Hello Mr. Moscovou, thank you in advance for the interview. Shall we begin with the questions?

My pleasure, thank you too.

Was it a lifelong dream to get into translation?

Not at all. It happened by chance. My dream was to work with language. And working with language – Greek primarily, since I was studying Classical Philology – combined with the fact that I lived in Germany and perused literature, which is another of my interests, led to the concourse that is translation.

That gives way to the question, what is your relationship to the languages you translate?

I only translate from one language, German, to my native one, Greek, which I believe is a prerequisite to professional, proper translation. Did you mean what my relationship to German is? It’s spoken in my country of residence of the last 30 years, but I had previous contact with the language having attended a Greek-German school once, in the ’60s, actually, in Greece. There’s a weird story on that, it’s personal, I can recount it, on why I started learning German. Ironically, during WWII my father had been arrested by the Germans, as a member of the Greek National Liberation Front (EAM), and had spent a couple of years in a concentration camp in Austria. After his release he spent two or three years in Vienna, before returning to Greece. Strangely, I wanted to learn the language of his captors, because he appreciated Germans and believed that regardless of what happened then, the country still had a future worth being able to follow through their own language. So I started learning German. I later studied Classical Philology and as you know, very often, graduates who want to pursue an academic career – which, incidentally, I didn’t – complete MA studies in Germany. So I went to Germany. So now you know my deeper relationship to the German language.

Great. What was your viewpoint of translation before getting professionally involved in it, and after you started translating?

I don’t know if I can truly define myself as a professional translator. To the degree that I’m a journalist, employed by Deutsche Welle, and in my free time I’ve been – for more than 10 years, actually more like 15 – involved in translation. It’s a matter of definition. I’d say that although I am a translator, I’m not necessarily a professional, in the sense that I internally relate to the texts, and when that reaches a point of maturity I have an urge to translate those texts. Other than that, there are other factors. Without a publisher you can’t realize that dream. I have an attachment to specific texts.

What do you get out of translation? What do you enjoy about it?

An incredible balance of consciousness. Even when I’m annoyed by everyday life and later, towards the evening, I reopen the text to translate a page or two  – you can’t do more in one day, at least in my view – within the first ten minutes I feel an internal serenity. I think that’s my field of action, that transition from one language to another. I’d like to quote Peter Handke, the Austrian author, who also translates from different languages: “What is translation? A meticulous reading, that’s what.” I thoroughly enjoy meticulously translating, pardon, meticulously reading. It’s a careful reading, which from a certain point on becomes a rendition into a different language, your own, your native one.

Which genre of literature intrigues you the most?

Pardon me, what?

Which literary genre…

Which what?

Genre…

Oh, which literary genre.

…piques your interest.

Prose and poetry that are heavy-going. What I mean is, I’ve translated a lot of Peter Handke, an author that hasn’t published a best seller in decades. His is a poetic prose. It might seem a bit dull at first, but once you get into its rhythm and style you start to love it. That’s my kind of literature. It’s the same with poetry. I’ve translated poets with an astonishing style of writing, like Hans Arp, or the Austrian Carl Artmann. Authors and poets who are very hard to translate, but they always intrigued me. I want something exceptional.

Why is translation important to you? What is your motivation every time you translate?

I feel like I’m entering a noble sphere, outside the ordinary and mundane. I enter a noble sphere as if I’m rewarding myself with sublime conscious pleasure.

Are you also a writer? Do you do anything other than translation?

I think many translators, because they are deeply involved in literature and also traverse various languages, very often fall into the delusion that they could be authors themselves. I don’t want to espouse that delusion, and I think the fact that I’ve written a few stories or poems, is immaterial. I think I’m a translator. Otherwise, I would already have had success as a writer, at this age.

On that part, the professional one: Are you a member of any professional translators’ associations?

No, I think it’s clear from the description of my case that I am not.

Are you satisfied with the rewards from translation, especially financially?

Since I’m not dependent on my earnings from translation, being permanently employed in another field, financial rewards are neither a crucial, nor a determining factor for me. I’m interested in the author, whether I want to translate them, whether I’ve got a good publisher, and the finances are obviously secondary. Consequently, I can’t answer as a professional. Nonetheless, for the books I’ve translated for Greek publishing houses, the pay was not insignificant, but certainly not enough to live on.

What is your relationship with the authors you translate?

