Kleopatra Elaiotriviari

First of all, we’d like to thank you very much for being here.

It’s my pleasure.

We’ll start with a warm-up question. Was it your lifelong dream to get involved in translation?

Okay, I wouldn’t call it a “lifelong dream”, but it was a fortunate occurrence, I think. I think I owe it to my mom. Coincidentally, my mom was a graduate of the Department of French Language and Literature and always believed that foreign languages are a very good qualification, no matter what path a child takes in life, so she made sure that my sister and I learned foreign languages from an early age. Along the way – again coincidentally, these fortunate occurrences – she had a colleague – she worked in a bank – who was tutoring candidates for the Ionian University exams, which were independent of the Panhellenic university entrance exams at the time. They took place in September, after the results of the Panhellenic exams had been announced. The candidates were tested in two languages, choosing from English, French or German, being examined in translation, both into Greek and into the chosen foreign languages, in spelling and also in summary and composition. So I was lucky enough to find out about Ionian University through this colleague of my mother who was tutoring candidates for this Department. My English and French were at a good level, so I started preparing for the Ionian University quite early. I mean during the second to last class of senior high school, not earlier. But it became a goal from that moment on. Since I was not very studious and learning by heart for the Panhellenic exams didn’t interest me that much, it became my goal from the beginning – or quite early anyway – to try, to do whatever I can to prepare myself for the Ionian University entrance exams. And I succeeded. A cute thing in retrospect is that I had translated a text in senior high school, I think it was for the sociology course or… I can’t remember, something like that. A teacher proposed an assignment about the Rosetta Stone and gave us an article in English. I don’t remember how and why, but I was the one who translated it. And that must have been my first translation – it wasn’t published, of course – but that was my first translation work, so to speak, before I even knew about the Ionian University and before I started my exam preparation. So I cannot say “lifelong dream”, it seems to me quite a pompous expression, but it was a goal from an early age, since I had a solid basis in foreign languages and I liked them. Yes, it was my goal, that’s what I wanted to do after school.

What image of translation did you have during your translation studies at the Ionian University and to what extent has it changed now that you are a professional translator?

Okay, I don’t think any student… – or at least at that time, maybe things are a little different now – but at that time you didn’t have a very clear idea of what exactly the translation market and the translation profession means. I didn’t have a clear picture of what one does after their translation studies. I think that… I liked literature and I imagined literary translation would be an interesting field of action, but at the same time I heard, even as a student, that the publishing field is an exclusive network, for which you need to have connections to enter, that it is an inconceivable thing, in which you actually have no hope of succeeding and I was in awe of translators of literature. I still am. Well, I had no clear image of the translation field. My first job in a translation agency was quite an experience. I was very proud as a graduate translator and asked for a job. I translated a text as a try-out, they liked it and I started working initially on a trial basis, no immediate recruitment was made. They assigned me my first translation, which I think was a manual for a bread maker with all the recipes on how to knead different types of bread and so on. I translated it and then I handed it over to a colleague in the office to edit it. When it was returned to me, in paper back then, it was full of red marks. Corrections, corrections, corrections. It was a hard landing to reality. You have the feeling that you’ve studied, you’ve spent your youth studying and learning, you’ve passed the exams, you’ve obtained the coveted degree, great, and then you start working and: why did I do all this since the translation I delivered is a mess, what did I do wrong and why? But it was the best school. After university, the best school is to work with others, either in-house or not, it doesn’t matter, but it’s important to have someone more experienced to show you what you are doing wrong. I consider this invaluable. It’s great exercise and a great lesson for a young translator.

So you consider editing necessary.

Yes. Yes, definitely. You always need a second pair of eyes.

 Do you have direct cooperation with your editor?

I do cooperate with them. What usually happens is that I hand over the book translation to the publisher, the editor does the editing, and we talk at some point about things that need discussing when they have identified that something is not going well and we solve it together. For some other things we don’t go into much detail. I’ve started to think, though, that this may not be a good idea. The other day, while preparing the presentation we were to make with three other colleagues and while looking at a translated book I had delivered a few weeks before, I realized that the editor had made a change that she didn’t consider important to discuss, but with which I disagree. I hadn’t seen all of her corrections, we had discussed the points which she thought needed to be discussed. And I was confident that, ok, those need to be changed and the rest of them will be typographical or perhaps grammatical corrections. I’ve recently heard colleagues talk about it saying that they’re monitoring all the stages, all the corrections from start to finish and I’m beginning to think that this might be good practice. To have a complete picture of it, that is. Not that you’ll definitely disagree. After all, the legitimate, desirable thing is to agree and to let things proceed quickly. But, for example, I saw something I somewhat disagreed with and I wish we had discussed it before the book was published.

