Journale Lucy Fricke’s Töchter: A Translation Road Trip

TRANSLATING DURING A PANDEMIC

By Sinéad Crowe, Isabelle Liber & María Tellechea


Translating tends to be a fairly quiet, solitary job. But we three translators of Daughters had planned to take part in lots of literary events in 2020. We had hoped to travel, to meet new people, to share our work – but none of this was possible after the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we were forced to change, postpone or cancel most of our plans …

1. All the things that DIDN’T happen …

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Sinéad and María had arranged to spend a week in Italy from 15 to 21 March. They had planned to visit Olevano Romano, the town that, as Lucy had told us, served as the inspiration for the fictional town of Bellegra. And, while they were there, Sinéad and María thought they might pop over to Rome and Naples to compare the cities’ famous pizzas (purely for research purposes, you understand). But a week before they were due to go, they had to cancel the entire trip, as Italy had entered the worst phase of the pandemic.

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In late January 2020, an exciting email arrived in Isabelle’s and Sinéad’s inboxes: an invitation to the annual conference of the VdÜ (the German Association of Literary Translators), which was scheduled to take place in Wolfenbüttel in June 2020. Needless to say, they jumped at the chance to take part in the final event, a panel discussion entitled “An Author Meets her Translators”, together with Lucy and her Finnish translator, Anne Kilpi. But in mid-April, the event was called off, and the organisers decided to postpone the entire programme until next year. Sinéad and Isabelle have their fingers crossed for 2021!

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The Goethe Institut had invited Lucy and Isabelle to take part in the Métropolis Bleu literary festival, which was scheduled to run in Montreal from 30 April to 3 May. While they were in Canada, Lucy and Isabelle planned to swing by the Frye Festival in Moncton. In late February, Isabelle realised that her passport was about to expire and dashed to the French embassy in Berlin to apply for a new one. But on 18 March, the news arrived that both events would have to be cancelled because of the pandemic. Sadly, Isabelle’s passport is still blank …

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In late July, Lucy and María were supposed to take part in the 25th La Paz Book Fair in Bolivia. As Germany was this year’s guest of honour, several other German authors and their translators had been invited too. The fair was postponed first until September, and then, with no end to the pandemic in sight, until 2021, as promised on the website of the Goethe Institut in La Paz.


2. Virtual Journeys

Translators are used to visualising faraway cities and landscapes from the comfort of their own homes. If you’re stuck behind your desk and having difficulty forming a mental image of a place, the internet often your first port of call.

Screenshot of a Google Images search for the cemetery in Olevano Romano, the inspiration for the fictional town of Bellegra.

Lucy also helped us enormously by sending photos she herself had taken while working on her novel in Italy and Greece.    

Lucy’s desk on a “terrace” in Greece

The picture of the guesthouse in Italy, for example, gave María and Isabelle a better idea of what exactly Lucy meant by the German word “Kiesweg” (gravel path). And the photo of her terrace in Greece helped María to decide whether the novel was describing a balcony-like structure or the kind of ground-level patio that you find in front of a cafe.

Thanks to these pictures, Lucy’s inspiring depictions of the Italian and Greek countryside and, of course, the Töchter playlist as our soundtrack, we translators managed to get something of a holiday vibe going at home.


3. A very different working life

For many translators, wfh (working from home) is the norm. In fact, you might think that the social distancing, quarantines and lockdowns that characterised this weird year would boost our productivity. But what’s it like when everyone else is wfh too? What impact does a global pandemic have on our ability to concentrate? Can we enjoy our craft as much as we usually do? Can we simply carry on as if the world outside is still intact? And what about our other responsibilities – our personal ones as mothers, daughters and aunts and our public ones as teachers? What about the fears, worries and exhaustion that have been triggered by the upheavals of 2020?

Pandemic co-working: Isabelle has had to move out of her shared office space. Her co-workers are now her two boys, who are in fourth and sixth grade.

Home classroom: Sinéad, who very much misses her students at the University of Hamburg, now has to teach online English courses from her living room.

Each of us has our own deeply personal answers to these questions. But one thing holds true for all three of us: translating Töchter was an exceptional experience, not least because it allowed us to take a virtual journey through Europe and get to know the novel’s vibrant, memorable characters.

We have to admit, though, that the novel also made us sad at times, as it is full of the wonderful things in life we ourselves longed to do: to travel, to go for a drink, to hug a friend … But we’ve learned a lot from the last few months. We’ve learned that you can suffer from video-call burnout, for example, and that the people who live downstairs are actually pretty nice. And we’ve learned about the importance of patience. We have no doubt that, in time, we will be able to make up for and truly savour all the cancelled trips and joyful experiences we’ve been missing so much.

 

Drive on.

 

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