Translations of French poet by Irish writer and critic
national |
arts and media |
press release 
Monday July 27, 2009 18:36
by Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoiri Chaitlín Maude - Western Writers' Centre, Galway
westernwriters at eircom dot net
Canavan Hse., Nuns Island, Galway
087.2178138
Fred Johnston's writing turns to France
Writer, founder of the annual Cúirt literature festival and Director of The Western Writers' Centre (Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude) Fred Johnston has been writing and publishing his poems almost entirely in French for some time now; but it all began with translating short stories of Breton folklore and French poems.
He is not the first Irish poet who has abandoned English to write poetry in French. "I found I needed new eyes, as it were. The Irish poetry scene, to me, began to look like a bull-pen. Good poets wrote anyway. But I had experienced too much grubbiness, perhaps. One day I thought: 'We've lost our dignity somewhere.' And I am not alone." A translated French tale appeared in the magazine, Albedo 1. Recently, in Brittany, he began what he calls a test-run towards a possible book of photographs on the Monts Arrée region. And he has just recorded five short programmes for a Breton radio station on Irish culture and heritage.
But this year will see the publication of a longer project when his translations of the Breton-based poet, Colette Wittorski, are finally published.
"We met recently in Brittany - in Huelgoat, the town from which novelist Jack Kerouac's people emigrated in the 18th century - and discussed the final touches," he says. "Colette is a prize-winning poet and her work deserves a wider audience. This dual-language collection, hopefully, will acquire that to some extent."
Working on the project for two years, he found it tough but satisfying. "It was pleasurable, but it was a translation in the real sense, not merely something built on a crib by someone else. Often a phrase would seem clear, then turn out to have several meanings. Anyone who has attempted translation will understand. But finalising each phrase was like opening a window on a new way of seeing things. Colette Wittorski is happy with the end result and that's what matters." It is expected that the book will be launched both in Dublin and in Brittany and further details will be announced.
Fred Johnston's own poems written in French have appeared in, among others, Hopala! (Brittany), L'Empreinte Orange, Fôret de Milles Poètes, Le Cerf-Volant (Paris), Éclats de Rêves, Ouste, In-Fusion, Le Grognard, and here in The Stony Thursday Book and Studies Review. Plans are in motion to bring out a selection of his short stories, translated into French by writer and film-maker, Kristian Le Bras, later this year or early next year. He has read his work at the Franco-Irish Literature Festival in Dublin.
Meanwhile, the Western Writers' Centre is working to conclude the Bus Éireann-sponsored Irish-language poetry project for which they received an award at the end of last year.
Comments (9 of 9)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9M. Samuel Beckett, ecrivain irlandais, écrivait aussi en Francais. So stick that dans votre pipe et fumez. Irish poet Desmond Egan has had published a selection of his poems in German and English. Regardless of attitudes to the EU and the Lisbon Treaty mark II we're sort of European I'd say.
A verse of Sam is your only man. Well said, munchkin. Desmond has also translated 'Les Sept Mou'allaq'at,' a task I tried while I lived in North Africa and I managed Imrou Oul Qais but no further. I think our literary outlook has more forcibly to be dragged into Europe, because our publishers are unconcerned and prefer to feed the local trough. Think too the admirable Pearse Hutchinson, who has translated much from Spanish; and Aidan Higgins, who gave us, in the marvellous 'The Balcony of Europe,' the best and arguably first contemporary Irish/European novel. Alors! There are more too.
Ole, viva Espana. Colm Toibin's novel, Into the South, is about an Irish woman caught up in the Spanish Civil War. Toibin also published an interesting travel book about the city of Barcelona.
Important twentieth century Irish poets gave a lot of attention to translating from
gaelic poetry. It's like art students going into galleries to learn from the old masters by painting reproductions of the chef-d'oevures.
An Irish woman with a Polish name published a first novel a few years ago set in Poland. Can anybody recall author and title? I read it and it was a good effort.
An Irish teacher of English and cultural studies in Slovakia, John Minihane, translated poetry and essays by a Slovakian poet. Minihane isn't a poet himself, but has studied Gaelic poetry and published a rather technical account of political undercurrents in 17th century Munster poetry, called The Contention of the Poets. Here's details about the translated Slovak poet:
Name: Slovak Spring
Author: Novomesky, Ladislav
Editor: Minahane, John
Publisher: Belfast Historical Society
Published: 2004
ISBN: 1 872078 10 9
Let us respect all those Irish writers who live in another culture, learn foreign languages and translate into English for the benefit of Irish readers. It is an adult, intellectual leap. Let's stop pretending to be less cosmopolitan than we are. And good luck with your french project Fred.
