Theodoros Tsapakidis

Hello Mr. Tsapakidis, thank you for being here today.

Hello, and thank you too.

We’d like to ask you some questions, initially regarding your relationship with translation. How did it come into your life? Was it a dream, or did literary translation come about later on?

Literary translation was. I mean, it was deliberate. I started off by translating humanities. Sort of, that’s where the books are classified. The first book I translated was by Edgar Morin, a French philosopher and sociologist with origins in Thessaloniki. I had translated it in university and tried to get it published, but initially failed. At some point Morin came to present one of his books, and I went to the presentation. We talked, and he said, “You’ve translated this book?”. And he went to the publisher and said, “Publish the book this guy translated”. And that’s how one of my first translations was published. Down the line I translated a book by a French biologist, honorary president of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), called Prochiantz. He’s written a book called La biologie dans le boudoir, and that’s how we went from science to literature. In the 16th century there was a trend to popularize science. They’d write… Yes. They’d write such works… Novels. They’d write about scientific issues in the form of novels. Following that trend, Prochiantz wrote a novel in which he discusses modern biology. He actually modeled it on de Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom, where de Sade’s other characters teach little Eugénie about eroticism and sex. Prochiantz used this format and had them teach her biology. So I moved from translating science, to a book that despite being scientific, had the undertone of a fictional narrative. Then came the first test translations with Kastaniotis and Agra on literature, and I’ve translated literature ever since, sometimes still humanities, but less and less. That’s how it started.

What does “to translate” mean to you?

More or less the same thing it means to everyone else, really. I imagine the definition is in the dictionary. If you’re asking if there’s a particular way in which I perceive translation, yes. Just like writing, translation is a physical experience. It isn’t just a mental state. In any case I think it is a form of transwriting. There’s no absolute translation, and that’s why setting limits is very useful to translators. Like having specific deadlines to hand in a translation, because if they didn’t, they’d probably keep working on it till the end of time. And in fact, whenever we come across one of our old translations, we feel like changing a lot of things.

Right, we generally… We know that you’ve translated various kinds of texts in general. Which ones would you say you prefer to translate?

I think I’d enjoy… I’d once told Antaios Chresostomides that I’d like to translate theater, and he looked at me as if I’d asked him to buy me a limo. Although theater was something I very much wanted, there was no commercial interest. That happens only when there is a translation and it gets sold as a play. In theater, I mean. I’d also like to translate poetry, and I’ve got another anecdote. A publisher once asked me to translate… What was it? Artaud? Someone… No, it was Rimbaud, Rimbaud. I thought, “Rimbaud?”, I was flattered. I said, “What about the pay? Is it a flat rate, a lump sum, or what? Or is it per word?”. He told me it was per word. As in, you count words like you count in a… As I’m sure you can appreciate, translating a poem is very laborious work, and approaching it takes a lot of time. You can’t get the same fees you’d get for translating a cook book. So I said, and I suggest you do the same, a polite way to say no, is, “It’s beyond me, I looked it over, and it’s beyond me”. There’s another trick that I highly recommend. If you’ve already accepted a translation and you get offered another one, and the second one is really difficult. So on the one hand you want it, because you need the work, provided the fee you’re offered isn’t bad, but you don’t want to take it because you don’t have time to do both. One way to deal with it is to quote an exorbitant amount. If the publisher says no, no harm done. By exorbitant, I mean double what you’d normally ask for, not, like, a million. If the publisher refuses, you’ve created – because you support it, and the fact that they chose you means they think highly of you – their opinion of you remains intact and you avoid a book you didn’t really want. If, on the other hand, they say yes, you’ve doubled your cachet. It’s a good trick to know.

Do you choose the texts you translate yourself?

I wish. There’s a song that goes, “I wish, I wish”, and so on. Let me take off my glasses to get into it. I’m pretending to think about it, hang on. Yes. Often, students like yourself, people just starting out ask me how it’s done, and it’s actually good, in the beginning, to send out a sample translation. Something you did during your studies, or as a self-taught translator. You might have been born abroad and be bilingual, therefore you’re kind of a translator, though not necessarily a good one. You might be very bad at it. So, it’s good to send a sample, which shows you’ve done some research on what sells, or has the potential to sell. That’s one case, where you chose a project yourself, and it might even bear fruit, and you’ll get assigned to do it. You’ll get paid peanuts, but you’ll be working on your own choice. Now, later on, when you’ve worked with a publisher for a long while – which I don’t recommend, doing just that, but if you’ve made a deal for a number of books, anyway – you usually build trust and familiarity and can suggest books. It doesn’t mean the person in charge of foreign literature will agree, but you can try, nonetheless. It’s fortunate, but it hasn’t happened to me much. Actually, it has. By Oida, an actor in Brook’s company, published by Koan a few years ago, two of them were my suggestions. I’d read them in French and thought they made sense to translate. They’re taught in university. I mean, they aren’t… They are educational, one of them is an actors’ textbook, it isn’t a university coursebook, it wasn’t written as one, but I know it’s being used by professors in the Peloponnese and Thessaloniki universities.

What kind of problems do you usually face in this process, and how do you deal with them?

I usually run out of coffee. Translation problems. It’s too general of a question, could you narrow it down? It’s way too general. What do you even mean by “problem”?

I mean difficulties in the text, like how to render a word, or how to convey some cultural elements from one language to another, perhaps?