You’re sometimes fortunate enough to meet the authors. For instance, I’ve translated a German poet called Joachim Sartorius. He’s written a lot of poems inspired by Cavafy and Alexandria, and a lot of others that unfold in the Greek homelands of the East, and when I first translated Sartorius’ first poems for Poiese journal, there were some points that I was uncertain about, so I met up with him when he was in Munich – he held in a position of authority there at the headquarters of the Goethe-Institut – and we’ve kept in touch ever since, meeting up often for reasons irrelevant to translation. I think meeting the author whom you’re translating is useful, but not essential to your work. In the sense that the text that gets published is out of its writer’s hands. It has its own radiance which you have to convey regardless of the advice its author would’ve given you. It’s the same with Peter Handke, whom I’ve translated and will begin to again. I met him in the beginning of the 2000s, 2001 in Paris where he lives, for an interview that was about the bombings in former Yugoslavia. He’s a fascinating character. I’m glad I know him. I’ve met him many times since, we’ve even traveled together, but I’d still say that though it’s pleasant and enticing, it isn’t a necessity in translating the text. That’s my personal experience on the matter of meeting the authors. No doubt translators are flattered when they’re translating a famous author and they get to meet them personally.

Have you encountered a cultural element that you found especially hard to render?

No, because I operate within the sphere of European culture, we’re talking about Germany. I don’t know, if I was to translate Peruvian literature, maybe. Or if it was Tunisian, perhaps. But I’d say the answer is no.

Have you got any examples, like a word, or something?

Okay, you’re talking specifically…

A word, phrase, or something that stands out.

Well, I asked you to give me the questions yesterday, so I could prepare. Right now I can’t think of anything.

That’s okay.

I don’t doubt there have been, but they’ve been archived in memory and they’re hard to access right now.

As for the quality of translations, how do you think it can be improved?

I can’t say generally. I can only speak of the example of a single translator. A good translation is when you love a text. At first – this is true for every translation I’ve done – in the first pages, let’s talk about prose, firstly, because translating poetry is much more particular. The first part, the initial 10, 20, 30 pages move along slowly. You aren’t yet assimilated internally, but you gradually master the rhythm, so to speak, the inherent rhythm, the style of the text, and it starts going faster. That’s a sign of a good translation. It means you’ve grasped the essence of the literary style you need to transfer to a different language. When you feel that certainty that you’ve got a steady pace, I think the translation will be good. Now, if you mean what external factors would help translators do better, I’m not the right person to ask.

And a more general question. What difficulties do you think a translator encounters when faced with a text?

The translator needs to know a lot about the historical and cultural background of a work. They need to be able to get the nuances, because literature is like a speaker. You hear things in the background. And you need to know those things, recognize them, to be able to convey them into the other language. So you must have wider contact with the intellectual and cultural field from which each book derives.

How do you deal with criticism of your work?

You mean my translations? Why, I’ve only received praise. Honestly, a few years ago I translated a book by Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian author. He’d left behind a little book called My prizes. It was talks and texts about the various awards he’d received. So, I translated it and when I saw the reviews, they’d found the book extremely interesting but a couple of them pointed out – I was insulted, but they were right – I’d made a mistake. I’d said, talking about publishing houses – the text did, and I’d rendered it that way – I’d said the “lector” of the publishing house. In Greek it is not correct in this context, in German it’s “Lektor”, but in Greek it’s the editor. I was talking about text editing. Of course, there are also editors for translations, before publishing. So, am I to take responsibility myself, or blame it on the editor? Let’s leave it open.

Let’s talk about editing, then. What’s your opinion on it, and how important do you think it is?

I consider it essential. Not editing translations is a crucial mistake. At least in Germany, that I know well, the literary works themselves are edited, which means that quite frequently the Lektor, the publisher’s editor, edits the literary text and oftentimes applies changes or redactions. A large number of authors accept that, so that the text can be truly publishable. Let alone translations. I think there must be editing, and strict, at that. I had a very good experience with a book that was just published, by Enzensberger, that I translated. I had a very strict and very good editor and proofreader. I am grateful to her for everything she discovered.

Great. Let’s talk about a legal issue, now. What’s your opinion on copyright law? Do you think it’s adhered to both in Greece and in Germany?

