In the third leg of the relay race for translators, the baton goes to Maike Dörries. Since 1997, Maike has translated around 100 titles from Norwegian into German.
Translators and their outstanding work have made Norwegian literature the worldwide success story it is today and we are deeply grateful to them. To shine a light on their demanding work and get to know the individuals better, we have initiated a series of interviews with the men and women who translate from the Norwegian into the German.
In the third leg of the relay race for translators, the baton goes to: Maike Dörries. Since 1997, Maike has translated nearly one hundred Norwegian titles into German. At present, she is working on a translation for Oetinger Verlag of ‘What You Don’t Know about Vilde’ (Det du ikke vet om Vilde), a book for children by Nicolai Houm. Maike has also joined the team of literary agents at Agentur Literatur Gudrun Hebel, where her special responsibility is books for children and young adults. Being an agent is an aspect of the book business that she feels is a great way of enriching her work as a translator. Dear Maike, when did you decide to start translating books and what motivated you in the first place?
My enthusiasm for all things Scandinavian was sparked when I was quite young and went with my family on holidays to the Nordic countries. By now, I have friends in my Swedish ‘second family’ from two generations, and it was these contacts, combined with a brief summer romance in Sweden, that made me finally decide to learn Swedish. I began with a college course in the language but deepened my knowledge by reading all the Swedish-language books that I managed to lay hands on: Gösta Knutsson‘s stories about the cat Peter No-Tail, the translation into Swedish of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Selma Lagerlöf’s novels, the comic books about Vicky the Viking ... and it happened quite often, in this all-inclusive literary whirl, that I came across books that hadn’t made it into German. Noticing this made me try my hand at translating and it didn’t take long for me to realise how much I enjoyed working with the text. The first few times I submitted translations of children’s books (carried out while still at school) to German publishers, the manuscripts were promptly turned down. Ten years later, after studying Scandinavian culture and languages and also Low German, I was offered the chance to translate the opera for children based on Peter No-Tail and a new version of Vicky and the Strong Men. By then it was obvious to me that translation would be my profession of choice. It was around then I got in touch with NORLA for the first time.
Where are you normally when you work on your translations? Please describe your place of work!
When I have a book to translate, I need a calm, bright space to work in as well as a steady supply of Darjeeling – so I work either in my office, surrounded by books, or at the kitchen table with its view of our spacious, green courtyard. But when I am busy with proofreading or research or simply want to read or eavesdrop, I have pinpointed a few tried and tested cafés and park benches. Train travel, too, fits into this category …
And I became extraordinarily motivated and stimulated to work when I spent nearly three weeks in a writer’s apartment in the Oslo House of Literature. It was during this past summer, which was outstandingly lovely.
Do you give yourself time to read outside your work? And, when you do, are you able to switch off completely or do you tend to read things like your colleagues’ translations?
Because I am a translator, publisher’s reader and literary agent, it’s hard to know where the boundary runs between my private and professional reading … so, any aspiration I might have to read in a totally detached, relaxed mood, without any ulterior motive, tends to be foiled. But I am absolutely convinced that I bring my passion for literature into my daily work. Privately, I mostly read books in the original languages rather than translations by my colleagues. Professionally, on the other hand, I work extensively with translated texts, as part of a team of translators or as an independent reader.
Which Norwegian work of literature is particularly close to your heart?
One of my Norwegian pearls is Endre Lund Eriksen‘s ‘The Summer my Dad Became Gay’ (Den sommeren pappa ble homo, Aschehoug, 2012)! In a café on Gotland in the Baltic, where they kept a visitor’s book in the outdoor dry closet, I came across an entry that struck me as brilliant – two girls had been writing that their summer holiday on Gotland had been fab, only “…shame that our dad turned queer”. Such a thrilling introduction to a book for children! But who would write on a subject like that? I thought about my German writer friends in turn and couldn‘t think of anyone … What about myself, then? No, I knew already why I had become a translator. And then Endre came to mind. I had already translated his ingenious books about Pitbull Terje into German and really enjoyed them. The result has truly exceeded all my expectations! And now, I’m meeting with my own idea of children’s book all over again because I translated it!
After all those years of working on translations from the Norwegian, are there still challenges for you to deal with?
After decades of translating, it’s only to be expected that routine will take over in many respects. Nonetheless, every new narrative voice, every new text and new style or genre present new challenges – which is precisely why this job is always exhilarating.
Surely there are moments when you feel inspired to write your own book for children?
The urge is always there. And I do have more than enough material and ideas. But I can’t help remembering the many other writers who are great at what they do. If I think one day that I am running out of exciting texts to translate, then ... maybe...
Your colleague Günther Frauenlob, who handed over the baton to you, would like to know how you go about learning the up-to-the-minute language of children and teenagers? He feels that he hardly understands what his own daughter is saying at times...
Oh, dear Günther: such a good question... a difficult question, too … trying to be in tune with the times is a tricky matter, and how kids speak in literature for teenagers and young adults is especially hard to get right. For a start, it’s very rare to find an overlap between the source and target languages. It is also true that there is an additional ‘filter’ in place because most books aimed at the youth market are written by comparatively old people. When I translate books for young people, even though I take care to include contemporary turns of phrase and slang expressions, I go for a ‘timeless’ language structure overall. At the same time, I naturally make a point of being on the alert – since I have no children of my own – and I listen in, for instance to your daughters or my nephews or to what the young sound like in busses and trains and the streets of town. And I read magazines and comics, and watch films, videos and TV series to keep my eye on the ever-changing, living language.
Among your colleagues, whom are you going to pick for the hand-over of the translator’s baton and what would you especially like him or her to tell you about?
Christel Hildebrandt. For a long time now, Christel, you have been intensively engaged in the training of emerging translators. What is it about this kind of work that gives you a particular pleasure?
Read Christel's answer here.
Translated from the German by Anna Paterson