You said it. There’s always an issue. Some words are difficult to comprehend. Why that is, is a matter to examine. And societal differences, different cultures. There’s this issue. When the language towards which we’re translating – Greek, in this case, as it could be another language, I also do the reverse, à l’envers – when that language’s culture isn’t receptive to a social phenomenon, or a word, then it remains untranslated, and I’ll give you an example. Up until recently, “performance” was untranslated because there was no such thing in Greece, so what could you say? Academics chose the Greek word “epitelesi” which is used for linguistic performance. I don’t know if it’s apt or not. In the academic field… Let me tell you, since I graduated from the Athens Polytechnic, in thermodynamics, there were some mentions of a “hair dehydrator”. You can imagine what that is, right? The scientific term for a hair dryer. So if there was a scene in a detective novel where the guy’s drying his hair, I’d have to write, “Jim picked up the hair dehydrator…”. Yeah, there are more like that. “Hair dehydrators” have been around for quite some time now, but I guess academics probably live in a different dimension than ours, where “hair dehydrators” didn’t exist before. So the issue here is, do I use “epitelesi”, although it hasn’t been standardized? It’s at the discretion of the translator. You need to be a little prophetic. You can use the term, these days it’s being used and written a lot. If you’d used it five years ago, today’s readers would go, “Wow, well done”. That’s it. There are many more, but we don’t have time for that. You’ll do it in your lessons.

Definitely. How far is the translation process affected by whether you like what you’re translating? For you, that is.

I think it’s equivalent to making love, picture it yourselves. It can happen, but what state would you have to be in for it to happen? Yeah, it’s really important. I was thinking about it before. Thinking that a doctor needs to distance themselves in order to do their job well. If they experience the patient’s suffering every time – I’m talking about surgeons and those who deal with potentially fatal conditions. A text won’t drive us to… We might “murder” it, but generally what we do isn’t deadly. But I was thinking, if you don’t like what you’re translating, could you distance yourself like a doctor would? I don’t have an answer to that. I’d like to think about it, though.

Regarding translation as a profession, do you think financial rewards in general are adequate for someone whose living relies solely on translation?

There have been huge cuts in fees after 2008. We’re talking about a drop of around 50%. Emerging markets for translators, like subtitling for instance, which is growing, have unfortunately adjusted as if we were always in recession. I mean the pay is very poor. However, just like everywhere… Rather, many publishers divide translators into two categories: Cookie-cutter, and artist. Cookie-cutter translators will do second-rate books, and get second-rate pay. And then there are artist translators, who’ll get paid for being artists. What makes you an artist or a cookie-cutter, is the same thing that makes you a poet. If other poets say you are one, then you’re a poet.

What about translators’ status in Greece? Besides the financial aspect.

There’s been an effort, I think, and in general there’s… In school textbooks, in the world literature curriculum, there is reference to the translator in the latest books. In fact, in one of the grades, I think it was 10th grade, a poem was presented – I’m trying to remember… It was The Albatross, I believe – in two different translations. It was made into an exercise for students to identify the differences, etc. That indicates an interest in the translator and their function. I don’t think that happened in the past. There are departments which offer translation courses now, and you’re very lucky to be in one. I suppose. So we’re talking about a very different landscape now. Now if you tell your parents you want to be a translator, I don’t know how they’ll take it. You can add, “In Strasbourg, the headquarters of the Council of Europe, in the EU, they’re hiring translators and interpreters. The pay is very good and I’ll be living in Luxemburg”. That part might alarm them a little, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be impressed. But if it was “singer”, you still wouldn’t be able to say, “In Luxemburg, in the Council of Europe, they’re looking for singers”. It wouldn’t be very convincing, but try it if you’re into singing.

The relationship between translators and publishing houses, and, by extension, editors. How’s that dynamic?

Erotic, again. But this time it’s rough. Editors are necessary, in my opinion. They’re essentially translators, let’s keep that in mind. It isn’t distinct. They’re like old soccer players who become coaches. Of course there are coaches who didn’t start in the soccer field, who didn’t use to be soccer players. I guess there are editors in other countries who didn’t use to be translators. Here they usually are, and it does make a difference. In one publishing house, which I won’t name so as not to reveal the editor, I’d turned in some pages of the book, and for eight pages of text I got eight pages of corrections. I called the lady in charge of international editions, and said, “Pick a translator, it’s either me, or her” – the editor was a woman. And I asked them for a meeting to hash it out. We had the meeting, it doesn’t matter who won. The thing is, she wrote… In my opinion she wasn’t an editor. The things she disagreed on constituted a whole different translation. The style was totally different. Her own translation. I think there’s a gap, there. It’s like being assistant director of a play and wanting to… Telling the director, “That’s not how you should do it”. In a way, an editor is auxiliary. It’s different when you’re the one selecting a translator. In that case you’re entitled to say, “I don’t like it”. It’s not the same as sending a test translation to a publishing house and they say, “No, that doesn’t work for us, thank you for your time”, or, “Could you redo it and follow these guidelines?”, that’s different. The editor is supposed to make suggestions. And then there’s the complete opposite, an amazing editor, who always wrote… He never said “Yes”, “No”, or crossed things out. He’d write, “Could we phrase this a little more delicately?”. Like, the translation is fine, but could we find a more delicate phrase? His comments gave you guidance without being patronizing. Without saying, “Like this”. Because that just makes you go, “Not like that, my way”. Some publishing houses give the translator the last say, and others don’t even ask. They don’t even give you the edited… At least in the past, you didn’t get the edited version. They’d just change it and publish it. That’s it. As for the relationship with publishers… Yeah, I don’t want to say. Ask someone else about publishing houses.

You’ve covered quite a few of the questions we had. Just a couple of last questions. Are you optimistic about the future of translation…

I’m not sure about my own future, let alone translation’s.

And what advice would you give a student who wants to be a professional translator?

Advice. To have a family, kids, do something more. You can really get sucked in. I mean, especially with the existing working conditions, I think we owe it to ourselves – we only have one life – to enjoy everything there is. Just that the author you’re translating might be very important, but so are you. Or you should be. This one life we have is worth living. That’s my advice to young translators. Thank you very much.