I can’t answer that. I haven’t looked into it at all. I’ve always thought that… This is going to make me sound like I belong in the pre-industrial era, but anyway. My relationship with language and literature was always internal and personal. I’ve never bothered with the legal aspects of intellectual creations. I’m sorry about that.

As for the future of translation, are you optimistic? Either in Greece, or anywhere else.

Without a doubt. I don’t see translation being threatened by any other development. It’s the same in Germany, a country with a language that doesn’t produce high-quality literature these days. Translation is a given, especially from the Anglo-Saxon world. That’s also true about Greece, for different reasons. German is a big language in the sense that it’s spoken by 80 million Germans. Nevertheless, a big part of literary production consists of translations from other languages. Greek is a small language, in the sense that it’s spoken by much fewer millions, and that’s why our world has to communicate with the Anglo-Saxon, Latin American, or French world. So, I don’t see… Translation is something that belongs in the distribution of literature.

Great. And a last question regarding your own work. Are you the one who selects the title, and what influences you in making that selection?

The translator usually makes a suggestion. As far as I recall those suggestions have been accepted. In one case it wasn’t and we found something similar, but I was fine with it. There haven’t been any changes that were over the top, especially when talking about a well known writer whom you translate. No publishing house would dare change the title completely. Now, if it’s a detective story, sometimes a change of title is mandatory. But in the kind of literature I translate, it isn’t customary.

I think we’re done. Thank you for the interview. It was very interesting.

Thank you, too.

Paleologos Konstantinos (Done)

Was it your lifelong dream to become a translator?

Νο… not in the sense that I wanted it from a young age, as some people say. It just became a need at some point. And that happened in Granada. I’m calling it “a need” now, at the time I just started translating as an excuse, i.e. I’d like some things that I’ve read to be read by my friends. E.g. some short stories. Now, however, I say in retrospect that I stayed in Granada for so many years and I rarely came to Greece, so it was probably a need to get back in touch with my mother tongue, Greek. But this may be a very sophisticated answer and may have nothing to do with reality.

What image of translation did you have before you started translating? Did it change after you became a professional translator?

What image of translation did I have? Well… I’d say that I had the image an average reader has, as I imagine it is, that is, not remembering any names of translators, thinking that books were translated in a somewhat miraculous way – okay, not so exaggerated. However, the truth is that translation as a process as a transfer of a text e.g. from German or Italian into Greek hadn’t concerned me that much.

And when you became a professional, did this image change?

Yes, of course. It changed a lot, because you start seeing the whole process, you move among translators, you constantly discuss these issues, so, okay, it’s different.

Is there a translator that you admire, that you hold up as a role model?

No. But there are a lot of translators whose work I like. Besides translators of Spanish, e.g. Kalokyris or Kyriakidis or Pratsinis, I’d say Giorgos Blanas, who translates from English. There are writers, pardon, – well, they are writers, too – there are translators that I like to read.

How do you feel when you translate a literary piece of work?

I’m a translator who has the luxury of usually choosing the books. So about 80% of the books I’ve translated are my own choices. They are books that I liked, so I get into a process that I have chosen. Okay, these situations don’t always end calmly. Many times, you can get bored of a book or a writer, or find out along the way that you didn’t like it very much, because it is one thing to read as a translator and another to read as a reader when you sometimes go through some pages faster.

What do you feel that translation offers you?

Balance. Balance. I enjoy it very much. This relationship I have with Spain and the Spanish language is a lifelong relationship. I mean that… I now consider Spain my second home. So translation is what unites these two cultures. I used to say, “I’d like some of my friends to read something so we can share it”. Well, this has now become much more general. That is, I’d like some Greeks to read something. Or when I translate vice versa I’d like some Spaniards to read something I like in Greek.

Apart from being a translator, are you also a writer?

I am an essayist. And I’ve also written some literary things that have been published… I’ve written most of them in Spanish, the literary ones, they have been published in various journals, but, okay, these are… sins… which are… I don’t know… No, I wouldn’t say that I’m a writer of literature. 

Something else now.

Are you a member of a translators’ association?

No. But don’t tell anyone, because…

We’ll keep it between us. Apart from translation, however, do you do anything else?

Yes, this is the second luxury. I wanted to say before that it’s a luxury to translate things that you like. And why do you have this luxury? Because of another luxury, you can live on something else. I earn my living from university teaching, so I can say no to a book I don’t like.

