Interview: prof. dr Dalibor Soldatić, editor of the edition "The Best Spanish Novels of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century"

Large undertaking of Serbian translation

When it comes to translating works from the Spanish language territory, I think that significant progress in the last decade has been made. I cannot avoid ascribing credit to the Department of Iberian Studies on Faculty of Philology of University of Belgrade, which has a significant number of educated Hispanists. In this edition of "Laguna" have also appeared names of new translators, which is very good because there is competition, and from it may result only the quality and higher standards


By SANJA PANJESKOVIĆ
Cooperation with the magazine of Association of Hispanists REFLEJO
Translation: MILICA MALETIĆ


Serbian readership faced with a large number of literary translations from Spanish which, however, lacks expertise in the translation approach, as well as attentiveness in the presentation of Spanish literature. Edition "The Best Spanish Novels of the Second Half of the Twentieth Century", published by Laguna, gives the opportunity to meet with selected works of great writers in translation of distinguished experts in the field of Hispanism, and actually represents a significant cultural project.

Professor Dr Dalibor Soldatić, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade and Hispanist for our readers talks about this great project of Serbian translation and explains the importance of the mentioned cycle of novels, noting a shift when it comes to translating works from Spanish language in Serbia. When it comes to his translation of the above mentioned edition, acknowledges that transfer Goytisolo's "Signs of Identity" was the hardest job in the translation of his remarkable career. About the significance of this work speaks the fact that the Ministry of Culture of Spain subsidized his translation and publication in Serbia.

What is the cultural impact and importance of these literary works? Has this edition made progress in the Serbian publishing when it comes to works of Spanish authors?

- I think that the publishing house Laguna actually made progress with its edition, "The Best Spanish Novels of the Twentieth Century". There is no dispute that in Serbia in the last decade a large number of titles have been published from the Spanish language territory. We can talk about some eighty titles of Spanish authors and roughly the same number of works of Hispanic American authors. However, we did not systematically approached the presentation of Spanish Literature here, but each translation was the result of individual initiative of translator or the editors received offers from the agencies in the world book fairs, Frankfurt, for example. This edition is the result of a desire to present works in spite of all, which represented the shift in the creation of Spanish prose writers. We tried to make a compromise between the importance of work and the possible commercial effect offering significant artists, but also works for which we have considered that can cause attention and interest of our readership.

In this case, you are the editor and translator of the edition. How did the working on the edition begin and how much effort and time needed to deliver such a large project, especially when it comes to your translations?

- When it comes to translating works from the Spanish language territory, I think that significant progress in the last decade has been made. I cannot avoid ascribing credit to the Department of Iberian Studies on Faculty of Philology of University of Belgrade, which has a significant number of educated Hispanists. In this edition of Laguna have also appeared names of new translators, which is very good because there is competition, and from it may result only the quality and higher standards. You will admit that, apart from exceptions, today is already rare to find a translation of literary work in Serbian with serious and unforgivable errors.

When it comes to translation of Goytisolo, I admit that it was the hardest translation job so far. It is a work which has opened new horizons of creative fiction in Spain, where there is an experiment with structure and language. We have a whole pages of text without a single punctuation mark, with which the author opens up a whole range of possible interpretations of thought. There the translator must enter into the fine analysis of literary discourse in order to achieve the same effect in the translation. In addition, Goytisolo frequently use words in the meaning that is possible, but rarely in use, so I was forced to consult several dictionaries. As for the time, the translation gave me so much trouble that I broke the terms we agreed with the publisher, and it is not my fashion. The only justification was that it happened to me to translate a paragraph during the whole day, but since it comes to one of the finest Spanish novels of the twentieth century I think it was worth the effort.

Here we come to a problem that needs to be mentioned. If you look at our press and literary magazines, you will not find any comment, view or analysis of this project. It is constantly going on with the works of Spanish and Hispanic American writers. Even when they are popular in public, even when they are sold very well, writers of this language area do not have the attention of professional critics. I wish our Hispanists understand this as a call to trigger on this plan.

What topics are elaborated and to which genres do the works from the mentioned edition belong? What is the thing that connects them?

- The topics are diverse and the works belong to different genres, from history, satire, exotic, and epic fantasy. They share a relationship to the reality of Spain, its history, present and future. However, the primary reason for the inclusion of the work in the edition was the quality of the novel. We tried to cover a wide range of prose creation of contemporary Spain.

How did the audience and critics react to the work and are we going to have, in the near future, the opportunity to meet with similar projects?

- I think I have partly answered this question. I do not have specific sales data, but I didn't have the impression that we had bestsellers, except one novel. And it is caused by the previously mentioned reasons. As far as future projects are concerned, we think about the new cycle of the Spanish novel that would encompass the period after the democratic transition.



(Published: 12.07.2010.)