You kept your word, anyway.
You are a translator from Spanish but also from Catalan to French. How do you live this double translation experience?
I didn’t translate much Catalan, and when that happened, it was always with my brother, Denis, without whom I probably wouldn’t have started. The news of Pere Calders takes place in Mexico, this is what determined for me the desire to translate, but perhaps also, in a more hidden way, it was a desire to immerse myself in this language. At home, my mother and grandmother spoke in Valencian: I never decided to speak it, I understand it quite well, I read it, hoping one day to come across a text that I would like to translate. I don’t read to translate, I’m waiting for the “meeting”.
What translation project are you currently working on?
I’m rereading a translation of a novel by Gustavo Faveron, a Peruvian author. One could say, and one would certainly say, that it is a novel in the wake of the Roberto Bolaño des Wild detectives and of 2666, but it would be very reductive. We’ll see. I’d like it to be read without too much prejudice.
What is the meaning of the Grand Prix de la traduction that was awarded to you?
First of all, I have to say that it was a surprise. I never thought about prices. So this Grand Prix, I accepted it for my work, for all those who did it with me, and generally for all translators. I enjoyed doing this job the best I could. Some, readers, peers, have publicly esteemed it: I thank them for this recognition.
An ardent defender of the Spanish-speaking domain
It is thanks to Robert Amutio that we can read today in French the works of the Salvadorian Horacio Castellanos Moya, the Mexicans Daniel Sada and Juan Manuel Servín, the Colombian Antonio Ungar and the Spanish exile in Mexico Pere Calders (Catalan), published by Éditions Les Allusifs; but also by the Spanish Milena Busquets, the Argentinian Ricardo Piglia, the Bolivian Edmundo Paz Soldán, the Venezuelans Rodrigo Blanco Calderón and Alberto Barrera Tyszka, available at Éditions Gallimard; Colombian Antonio Ungar and Uruguayan Mario Levrero (Éditions Notabilia); Guatemalan Augusto Monterroso (Éditions André Dimanche); Peruvian Ricardo Sumalavia (Éditions Cataplum); Argentine Jorge Barón Biza (Éditions Attila) and Daniel Guebel (Éditions L'arbre vengeur); finally, by Chilean Benjamin Labatut (Éditions du Seuil).
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