Alexandra Rassidakis

We’d like to thank you for being here with us.

Thank you for inviting me, I’m honored.

Let’s start with a question about translation. Was it a lifetime goal or dream, or did translation just come about along the way?

Yes, I loved translating literature from a very young age. I grew up as a bilingual, so I used to read both the original and the translated text. And, most of the times, I must say, I was annoyed. As a pupil in particular, I would say to a friend, “Oh, I really like this poem!”. And I would find its Greek translation to give it to him. And I’d discover that it had nothing to do with what I had in my mind. And the opposite. As a 17- to 18-year-old avid reader, you get easily upset, but when you try to translate yourself, you realize that one might have to be more lenient in their judgments. So, yes, I did start early. I started translating, as a practice in writing, and because, back then, I wanted to give the poem that I had in mind to my friend, and not anything else.

And what was your idea of translation before getting professionally involved, and how did that change later on?

I think the main difference is that when I started translating myself, long before anything professional, I realized that something which may seem too simple can be extremely complex in rendering and that’s a kind of knowledge that, if you don’t sit down, if you don’t take the pencil in your hand, you cannot obtain. You criticize and judge very easily e.g. the published translations. So this was a change. I think my relationship with the process hasn’t changed substantially. Translating is always a way for me to experience a text more intensely.

Tell us, do you admire a certain translator?

Yes, of course, there are translators that I find very impressive. Maria Angelidou for example, who translates from German. Everything she gets involved in, whether it is classic or contemporary literature or children’s literature, she always manages to capture the right tone, that is, she creates an impeccable Greek text. Besides her, there are, of course, many other very good translators.

When you translate a literary piece of work, how do you feel, how do you approach it?

Explain a little what you mean.

Do you feel some kind of anxiety or excitement? Is it something pleasant, is it something quite stressful?

Here, my position is a bit strange, because I am not a professional translator, that is, I do not earn a living from it, so I have the absolute luxury to choose what I want to do. So, first, there must be a text which fascinates me, that’s the ultimate term. Then I do some rough drafts and see if I can, if I am able to deliver. If I think I can, I decide to go for it. I choose it and make a proposal to a publishing house. So, I would say that the absolute awe towards the text and the enthusiasm deriving from the text is the first thing that essentially determines this whole process, but that of course, I tell you, is the ultimate luxury.

So a relative question is, what does translation offer you, what do you gain from it?

Well… It is a cannibalistic way of approaching the text, that is, I actually force a text, from which I, as a reader, always keep a distance, to get inside me and pass through me, so that the Greek text comes out. So, in a way, I make it mine. I literally eat it, I chew it and I spit it out again. It’s a very intense way of experiencing this text and that’s what I enjoy so much. If I like a text very much, I will try to translate it even if there is no arrangement to get it published. I’ll do it because it is such an intense way of reading.

You said before that when you started, you did it because you also wanted your friends to have access to various texts. Do you still have the same motive today?

Yes, this is the second step. When I see texts that may have been translated, but I find that the translation does not cover or may not have included an aspect which an alternative translation could emphasize, then I believe that this is something worth offering to the public. And, conversely, if it is an author or some texts that are unknown, which happens from German to Greek, but also more often from Greek to German, then I find that something has to be done so that these people become known. So for these texts, this is my motive.

You are a professor, you write articles, you translate. What else do you do?

Are all these not enough?

Do you also write literary texts?

No, no, I do not write literature.

Your academic profession is, of course, as we know, your main occupation. Translation, as you said, is a luxury, you don’t earn a living from it, right?

Yes, my livelihood doesn’t depend on it, that’s exactly why I get to choose what I want to be involved in and also, I do translate on a regular basis, that is, I always translate something, but I don’t have a very large production, to put it this way. My main job, as I see it, is literary criticism, in the field of grammatology, so most of the energy, so to speak, goes into writing scientific texts.

However, in terms of translation and earnings, are they considered satisfactory?

No, of course not. I don’t know how people manage to earn a living from it. It is an unsolved mystery to me. I don’t think one can make a living from it.

Regarding translation, what are the difficulties when translating?

The difficulties depend entirely on the text. Each text, and I wouldn’t even say each author, each text has its own absolute particularities. One can generally talk about the difficulties of the German language or the difficulties of the Greek language, but, okay, apart from some very general things, in the end, the differences from text to text are really huge.

Can you recall an example, a cultural element or something else that was difficult for you to translate and you still remember or find it very interesting?

What I really like about contemporary German literature are texts that comment on the way they use the language, self-referential texts. For example, there is a writer called Tawada, who writes in both Japanese and German, and when she writes in German, I don’t know about her Japanese writings, but when she writes in German, she always makes associations between the German and the Japanese language. This is an incredible challenge for the translator, as you can understand. I think this level of self-referentiality, which can be expressed in puns, is perhaps the most difficult, often insurmountable obstacle, and what interests me most. The cultural differences between Germany and Greece are not so big, that I have to explain nowadays, what Mrs. Wiedenmayer was saying: why the villager in Spain eats olives, when olives are delicatessen in Germany. I think these things are quite… These two cultures have come close enough, so there are no such problems between them, at least in contemporary texts.

