Interview with Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli

You were the ones who suggested that English-speaking teens would be interested in a story about a Montreal teen band. What was there about the story that you thought would translate particularly well?

There were a whole host of reasons for choosing Millions: the characters, especially Alex and Mélanie; their willingness to work hard and take chances; and their eventual success, even in the face of internal and external obstacles. The fact that the original had been short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature in French also meant that it would be easier for Red Deer Press to take the leap of faith that any publishing project requires. Finally, there are many young aspiring musicians, writers, and artists who will see themselves in these characters and hopefully aim for the stars themselves!

When you are working on a translation from French to English, how much leeway do you have in finding the appropriate words and phrases in English? Or, put another way, how literal does your translation have to be?

When translating, we let ourselves be guided by two principles, namely staying true to the author’s intent, which necessarily involves using the tools particular to each language, and ensuring readers walk away with the same images and emotions they would have experienced had they read the original.

An example will help illustrate how literary translation is in no way a literal translation. In the original, Alex asks Bruno to explain who “Gugusse de Malheur” is, thinking he’s quite clever to have come up with a play on Bruno’s favorite musician’s name, Gustav Mahler. In French, “Gugusse” means someone no one takes seriously, a clown, and “Malheur” means wretched and, of course, sounds like the name Mahler. Obviously, left in French, the joke would mean nothing to an English reader. As translators, we had to come up with an expression that would sound somewhat like the musician’s name and yet have a funny twist to it. After many failed attempts, we came up with “Goosed a Mallard” which reproduces the “Goo” sound of the German “Gustav” and Mallard for “Mahler,” hence leaving the reader with the image of a duck being goosed. When Alex complains that Bruno didn’t even appreciate his word play, we as readers can now understand what he’s talking about. In the same way, all of translation requires a distancing from the form (the language, voice, and style) used in the original in order to come back to the original’s meaning using another form, that provided by the language of the translation. We like to think of it as going to a place without words because it is only there that it’s possible to find the right words.

Sometimes literary works do not travel easily between the two cultures. Why is that?

There is no reason why all works of literature cannot travel well if properly translated. Above all, a translator must be familiar with both cultures (that of the original language and his or her own culture) in order to convey the same meanings. Knowing both cultures, the translator is able to see when elements that are implicit in the original need to be brought to the fore in the translation so readers in both cases will have the same understanding.

An example from Millions is Alex questioning his father’s love for Yves Duteuil’s song “La langue de chez nous.” There is no explanation needed in French since the title says everything and the song itself is well-known. In English, we had Alex say, as in the original, “[The song] gets a bit too preachy,” and then we added, “about the French language” for English readers who most likely don’t understand the French title and/or know that it is a song in praise of the language spoken in Quebec.

What is the most difficult aspect of doing this kind of translation?

In the case of this particular novel, the original story was set in a particular time frame, which meant that a number of the references sounded outdated in a translation done some twenty years later. The challenge was to update some of the technological and musical references and still stay true to the original. This was made possible by another principle of translation, namely considering the text as a whole. For instance, as in the earlier example of “Gugusse,” if the main character had used wordplay constantly in the story, we could have come up with equivalent wordplay, but wouldn’t necessarily have had to use it in the exact same spot in the text, instead finding places where it would be more natural in English.

Through your work, you are familiar with the books that are made available to young readers in French Canada, and those that are aimed at the same age in English Canada. What are the differences, in general, in the books intended for the two cultures—if any?

Quebec YA authors or publishers seem readier to explore and publish subjects that can be seen as more taboo elsewhere: death, teen sexuality, mental illness, etc. Also, a number of Quebec books have a greater preoccupation with language, a consequence of living in French on a mainly English-speaking continent and of speaking a language that has evolved differently from the French still spoken in France.

Thank you, Christelle and Susan.