Are you, however, satisfied with the financial rewards of translation?

No, but the truth is that, due to my character, I take on a lot of things, even for free, which may be wrong sometimes, because it’s bad for business, but it’s important for me that some things be translated, so I don’t pay much attention to the financial rewards. E.g. I’ve signed an agreement with a publishing house to be paid not by the publishing house but by the country… – in that case I was translating from Catalan – so if the Catalans paid, I’d get paid, otherwise I wouldn’t. Well, that’s not very professional. That’s why I say that you do such things when you have a few parachutes and a few safeguards to fall back on. If you make a living from translation – and lately more and more people have been doing it and I like it – you’ll inevitably act differently.

What special needs do you think a translator has? What do they spend their income on? 

I haven’t thought about that. They are given books for free, so they don’t have to buy books, I imagine. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. You got me on that one. On second thoughts, I’d say that most translators I know travel a lot. So they probably get something, I don’t know. Okay, they also travel to various centers and translation houses, so they have this option as well.

Are you optimistic about the future of translation in Greece?

I’m neither optimistic nor pessimistic. First of all, it’s something that’s not going to end. Despite the economic crisis, literary translation hasn’t decreased that much in amount. But the involved languages have changed. E.g. Greek translations from Spanish have decreased a lot. On the other hand, translations from Norwegian, from Swedish that we talked about before, or from Danish, have increased. But the number of literary books that are translated every year in Greece hasn’t been dramatically reduced on account of the economic crisis. Since I follow the market, I sometimes wonder why some books have come out. In order for this to happen, there should be either a readership that supports them – doubtful – or grants, which support them. So, it’s not a matter of optimism or pessimism, the market will keep developing in this area. In some cases, things will be fine, in others, they will be worse.

Ok. What is your relationship with the source language?

 With Spanish and Catalan. Mainly with Spanish, because Catalan is more recent. It’s what I said before. It was a love, it was a choice to live there, it is a country that I like, it is my second home and I read a lot of its literature, not only its own, but also what’s written in Spanish and comes from Latin America. So it’s a very strong relationship and I’ve invested a lot in studying and writing about Spanish and Latin American literature. In other words, this is my main profession. 

Let’s talk about literary translation. You mentioned before that, in most cases, you had the opportunity to choose what to translate. So, what’s your relationship with the authors you translate?

I’ve met most of the authors I translate at some point. Some, most of them, before the translation process started, some others later on, when their books were given to me by publishing houses. They are all very happy to have their work translated into Greek for a reason that has nothing to do with the financial aspect of the agreement, because Greek isn’t a language that will offer them much profit. But most of them are well educated, they have studied ancient Greek at some point and it flatters them to have their work translated into Greek. And the vast majority is very helpful. They help you with answers to questions you ask them, with clarifications, even with changes in their books. So you collaborate with them. Only once did I have a problem. There was one case with a writer, who refused to show up. Considering that I have translated around 50-55 books by 30-35 authors, this one case is an insignificant percentage.

And which literary genre stimulates your interest the most?

Short fiction. That’s clear to me. Short fiction and even more so in recent years, flash fiction. That is, stories that don’t exceed 200 words. They’re a widespread tradition in Spanish. 

Why this genre in particular? 

I like it very much. First of all, not just now, it has always troubled me when someone writes a 1000-page, a 1200-page novel. It’s all well and good that they write it, but I get suspicious, I say: this man thinks he has something to say and can hold the interest. How does one stage 24-hour theatrical performance? I basically find this very selfish. So I prefer the wittiness of short stories.

How do you think the quality of translation can be improved?

I am at a certain age and I’ve seen it happen. Our readings, the translations of the ’70s have nothing to do with what we read today. Translators are now very different from what they used to be. They are people who know the language well, who translate from the original and not from intermediary languages and mainly they are people who have other tools. I’ve been working in bookstores since the late ’70s, so I’ve met translators – me as well when I translated my first books – who didn’t have internet at their disposal, who didn’t have dictionaries, they were of a different kind. Nowadays, I want to know for example what has happened at some point in Lima, because I am translating a Peruvian novel and I have 70 sources at my disposal. The other day I was searching for a restaurant and I found photos, the menu. Thirty years ago, this would have been impossible. I would have known neither the food nor the street, I wouldn’t have had any image. It’s completely different today. The tools, but also the people. Nowadays, they’re people who have studied, who work in a different way. I have met good and bad translators in both periods. It’s irrelevant whether they are good or not. But today there are many more good translators. What are the difficulties of a translation? What’s the easiness of a translation? I don’t know. The difficulties of a translation are many. Every book, every new text you translate has its own particularities. So this is the first difficulty and the first challenge, you start every time almost from scratch. Okay, you may have an experience, you may have traveled many miles, as we say, but every new book is a new relationship and has its own difficulties. So I couldn’t answer this question except by saying this: I don’t see much easiness in translation.