You’ve worked, if my calculations are right, with seven publishing houses.

Are they that many? I think fewer. No, you’re right, because it… Yes. There are also the books that have resulted from a collective process, they are not my own personal work. Maybe, yes, fine, I accept it.

With quite a few, anyway.

Fine, yes.

How was the collaboration with your editors? Could you give us an example of a very good collaboration?

An example of a very good collaboration… In general, I think I have no complaints; I’ve had good cooperation with the editors. I remember discussing the corrections of Gutierrez’ Dirty Havana Trilogy with the editor at two in the morning, because we had little time to sort out some issues. We talked on the phone for an hour or so, trying to answer each other’s questions and see if something means this or that, and how we can render it, maybe this way, maybe another way… I have no complaints. I have no complaints, I’ve generally cooperated well with my editors.

You started with translations of technical texts. And then, how did literary translation come about?

Literary translations came about… I can’t say by mistake. That’s what happened: I had studied translation at university with English and French as my working languages. At the same time, I had started learning Spanish. So when I graduated in Corfu and returned to Athens, I wanted to continue doing something in Spanish. So I enrolled in a Spanish translation course at the Cervantes Institute, but I wasn’t satisfied, because it was not aimed at translators and there was a gap, since I had a translator’s background and everyone else… There was also a heterogeneity in the level of knowledge of Spanish so it didn’t work out very well. And then, while searching and chatting with various acquaintances and friends, I discovered that there is a private language school that offers Spanish, called Abanico, in which Nikos Pratsinis was teaching. He is a translator and interpreter of Spanish and Portuguese. And this meeting with Nikos Pratsinis played a decisive role in the course of my career, if I may say so, because in that class we started translating together as a team, with Nikos Pratsinis as our teacher. We bonded very nicely and after we completed the course provided by Abanico school, we, as a group, asked the teacher to continue with the lessons. And he told us, “Very well, but now let’s not translate abstracts of different kinds of text. Let’s translate one thing from start to finish, a book for example”. We were excited, of course. Nikos chose the text, we discussed it and we all started working on it together. It took us three years. Each of us worked on their part and then we all did the editing together. Three years in which some members of the group got married, had children, we had gatherings to edit the text and at the same time a colleague was breastfeeding, we had amazing moments. This work was published and awarded. It was Ferlosio’s Alfanhui. It was published and awarded by EKEMEL [European Center for the Translation of Literature and the Human Science] and the Cervantes Institute. They granted the literary translation awards together. During this process, Nikos told us that he had found out that Metaixmio Publications are looking for translators of Spanish literature. He gave us a phone number, saying that we could ask for further information. I called them, I made an appointment, they gave me a text to translate as a try-out, I translated it, I gave it to them, I waited and waited and waited, I was thinking they should let me know. If it wasn’t good, I should at least know. At some point they replied that they liked it. And so, I was assigned my first book, I signed my first translation contract and from then on one thing led to another. It was, so to speak, a smooth process. Well, I had a continuous contact with the Spanish language and translation and also a real zest. I was quite meticulous, and the publisher was obviously satisfied with my work, and one thing led to another.

How satisfied are you with your financial rewards from literary and technical translation?

Not very. Not very. The situation is very difficult and over the past few years, apart from the fee itself, the taxes, the economic situation of the country and all the costs that burden a freelancer have been so many, that the situation unfortunately becomes suffocating. Especially regarding literary translation, it’s indicative that I don’t know any colleagues in Greece who translate literature exclusively and can only make a living just from that. So, under no circumstances can I say I’m satisfied.

Let’s talk about something else. Is there a translator you admire, that you hold up as a role model?

