Translation Talk with Chris Andrews

Interview with Chris Andrews, translator of Roberto Bolaño, César Aira, and Rodrigo Rosa Rey. Part of the "Translation Talk" series from https://bibletranslation.substack.com

1:16 - History with the Spanish language
2:52 - Encountering Bolaño
4:16 - Who is Roberto Bolaño?
5:34 - Bolaño's Spanish
7:56 - César Aira, from another planet
9:00 - Translating across the Spanish language
10:14 - Translating Bolaño's By Night in Chile
16:00 - What is at stake in your translation?
20:00 - Why translate?
22:08 - Who should we be reading?
24:02 - Translating poetry
25:00 - Translating a living author, vs. translating a dead author
27:04 - Are authors trustworthy sources on their own work?
28:00 - An email from Roberto Bolaño
29:47 - Arturo Belano, narrator of 2666
34:56 - Translating Rodrigo Rey Rosa
39:06 - Can translation be taught?
41:46 - What is your stylistic stamp?
42:52 - Pet words
43:54 - The best translation resources and tools
47:09 - Favorite reference book
51:00 - Being defeated by a word or phrase
53:00 - César Aira's How I Became a Nun
56:16 - Which book was the most fun to translate?
57:34 - Translation vs. writing poetry, taking risks
1:00:40 - If nothing else, the ice cream scene…
1:01:27 - The César Aira method

More Translation Talk interviews:
Everett Fox -    • Translation Talk with Everett Fox  
Matthew Dean -    • Translation Talk with Matthew Dean  
Michael Carasik -    • Translation Talk with Michael Carasik  

Chris Andrews studied at the University of Melbourne and taught there, in the French programme, from 1995 to 2008. He came to the University of Western Sydney in 2009. He has translated books of fiction from Spanish and French, including Roberto Bolaño's Distant Star (Harvill, 2004), César Aira's The Musical Brain and Other Stories (New Directions, 2015), Rodrigo Rey Rosa's Severina (Yale University Press, 2014), Selva Almada's The Wind that Lays Waste (Graywolf, 2019), and Kaouther Adimi's Our Riches (New Directions, 2020).

Donald Antenen is translating Genesis from the Hebrew into English verse at https://bibletranslation.substack.com. He studied classical languages at the University of Pennsylvania and the liberal arts at St. John's College in Annapolis. He lives in Bellingham, Washington.