Katie Whittemore

1. What attracted you to literary translations?

I’ve long been drawn to this work. Reading, writing, solving puzzles, making connections with other people and their art—it’s a dream! Like many literary translators, I came to the field via the study of language and literature, but it wasn’t until I was ten years out of graduate school and home with two small children—having left my full time job at a university by that point—that I decided that I would put my efforts into giving it a go.

2. What do you think it would take for there to be more available Spanish translations in the US?

The way that books come to be translated is in large part a game of chance—right place, right time, right editor sort of thing. I think that translators can be excellent advocates for the books they love and the authors they respect, so collaboration between Spanish translators, agents, and Spanish publishers is important. In addition to great initiatives such as New Spanish Books, AECID’s “10 of 30” initiative, and the conference that had been planned for May in NYC on “Publishing Spanish Writers in English” (postponed due to COVID-19), I believe that individuals sharing their passion for particular books and pitching editors is an important effort for bringing more Spanish authors to the attention of publishers. In other words, Spanish translators themselves are effective conduits for Spanish books, so anything that facilitates collaboration with and among Spanish translators and foreign editors could be an excellent opportunity to get more Spanish books in front of decision-makers. Translation grants through Spain’s Ministerio de Cultura and Acción Cultural Española can help foreign publishers be more amenable to taking a perceived “risk” on a book in translation, and will certainly support the smaller, independent presses who actively seek to publish works in translation. Making sure that these grants are well-publicized and the application process as streamlined as possible will make a difference.

3. Is there demand for Spanish literature in the American market? Check translation database.

There is a growing demand for international works of literature, and Spanish authors are definitely a key to that. Recent initiatives like the aforementioned “10 of 30” have made a big difference and the success of Spain-based authors (like Marías, Vila-Matas, etc.) has captured the attention and interest of American editors—especially at independent presses.

4. Name some of your favorite Spanish authors?

At the moment, I have been reading a lot by Spanish writers of literary fiction in their 30s, as part of the “10 of 30” project organized by AECID as a way of promoting international exposure for this generation of authors in the lead up to Frankfurt Book Fair 2021, at which Spain will be the Guest of Honor. Writers such as Aroa Moreno Durán, Javier Serena, Juan Gómez Bárcena, Alejandro Morellón, Katixa Agirre, Cristina Morales, Almudena Sánchez, Florencia del Campo, and Álex Chico are some that stand out for me in particular and whose work I would very much enjoy translating more of. I am also a big fan of Sara Mesa, Lara Moreno, Pilar Adón, Jon Bilbao, Nuria Labari, and Pablo Gutiérrez.

5. What makes Spanish literary translation unique?

Spanish and Latin American literatures have long and celebrated traditions, and most anglophone readers are at least familiar with some of the best-known writers whose works have been translated into English. The breadth of territories and cultures in which Spanish is the dominant language certainly allows Spanish literary translators to specialize, if they wish, in the literature of a particular country or region. The cultural and linguistic diversity in the places where Spanish is spoken also creates an interesting challenge for translators. As regards Spain in particular, excellent literature is being written by new generations of writers in Basque, Galician, and Catalan (Katixa Agirre, Inma López Silva, and Jordi Nopca, to name a few) and while foreign publishers may come to these works via their Spanish editions (often translated by the authors themselves), translators like Jacob Rogers, Amaia Gabatxo, and Mara Faye Lethem are doing great work promoting translations directly from the writers’ original works.

6. Is there fair recognition of literary translators?

There can always be better recognition. Translation advocates point to better pay, recognition of translators as writers and translation as writing, and visibility of the translator (name appearing on the cover, being referenced and cited in reviews and publicity for the book, etc.) as areas for improvement (also, see the Call for Action and panel discussion “A Manifesto for Our Time,” hosted by the Translating the Future conference). A growth in Translation Studies as a discipline worthy of study in the academy, the increase in small presses dedicated to publishing work in translations (e.g. Open Letter, Two Lines, Deep Vellum, and Transit in the US), and awards like the Best Translated Book Award and the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and the TA First Translation Prize, Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and the International Booker Prize in the UK, are other signs that translators are being recognized for their work. Yet would the majority of translators say there could be better recognition? Yes.