Thanks, mate. Yes, there are people striving out there to bring the Irish literary consciousness kicking and screaming into the European dimension. Irish publishers, though, seem very reluctant to engage with the publication of work from European authors, though notably Lapwing Poetry in Belfast have produced translations, as did Dedalus Press in its golden age (and of a Breton poet, most notably.) And let us not forget the sterling work of the Irish Translators' Association and their publication, 'Translation Ireland.' At a publishers' conference some years ago, where I shared the discussion with Caroline Walsh of The Irish Times, I introduced the idea that Irish publishers could benefit by publishing European writers in translation, even to the point of being the first to put the relevant author into print, albeit in English. This notion was actually greeted with derision. Rather smugly, I thought. The bigger Irish publishers continue to play it safe and this will ultimately lead to a possibly fatal degree of sterility in the literary publishing world here. Pity. Our loss, of course. We need badly the challenge of outside ways of seeing.
Too true. There is a parochialism in Irish prose writing, especially the novel, although as you said there was a small crop of exiled Irish writers in Spain in the 50s and 60s who translated poems by Neruda and others and wrote stories or novels with some Spanish setting.
I read somewhere that in continental Europe at present there are 250,000 Irish exiles, some of them clustered in cities like Frankfurt, Munich and Paris and others scattered around Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium (of course in the EU monster Brussels), Poland and a few other parts of Eastern Europe. Where is the cultural comeback reflected in our Irish newspapers, magazines (a fading communications sector admittedly), radio and television programmes? And where, you've pinpointed it, is the comeback in Irish book publishing, in fictive writing and non-fiction?
Our publishers, our media and our academic journals are downplaying our growing cosmopolitanism.
I can think of several Irish novelists who situated their plots in foreign settings, in the USA, Britain and further afield.
I can supply you with some leads if you wish to explore and write about this. Give me a link to your Western Writers website so that I can contact you privately.
Since you are based in Galway and are concerned with the useful trend of writers translating Gaelic poetry into English, you might in passing be interested to know that the now defunct Gaelic publishers called Sáirséal agus Dill published in 1972 an autobiographical book called Dubhduchas (Gaelic for Négritude) by an Irish missionary priest, Padraig O Maille. He described life at the time in Nigeria (the early 1960s) and devoted two interesting chapters to discussing emerging Nigerian poets and novelists, quoting liberally from the poets. After the Nigerian civil war he had to leave Nigeria and ended up in Malawi in Central Africa. There was a one-man tyranny ruled by Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda. O'Maille was a prison chaplain as well as university literature lecturer. In 1999 he published a book about his Malawi experiences, this time in English, entitled Living Dangerously: A Memoir of Political Change in Malawi. O'Maille some years ago gave a course of evening lectures on modern African literature at UCD. In Malawi he edited an anthology of poetry in English by contemporary Malawian poets.
My last published novel, 'The Neon Rose,' is set in Paris among the legal eagles there. But this book, well-reviewed by, among others, The Irish Times, had to go to the UK to find a publisher. I knew the Irish-language publisher you refer to. I have no doubt that there are Irish men and women abroad who are writing about their experiences, though I wonder still with slack-jawed awe at the reaction of a prominent Irish publisher to my plan to do a book on the Irish in Paris - "Who here would read it?" he replied. Irish publishers will not be prised from the safety of their Arts Council-cushioned philosophy of 'Stay local and make money.' So long as they (both Irish language and English publishers) have the various supporting grants coming in, why should they step outside their comfort zones and risk publishing upon new ways of viewing the world or, for that matter, new writers from other parts of the world? We should be publishing Nigerian writers for the first time here, in Ireland, or French writers, or Spanish ones. We still seem to be in thrall to American writers, who have little trouble being published here (especially in the poetry scene) while remaining obscure and unknown even at home! But no such enthusiasm exists for publishing a French writer, say. The Arts Council, because they sign cheques, have the power to change all of this. But that would mean stepping outside THEIR encrusted comfort zones, and they won't do that, mainly because - I would argue - there are none qualified in Merrion Square sufficiently to judge or report upon trends in modern European literature, though there should be. Maybe Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue, with his propensity for spending six-figure sums on his cultural trips abroad, could volunteer as our literature detective abroad???
Ooops! Got author and title backwards above.
Nice one! Irish publishers need to take on more European work.
The book has now been published and is available in Charlie Byrne's Bookstore, for one thing.
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