This week, in the second instalment of our interviews with translators, we turn to Günther Frauenlob. Over the last twenty-five years, Günther has translated a great deal of both Danish and Norwegian literature.
Translators and their outstanding work have made Norwegian literature the worldwide success story it is today and we are deeply grateful to them. To cast a light on their demanding work and get to know the individuals better, we have initiated a series of interviews - the Translator Relay - with the men and women who translate from the Norwegian into the German.
Günther has worked with many famous Norwegian writers of literary fiction such as Jo Nesbø, Tom Egeland and Lars Mytting, as well as with numerous writers of non-fiction such as Arnhild Lauveng and Bjørn Berge. Currently he and Frank Zuber are working together on the translation of Thomas Reinertsen Berg‘s World Theatre (Verdensteater). Günther, can you explain how it came about that someone who studied geography went on to work as a translator of Norwegian literary fiction and non-fiction?
It was a completely unexpected development that really took me by surprise. Somehow, Norway as a country fascinated me when I was a student, and I decided to enrol in a supplementary course in Norwegian at the Institute of Scandinavian Studies. Later, as part of a university practical outreach course, I spent a couple of months in Oslo at its Centre for Industrial Research. While I was there, I read only Norwegian books to practise my language. And that’s how I fell in love with Norwegian literature. Meeting Eva Lie-Nielsen, who worked at Gyldendal at the time – though that was years later – was how I actually got to try my hand at translating. She encouraged and motivated me to have a go …
When you work at your translations, where are you normally?
The bulk of my work is done at my desk at home, of course. But I very much enjoy travelling so quite a few of books have been translated, at least in part, in holiday lets, on car ferries and on trains…
For how long have you been working as a translator? And, in that capacity, have the demands made on you changed over the last few decades, either generally or specifically as someone working from the Norwegian?
I translated my first Norwegian book in 1993. Much has changed since then. Back in those days, Norwegian publishers would pick specific books and commission one of us to work on that text so that the rights to the translation could then be offered for sale to German publishers. By now, the transactions have become faster and are run more professionally. Being part of an extensive network and having good contacts in German and Norwegian publishing houses are the important aspects nowadays. But the expectations on the translation itself have hardly changed, if at all. As translators we have duties to the authors and their writing, and must focus above all on striking the right note...
Which was the most challenging translation you have undertaken – and, which was the toughest Norwegian one?
Oh gosh, these are hard questions. I’m not at all sure what the answers are. The difficulties vary a lot. Just two examples for now. Some years ago, I translated Atle Næss’s novel ‘The Riemann Hypothesis’ (orig. title: Roten av minus én, i.e. The Root of Minus One) and found that, for me personally, the story about the wreckage of a marriage was hard to deal with because it had so little to do with my own peaceful home, with our two young children. While working on the final version of the translation, I had to go away and stay in a colleague’s flat, just to get a better mental grip on the thinking in the book...
I had to cope with quite different demands when I was translating the books by Arnhild Lauveng. The main theme is schizophrenia and the world of mental illness was at the time rather alien to me, so I had to engage in intensive research. At one point, I was an almost daily visitor to a quite nearby psychiatric clinic, fortunately just as a guest…
As a translator, how far do you allow yourself to diverge from the original?
That’s a good question, which often comes up for discussion. Still, I have never heard anyone give anything like a definitive answer. In a translation of a classical work of literature, one should stay as close to the original as possible without being glued too tightly to text. I feel it is all right to be a bit freer with the writing in crime novels and other action-based books in order to prioritise keeping the tempo and the excitement at a high pitch.
Do readers occasionally get in touch with suggestions of how to improve on the translation?
Absolutely, and the experience can be quite unnerving. Most readers haven’t got the hang of the publishing process and don’t realise that many alterations can happen while the text is in the hands of the German publisher. The most critical comments I’ve received have been concerned with the German titles of translated works – although this is something the translator usually has no input into at all.
Your colleague Frank Zuber, who nominated you for this round of interviews, wanted to know your answer to this question: For some time now, you have also been working as a literary agent – the other way round, as it were. Has this affected your work as a translator?
As well as working as a translator, I have for some years been a freelancing member of the team at agentur literatur - Gudrun Hebel. My job is to focus on the marketing of German literature in Scandinavia. It’s a career move that I don’t regret at all. At the time, I had reached a stage where I read practically nothing except Norwegian and Danish because German publishers asked me to do expert reports on new books for them. Besides, it meant that, as a translator, I was forever thrown back on my own linguistic resources. Nowadays, when I ‘have to’ to read a lot of German books, I often find myself reflecting that “yes, that’s another way of expressing it”. I can say with every confidence that wide reading of good German literature has been extremely helpful in my work as a literary translator. And there has been no conflict of interests because being an agent takes up only a fraction of my working time.
To whom among your colleagues would you pass on the translator’s baton and what would you like to know from him or her?
I’m pleased that I can hand the baton over to Maike Dörries. As you know, she has also translated many books for children and young adults. What really intrigues me is how she keeps up with the latest in the way young people speak. I often can’t figure out what my own daughter is saying.
Read Maike's answer here
Translated from the German by Anna Paterson