The Spectacular Translation Machine

At the King's Cultural Institute Creative Labs on Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Ricarda Vidal who does all sorts of exciting things with translation, such as the upcoming Translation Games. Thanks to her, I found out about The Spectacular Translation Machine event at the Southbank Centre's London Literature Festival this weekend, which as a language nerd I would have been really sad to miss out on.

Translation can be a lonely activity, with nothing but you, your source text and a pile of dictionaries. The Spectacular Translation Machine aims to change that. For one weekend, members of the public - from French native speakers to absolute beginners - will collectively translate an entire French book into English, under the guidance of experts lead by award-winning translator Sarah Ardizzone. The book in question is On les aura!, a graphic novel with a fascinating story behind it. On les aura! began life as the diary of a soldier fighting in the first few months of World War I. The soldier is never named, and what happens after the diary ends remains unknown. French illustrator Barroux recently found the diary and decided to publish the text verbatim accompanied with his distinctive line drawings (Paris, Seuil: 2011). The project is therefore a double first: the first time ever that a book will have been translated collaboratively over one weekend, and the first translation of this work into English.

Click here to purchase On les aura ! : Carnet de guerre d'un poilu (août, septembre 1914) from Amazon

The space in the Royal Festival Hall allocated to the project felt like a magical translation playground, designed to make translation as engaging and interactive as possible. Large whiteboards on the walls were covered in alternatives for the title, for visitors to add to, and the table was littered with not only a range of dictionaries, but maps, reference books and other items to get people into the frame of mind of a French WWI soldier. A washing line was strung across the whole room with each panel of the graphic novel pegged up. Visitors could choose which of the panels they would like to work on, write their own translation and then peg it up with other people's versions. Participants are encouraged to discuss their translation attempts with each other, creating a real sense of community, as everyone seems so passionate about language and literature. At the end of the weekend, the experts will put all of the panels together into a complete book. What I love most about the project is that its truly collaborative nature will ensure the best possible translation of the book. Because translations are often individual efforts, the end result is naturally a subjective interpretation of the original; for as much as translators try to stay faithful to the source text, they cannot avoid making choices between different words or ways of interpreting a phrase. 

Another reason why this project is so exciting is the opportunities it opens up for translating texts quickly, accurately, and most importantly in today's market, cheaply. The chronic under-representation of foreign fiction in British markets is undoubtedly due in large part to the unwillingness of publishers to finance translations. Turning the activity of translation into an event not only reduces these costs but creates invaluable publicity for the finished product. While this event is thanks to the British Centre of Literary Translation, I really hope that publishers take note and run events like this of their own in the future, not only for the fun of being part of a community activity, but to help other wonderful books from other languages achieve the translation they so desperately need if they want to find an audience outside their country of origin. 

My attempt at translating one of the first panels from On les aura!

Translation continues at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 26, Monday 27 May. and Saturday 1 June. The results will then be presented in a celebration on Sunday 2 June at 3pm. Full details are available here.

Welcome to RADAR 2012

It was with great excitement that I arrived at the Bush Theatre today for the launch of RADAR2012: Signals from the New Writing World, three weeks of new productions, sneak peeks of works in progress and discussion panels by industry experts. While I will be writing a 500 word round-up of the first few days for Ideas Mag, I'll also be covering everything in more detail here over the next few weeks.

Having never been to the Bush Theatre before (my only prior experience of Shepherd's Bush at all was the Cooper Temple Clause gig at the Empire in 2007), I was immediately struck by the feel of the space. Just over a year ago, the Bush Theatre moved to this beautiful brick building which had previously been the public library, whose easy, unpolished architecture seems the perfect setting for new writing. For the first time since I left Cardiff, I've found somewhere which makes me feel like Sherman Cymru and Chapter did; a place where theatre is relaxed and open, not something you go to see but a space to be part of a community, to take part in something.

It was very apt, then, that the evening began with a welcome from Madani Younis, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre, which focused on the community around the theatre. Uxbridge Road is one of the longest in London, he told us, and along it you find just about every nationality, coming together in a vibrant multicultural community. At the heart of this community, was always the Old Library, located next to the large market. Built in 1895, the library was an integral part of community life, a democratic space, a place not just to discover the magic of reading, but to meet, to see and be seen. When the Bush Theatre took over the building last year (moving from an 80-seater room above a pub where they were founded over 40 years ago), they inherited this commitment to the community and promised to make the theatre a place where local life and culture would be reflected.