7. What work have you enjoyed the most translating?

I recently finished translating La major madre del mundo, by Nuria Labari, coming out as World’s Best Mother from World Editions in 2021. Working on this book was a joy from start to finish, from the first moment I picked up the novel through the last queries and comments from Lydia Unsworth, my editor at WE. Labari’s excavation of the experience of motherhood and her interrogation of what it means to be a mother and a creator is sharp and poignant, funny and irreverent and heartbreaking by turns. The narrative voice ranges from the poetic to the colloquial to the essayistic, and so honing that was challenging and a lot of fun.

8. What author would you have liked to translate the most?

I feel very lucky because thus far I have had the opportunity to work with a number of writers I really admire and whose projects I have pitched myself. Honestly, I don’t think too much about what I would have liked to do, but I do spend an awful lot of time thinking about what I want to do in the future! But if pressed, I would say that I’m excited about Cristina Morales’ novels and would have loved to work on Lectura fácil, which I am happy to say is being translated by US-based translator Gerry Dunn for Jonathan Cape. His work will be great, and I am so excited to see what he does with that book, which is lengthy, complicated, politically committed, and radically voice-driven. It’s a doozy.

9. Who has been the most challenging author to translate?

Every work has its challenges, but I can point to my translations of Spanish author Sara Mesa as challenging in a particular way. Her style is characterized by simplicity and clarity in her language—a sort of ordinariness that nevertheless creates great tension and ambiguity. The prose isn’t flat, exactly, but it is very pared down, often to great effect. That kind of sharpness requires one to really resist the temptation to overwrite the translation and try to find the right “ordinary” words in English that will also hopefully produce the same dramatic tension and unease that Sara does in Spanish.

10. Is it necessary for a literary translator to also be a writer?

I’m in the camp of “literary translation IS creative writing.” The act of translating, which necessarily produces a new text, a new work of art, is writing. Full stop. Literary translators are writers, even if they don’t produce “their own” work. There isn’t even a way to say that without it sounding kind of strange. That said, I think literary translators need to own their identity as writers and creatives and bring that fully into their work. This has much to do with how we read, experience, and interpret a text. In some cases, it means making choices that may move the translation away from a more literal rendering of what the original text “says.” I think in some ways this is a largely intuitive process that occurs when the translator trusts him or herself enough to relax their adherence to the original in the literal sense and instead find ways to commune with the text, to get inside its skin.

11. What would you recommend to Spanish publishers in order to encourage translations?

I think it’s important for Spanish literary agents and publishers to work with Spanish translators, whether in the form of book reports, translation samples, or just seeing each other as colleagues and assets. It’s also important for Spanish publishers to get to know all the players in the US and UK publishing scene, not just the bigger houses. but the wealth of indie presses that actively promote international literature. Cultivating relationships at book fairs, for example, and getting a feel for a press’s aesthetic, taste, and backlist and then sharing projects that make sense for a given press is a valuable endeavor.

12. What are the creative requirements of literary translation?

A translator’s creative act is grounded in, or departs from, another’s. First and foremost, it begins with being a careful reader and making a critical interpretation of the work. The creative decisions and choices one makes as a translator will flow from one’s understanding of and connection to the work. You have to be willing to puzzle over the original and consider why the author made the choices he or she did. Why this word in particular? How does it sound when spoken aloud, what are its resonances and echoes, the web that connects it to other parts of the text? I find I put a lot of my creative energy into continuously tweaking the voice and register, doing my best to make them as smooth and consistent as I can. Reading aloud is an invaluable part of that process. Does it breathe, does it sing? Again, I believe to some degree that we can analyze our process and choices in retrospect, see what we did where and why, but in the actual moment of translating, I just want to be in the flow and write with my gut. Revision, for me at least, is where my head comes in.