Do you have an example of a cultural element in mind, something that you found particularly difficult to render?

Yes! It happens very often. There’s something very typical in Granada, since we mentioned it before. In Granada and some other parts of Andalusia, the houses didn’t have any heating, so they invented a means of heating, which is amazing. I, too, had it in my house in Granada. It’s a round table, with a blanket that reaches the floor, and underneath it used to have a brazier with charcoal and now it has an electric heater. That’s what they call “brasero”. Well, that’s the center of the house in all these areas. So what does that mean? The temperature in Granada can reach -11°. They tell you, “It’s south here, we don’t need radiators”. So when you get under the “brasero” and take your blanket, you don’t leave this place on any account, you don’t even go to the toilet ’cause there’s a difference in temperature of around 25 degrees. I’ve experienced it, it’s really like that. So, at some point I was translating a short story, and the word “brasero” came up. Let’s be honest, it’s impossible to translate it. I don’t remember how I translated it, maybe “heater”. But you miss the image. You have to add footnotes and I had decided I wouldn’t add any. But this is the case with Spanish and with specific words. E.g. the Spaniards have the word “desamor” which is obviously not “amor”, love, it is not “odio”, hatred, it is when you fall out of love. Well, that’s a difficult word. There’s an entire philosophy underneath. Or Lorca wrote about the famous “duende”, which is an elf, but in essence it is what the Aldalusians say distinguishes mediocre people from those who have a star, who stand out, and they may be a plumber or a dancer or a bullfighter and they shine so bright. These words are hard to render, but okay. I guess it happens in Greek as well.

Me too. How do you deal with criticism of your work?

Okay, there’s a politically correct answer: “It’s amazing and even a negative critique leads you to…” The truth is that one of the problems, one of the issues, one of the conditions of a translator’s profession is that they’re exposed. They are exposed to criticism. They are like an actor, footballer or author. Translation has to do with the public, so anyone can… This is difficult to manage. On the other hand, translation criticism isn’t very widespread in Greece and I wouldn’t regard as criticism various phrases like “flowing translation” and such. So yes, I think I grew 20 cm taller when Kostis Papagiorgis wrote a positive review of me. If he had written a negative review of me, I would have dug a hole to hide in. You can be very much influenced by criticism and sometimes in Greece we are experts in making ill-intentioned criticism. This can be very difficult for anyone to bear.

Let’s move on to another area: copyright. Do you think that the law on copyright applies in the field of translation?

No. No, and we are all to blame for that. The other day we had a round-table discussion here in Thessaloniki on this issue. There was also a representative from Spain. From Spain, I mean, not from Norway or Sweden. Well, the situation in Spain is so different from ours here in Greece, as if we were talking about a different world. Imagine what it would be like, if someone from the above mentioned countries attended the conversation. We are all to blame. Our trade sometimes treats things in an elitist way and is not interested in the fine print of contracts, so we sign whatever they give us. And sometimes we don’t sign anything.

And what about editing? Do you consider it necessary?

It’s necessary, necessary, necessary! Necessary to the point that if the publisher doesn’t see to it, you have to find another way to get it done. It’s unthinkable that a book will come out without at least one more pair of eyes having read it. Not a book, not even a shopping list. 

So this is something you generally practice. 

I have engaged thousands of people.

What about title choice? Who decides on that when you translate a book?

It’s usually me that decides. I can’t think of an exceptional case where someone else decided on the title, but I am actually obsessed with titles. That is, if I don’t have a title, I don’t work. Either the text is mine or someone else’s. The title may change later, it may turn out that it was stupid, wrong, that I hadn’t read the book through and I didn’t know what would happen next, but if I don’t have a title I cannot proceed. So I defend my choice afterwards. The title is a very important part.

Thank you very much.

I thank you. Be well.