Many. Many. Many. We all got to know Mr. Daniel Hahn the other day, for example, who, in addition to his work – which I can’t say I’ve seen, I haven’t read his translations – but along with his pure translation work he makes this whole campaign for translation and translators. I find it very important and interesting and useful to have such people. Another colleague who does something similar and through whom we found out about Daniel Hahn, is Chris Durban. She’s an American who lives in Paris and translates from English into French, no, sorry, she’s American and translates from French into English. She’s, too, a “guru” of translation and of promoting translation work. This, of course, is something besides the pure part of translator and translation work. There are translators that are legends, I’ve only translated 10-20 books, I can’t be compared to… There are exceptional translators with a very broad range of knowledge and with exceptional translation work who, of course, I admire.

How do you feel when you translate, when you start translating a book, a literary piece of work?

I will tell you this: I’ve felt very tired lately, because for many years now I’ve been translating technical texts parallel to literature. There was a moment when I reached an extreme point of tiredness. And I started to think that I can no longer do both, I have to make a choice: either technical texts or literature. I was inclined to “betray” literature in order to make a living. But… There was a book, which I had been delaying working on, I had been in denial about. When I finally rolled up my sleeves and started translating, I fell in love with my work again, and I said, “No way, I have to find another solution”. It’s so exciting to read and rewrite a literary piece of work in another language, which will be read by others, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to if you weren’t here to do this work. I love my job very much. And I came to the conclusion that I had to strike a different balance, perhaps to reduce technical translations in order to translate books in parallel. Anyway I personally don’t have a continuous flow of literary translation work. Ιt’s up to the publisher if he decides to publish a book and to assign me its translation, so I translate one book a year or two or three at most, but rarely more. I’m talking about me. So… I feel very good when I translate. Despite the fatigue and the sleepless working nights, it’s an exciting job. 

Do you choose the authors and the literary pieces of work?

I don’t choose them. It depends, of course. You will see it, I imagine, while talking to colleagues. This doesn’t go for everyone. But when I started, as I told you, they called me, because they had already decided that Metaixmio would publish a book of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, that was my first one. So they had already decided on the basis of their own criteria that this book would be published in Greek. They suggested it to me, I read it and accepted the assignment, I could have rejected it, you know. But I rarely get to choose the books myself. However, since I had translated one or two books by Gutierrez, for example, and I liked the author, I bought and read some more books of his for personal pleasure and I suggested a book to Metaixmio, besides the ones they had already published. It was a book by Gutierrez, which I found interesting. Metaixmio considered the request and agreed, so we proceeded with its publication. So I also happened to suggest something, by a writer, of course, who for them was tried and tested and they knew that he had an audience and therefore the book would have a certain impact. Publishing houses carry out an evaluation based on various criteria and I’ve had to do that, too. The last book by Gutierrez, which is now published, was sent to me to read by Metaixmio, and I filled out an evaluation form. There are usually the so-called professional readers, who do this job and the publisher may have two, or even three readers and compares the information and evaluation of each of them, along with various other things, to decide if they are commercially interested in having a book translated.

How important do you consider the relationship with the author you are translating?

Well, it’s very important, I think. And it’s great luck when the writer is alive and available when you really face a problem. They are the only ones who can help and solve some questions in certain cases, so I consider the relationship with the author very important.

Has it ever happened to you to want to get in touch with a contemporary writer and they have refused to meet you?

No, it hasn’t happened.

Would you be very disappointed? Would you translate the literary piece of work nonetheless?

Yes. That wouldn’t be a reason not to translate something. Ab initio, I mean. I imagine that… 

Hypothetically, in an extreme case. 

No, I don’t think so. But writers are usually happy with this contact. They’re happy, because the translator is a first good reader who reads their work in depth, so the points that are difficult to translate and will require the help and cooperation of the author, are something essential and show exactly that you have sat down and studied their work and you’ve discovered a tiny thing that is of particular interest or is a bit complex and so on. So I think they appreciate that you are doing a good job on your part and you talk to them and want their opinion to find the best solution in order to deal with what is troubling you.

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

I wouldn’t be here, I think, if I weren’t optimistic. As I said now that we’ve just completed the Translation Slam which took place here, if I wasn’t optimistic, I wouldn’t be here as one of the coordinators of the 1st Translation Festival at the 13th Thessaloniki International Book Fair. I think, if we all work together, we can achieve things and help and contribute to improving the conditions of translators’ profession and translation in the future.