Which literary genre interests you the most, which one do you enjoy translating most?

I enjoy poetry very much, for the challenge in this genre is greater, since the degree of discourse concentration is higher. It is a great challenge to put across the multiplicity of meanings without being consumed in explanations while translating. And, of course, rhythm and musicality play a more significant role than perhaps in prose. Other than that, I enjoy the kind of prose that also has a very concentrated discourse and works almost like poetry. That interests me the most.

What is your relationship with the authors you translate?

Fortunately, most of them are dead, but even if they’re still alive… e.g. I have translated poems by Vagenas into German and the first thing I told him when I undertook this job and we met, was, “I am a fan of Barthes, I consider the author dead, the fact that you are alive does not affect me”. Fortunately, the man knew Barthes, he is a theorist, so he didn’t get me wrong. But my conversation is with the text, not with any writer.

How do you think translation quality can be improved?

Do you mean in my translation process?

No, in general. Both in yours and in general.

It is a very general question. In the translation process, as far as technique is concerned, the more one translates, the better. The process becomes more conscious. This doesn’t mean that the fifteenth version will be better than the first. Sometimes, your first spontaneous solution has something. But the more you think about it, the more conscious you become, your choices become conscious, and if a text allows you many choices, then the fact that you choose, is good to be conscious. Now, in general, in order to improve translation, one should get better paid, so that translators have more time at their disposal to study and read not only the text itself, but also a little bit around this text, so that they can integrate it somewhere, so that they can approach it better. That, when it comes to texts that are very demanding. If it’s, let’s say, a simpler novel, then of course it doesn’t matter that much.

So, we’ve talked about time and the necessity to have a broader view on the piece of work one translates. Is editing also necessary?

Look, every translator has some safeguards, I guess. Before I hand in a translation or before a translation leaves me, it has been read by various people. In the first stage of the comparison, it really interests me to get someone… I bribe my kids with a lot of ice cream so that they read the German text to me, and I can see if anything has been left out. So this is the first stage. But beyond that, I may discuss specific problems with people, who speak both languages and tell them, “There is this phrase, I have rendered it in this way, tell me what you think”. But I will not give the translation to someone to compare it with the original text, because, I don’t know, I think that goes too far and an endless discussion begins, especially if we are talking about long texts or complex texts. So, editing is definitely necessary, and I give the text to readers, who will read the Greek or German text respectively and will see if it is valid as a text in this language. If they know the original, then they may be influenced and will not see the logical gaps I have left. So I want someone who ideally does not even speak German, so as to pick up on the Germanisms that I may have put in the text.

Concerning the title, are you the one who usually chooses it?

The title that will appear on the cover is a matter of the publishing house, as well as the cover, as well as the whole marketing. Fortunately, it has never happened to me to see them change the title of something I’ve translated. But I know about other cases –’cause I’ve seen really odd things happening– and I say, “Well, how is this possible?” and I know that this has not been the translator’s choice. This is also a big problem, because no one believes it, since the title is a very basic part of the text, of course, and you as a translator have taken the responsibility of translating it into another language, so no one will believe that the title was decided by someone else who may not even have read the book. The same goes for the book cover.

As for the criticism, how do you deal with it?

Translation criticism?

Yes.

I think it is a very important field and it should be developed more systematically in Greece. A specific mention of translation quality is very rare. And such mentions should really be made more often, maybe to offer a bit more vigilance about what is being released. I, personally, would be very happy if there was a substantial translation criticism, all I have received is general comments.

This is what I wanted to ask you about, the reviews of your work.

Yes. All the book reviews that have been written, both about Aichinger and Kafka, but also about Rilke, talk about how great Kafka is, how great Rilke is, how nice Aichinger is, they use a lot of elements from the addenda I have written, especially in the case of Aichinger, and there is a phrase at the end, “The befitting translation…”, or something like that, but book reviews do not focus on translation. This makes sense in a way, because they want to present the book itself and not its translation, but it would be nice if there were… let’s say not as book reviews of the book, but a real translation criticism. I think I see fit to cultivate this more, if possible as a separate specific field.

And a closing interview question. Are you optimistic about the future of translation in Greece?

Look, if one considers that there are older book versions, which don’t even mention the translator’s name, I think we have made a lot of progress. And initiatives like this one, so that translation becomes a focal point of the Thessaloniki International Book Fair, also help a lot, I think. So yes, I’m optimistic, we’re doing well.

Thank you very much!

And I thank you. Take care!