|
Author
|
Topic: Translation Highjacking
|
Janice D. Soderling
Moderator Posts: 453
From:Sweden
Registered: Aug 2007
|
posted May 09, 2008 02:21 PM |
|
Perhaps this should actually be in the Translations box, but I am putting it here because it could just as well apply to an untranslated piece.Friends of mine are starting a new online mag in Sweden (Frostwriting) and I gave them a translation of a poem by Edith Sdergran, a Finnish modernist (who wrote in several languages, but is best known for her Swedish language work). They do not have the entire mag up yet, just a teaser (that includes my translation) to give an idea of what it will be like, and to encourage submissions. and already my translation is on a Chinese site. (With my name, and a link to the site.) Needless to say, no one asked anyone. There is another translation of the same poem by someone else, and (I think), a translation or interpretation into Chinese. It's a whole new ballgame now, ain't it. Nobody owns nothing that is theirs. Janice
|
grasshopper
Member Posts: 1577
From:Poole,Dorset,U.K.
Registered: Aug 2002
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 02:39 PM |
|
Janice,
This sort of thing has often been mentioned before, and many authors say it's a compliment, and why worry about it. But I think that before anyone posts your work on their site, they should at least, as a matter of basic courtesy, ask your permission.Regards, Maz
|
Janice D. Soderling
Moderator Posts: 453
From:Sweden
Registered: Aug 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 03:21 PM |
|
I felt it was stealing the thunder for my friends before they even got their first issue up. Or maybe it will draw the attention of all poetry lovers in China. The highjacker did after all link to the site. That would be a twist wouldn't it! A million hits a day! But actually who will know. (Or care, besides me). China is so big and the rest of the world even bigger. A little duck in a huge, huge pond, that's what we are, each and everyone of us. It helps to keep the perspective. Janice D.
|
Mark Allinson
Member Posts: 4056
From:New South Wales, Australia
Registered: Dec 2003
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 04:26 PM |
|
Janice, what happened to you here is my idea of success.Being a semi-retired hobbyist poetaster in a world where even the good stuff rarely sells, I try to get my things into e-mags IN HOPE that something like that might happen. It certainly wont happen with poems in small-run print mags, read only by the poets and their immediate families. I found one of my things on a blog site once, and that gave me a bigger thrill than the original publication that someone actually thought enough of it to copy it and post it on their site.
|
Janice D. Soderling
Moderator Posts: 453
From:Sweden
Registered: Aug 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 04:40 PM |
|
OK, Mark, as per usual I don't know what is good for me.Maybe my friends' magazine will become famous in China. I'll send you and Maz a postcard if I get an invitation from the Ministry of Culture, ha, ha! Better yet, I will advise them to invite you guys too, saying you are smarter than I am.  Janice d.
|
Stephen Collington
Member Posts: 343
From:Hamilton, ON
Registered: Nov 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 04:58 PM |
|
Hi Janice,I was curious to see the site in question, so I googled and googled and then googled some more--no luck. (I did "language only" searches, and .cn searches and .tw searches and .hk searches . . . everything I could think of. How on earth did you find it?) Anyway, if you have the URL, do post it or PM it to me, and perhaps we can figure out what's up with the smash and grab. Steve C.
|
Janice D. Soderling
Moderator Posts: 453
From:Sweden
Registered: Aug 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 05:34 PM |
|
Steve, do you mean the China site? It is
http://blog.roodo.com/ceciceci_duck/archives/5998983.html From there you can link to Frostwriting my clicking my name. One of my friends at the zine is on the same wavelength as Mark and Maz. He says it is in Mandarin, and everybody is cool with this. Just call me Chicken Little. If you want to get the version that is translated from Chinese (instead of a bunch of small squares), you can enter any combinatino of the below. then click "Translate this page."
. ceciceci_duckDDDDDDDDDDThe trick is to let go ...- [ Translate this page ] STAR/ Edith Sodergran translated by Janice D. Soderling. As night comes on, I linger on the stairs listening to the swarming of stars in my garden, ...
blog.roodo.com/ceciceci_duck/archives/5998983.html - 19 hours ago - Similar pages
|
Stephen Collington
Member Posts: 343
From:Hamilton, ON
Registered: Nov 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 06:04 PM |
|
Hi Janice,Thanks for the link. Just a blogger, enthusiastically gathering translations from around the net. The first item at the top of the page is a Chinese translation (quite respectable) by a Taiwanese poet named Bei Dao (or probably Pei Tao, in the transliteration system preferred in Taiwan). Ceciceciduck doesn't give any reasons for posting the poems on the page, so it's hard to say what he/she was thinking, though taking a mooch through other pages on the site might give some clues. Anyway, I agree with Mark and your other friends that this kind of exposure can do no real harm . . . though it may be getting over-ambitious to expect millions of Chinese to log onto C'duck's blog! All this does tie in to something I've been mulling over for some time now, and perhaps I'll post about it later. In the meantime, thanks for satisfying my curiosity. Steve C.
|
Janice D. Soderling
Moderator Posts: 453
From:Sweden
Registered: Aug 2007
|
|
posted May 09, 2008 06:11 PM |
|
Hey, Steve, you know I was joking about "millions of Chinese". Forgot my little smiley  Now you have got me all curious. Hope you will post your ruminations.
| |
Thread Open 
