Hello, and welcome to Susurrus. This is Nandini Krishnan, and I will be hosting a fortnightly podcast titled Susurrus, where we talk books and authors—and translators, who are also really authors. The first thing everyone wants to know, of course, is what is ‘susurrus’? and it’s hard to describe except as ... (flipping pages) —the sound of pages rustling, or of whispers in the ear, or of the wind teasing leaves on trees. And it’s a word I learnt from one of my favourite books, about fourteen years ago. I’ll come to that shortly.

So, in this show, we will speak about specific books, books that have affected me perhaps, or books whose writers have made their mark on the world or should have left or would have left a far larger footprint if only they had been translated. We will also have guests on the show, authors and poets and performers talking about their work.

The first episode of this podcast has been inspired by a life lived across many literatures, a voice that carried many voices.

The passing away of one of the century’s most iconic translators, Edith Grossman. In fact, given the popularity of her translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, one might call her one of history’s most iconic translators. 

She is perhaps best known for being what Gabriel Garcia Marquez himself called ‘[his] voice in English’. The opening sentence of Love in the Time of Cholera, which has passed into the canon of great first lines, was penned by her and goes—‘It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love’. 

This was not one of my favourite books of Marquez’s. I found it deeply disturbing, but not good-disturbing. To me, Of Love and Other Demons was good-disturbing. 

Marquez, to me, is One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was the book that first made me feel I had read all there really was to read in the world. If this was the last book I read, it would be a good way to go. I could die happy. 

It was only when I read the obituaries on Edith Grossman that it struck me that I had never really thought about the translator, for as long as his or her name was not printed on the cover. It was Grossman who first put forward the idea of the translator as a person and not an invisible medium—someone with a craft, someone who ought to be given credit, someone whom the publishers needed, because, in her words, translations are not written by waving a magic wand.

It turns out that the edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude that I do have was not translated by Grossman but by Gregory Rabassa—his name appears on one inside page, in tiny font. There is no bio. And yet, it turns out Marquez waited three years for Rabassa to be able to take on the English translation, and eventually declared it superior to the Spanish version. So, for this inaugural podcast, I thought I would look at books from other languages that have particularly moved me or left an impression of some sort, and their translators.

And I’m going to read the ending of this novel—it’s no spoiler, because you won’t understand a thing until you read the entire novel. But to me, this is one of the most intoxicating sections of the novel, perhaps what made Marquez declare that it was better than the original.

[Reading of excerpt]

The second on this list is the work from which I learnt the word ‘susurrus’—My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. His translator Maureen Freely is a well-known name. In fact, the notion propagated by some of his Turkish readers that she is responsible for making his books what they are, that she makes them better than they are in the original, began to gain currency, particularly after his Nobel Prize win. It has even become a prickly question for Pamuk at some events, notably at his appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival.

However, Pamuk has had several translators, of whom at least two are of Turkish origin. Some of his more recent books have been translated by Ekin Oklap. The translation I read of the iconic My Name is Red was by Erdag M Goknar, and I realised that Goknar had been singled out for praise by John Updike for the fluidity of his language and the way he has adapted the grammar of a completely incompatible language to suit English. To me, the translation is also notable for the role it plays as a cultural carrier—along with the English word ‘susurrus’, I learnt several Turkish words and particularly remember ‘Effendi’, which was apparently an address that shows great respect in the Ottoman empire. Goknar, it turns out, is a poet in his own right, along with being a literary scholar and translator. And I’m going to read the first paragraph for you:

[Reading of excerpt]

Finally, I have a novel here that I bought because I liked the cover and the name: The Yacoubian Building. Back then, I had not heard of Alaa Al Aswany. I was in my late teens, and had hardly ventured outside the canon of literature, which at the time Alaa Al Aswany did not occupy. It was only his second novel, and his translator Humphrey T. Davies was better known at the time in Arab literary circles than the author was. But this novel would catapult the author to fame, and win the translator several awards and honours. I think one of the reasons this translation stands out for me is that it was—unlike early translations of most works of Arabic literature—handled by a single person, who knew the country in which the novel was set and had lived there for decades, and who was also adept at carrying just that little flavour of the original language into the translation. So, here’s how the novel begins.

[Reading of excerpt]

As a translator myself, I’m often torn between retaining original words and translating entirely, as if the novel were originally written in English. I tend to prefer the former style. 

What do you think? Do write in to me at the email address feedback@fountainink.in. Of course, I’m happy to hear back from you about this episode and requests for future episodes. Well, I’ll sign off now. I do hope you pick up one or more of these three works, or these three translators. See you in a fortnight!