Madani's presentation then went on to explain the desire to redefine the theatrical landscape which is at the heart of all the Bush Theatre's work, and the impetus behind RADAR. The festival is an occasion to share and discuss ideas with the public, to open up a debate on questions like how to develop a meaningful relationship with playwrights. This has been the topic of much consideration at the Bush Theatre recently. Previously, the theatre received around 2000 unsolicited plays ever year. Each of these was read and reviewed, but the conversion rate was just 0.1%. Surely there must be a better way to develop new talent? After consulting with many admired playwrights, directors and other theatre makers, Madani was very pleased to announce tonight that the unsolicited writing policy has been completely redesigned. The new policy aims to stimulate ideas, embrace talent and ultimately produce plays. In future, twice a year there will be three week windows for writers or companies to submit works. A selection of these will then benefit from expert mentoring and workshops, the best of which will then be offered seed commissions. At least one of these works per year will then be professionally staged at the Bush Theatre. At the heart of the new policy is a desire to develop, nurture, and create lasting links with a new generation of creatives. Full details will be released on 18 January 2013 and the first window will open in March.

As Madani looked forward to the exciting prospects of this new policy, he officially opened RADAR, beginning three weeks which will surely prove the power and possibilities of new writing, as well as questioning the way theatre is made and received. 

PS: I was also a little too impressed by the use of scripts as wallpaper in the bathrooms:

Community

While I haven't been able to get out and about much - certainly no theatre trips - I have had time for lots of reading, films and TV, so I thought I should share some of what I've been enjoying on here, starting with my latest TV binge: Community.

My dad put me on to Community after it recently won a TV Choice Award for Best Sitcom. It's horribly addictive and only 20 minutes per episode, so I've now already watched all three series (a fourth will start in October). Community is very, very silly, but if you get passed that it is a lot of fun and also very clever, especially if you're a film and TV buff. 

When it is discovered that his degree is fake, smooth-talking lawyer Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) finds himself at Greendale Community College, possibly the world's worst school. In an attempt to seduce wannabe political activist Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), he starts a Spanish study group, bringing together a diverse mix of characters that otherwise have nothing in common - straight-A student turned Adderral addict, Annie Eddison (Man Men's wonderful Alison Brie); ex-high school football star, Troy Barnes (Donald Glover); strongly Christian mum, Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown); film & TV nerd, Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi) and retired businessman growing old disgracefully Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase, basically playing himself). Surprisingly the group come together as a support system and eventually a very unconventional family, inspired by creator Dan Harmon's real-life experience at community college.

The characters start of as complete stereotypes, but they acknowledge that and the humour is completely self-aware. Through the three series, however, the characters evolve in surprising and rewarding ways, and you can't help but get sucked in to the web of relations between them. The most distinctive feature of Community though is how very meta it is - every episode is either pastiching a certain programme or genre, or stuffed full of pop culture references. This may annoy some viewers, but I really appreciated how the characters and setting adapted to everything from CSI to Lars Von Trier's Dogville. Equally, I loved the experimentation with form of certain episodes, from stop-motion animation to 80s video game.

So if you're stuck for something to fill a 20 minute gap in your viewing schedule, give Community a go. Just as the characters learn to embrace life at Greendale, if you give Community a chance you'll be very happy there.

Roath State of Mind @ Waterloo Gardens Teahouse

So as I said yesterday, today I went to see the Roath State of Mind exhibition at Waterloo Gardens Teahouse.

Exhibition is perhaps an overstatement. It's a collection of photos on the walls, like the one below. To accompany these are laminated stories of ordinary people from Roath and their experiences of living in the area. This hyperlocal project is part of the wider We Are Cardiff, which brings together portraits of people from all over the city. The idea behind the project was to counteract the bad press that Cardiff was getting as Britain's premier binge-drinking hot-spot.

While there aren't that many pictures up in the exhibition, and you can read the stories online, I recommend a trip to the Waterloo Gardens Teahouse anyway. The selection of tea is amazing - although not great for the indecisive! We had a lychee infused oolong tea and a delicious sweet potato cake (like carrot cake, but nicer) and the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful (we really needed a tea expert to help us decide!). Then as you're enjoying your tasty tea you can read about the exciting experiences of our fellow Cardiffians. 

The exhibition runs until 2 July 2012.