Dec 4, 2022
i was reading the 6th issue of chogwa (an e-zine featuring one Korean poem & multiple English translations by different translators) and i am in love with all the different renderings of the final line of Park Seo-won’s poem “Somang/소망”
#chogwa#soje#translation#korean translation#Park Seo-won#somang#ellis reads#poetry#korean poetry#translation studies#feeling a lot of things..... this is literally its own poem#소망#박서원#i'm so enamoured of this project#chogwa means 'excess' which is basically the theme and inspiration behind the whole thing#soje describes their inspiration as being a desire to free translators/ions from the weight of having to be *everything*#to quote their statement about it:#'The existence of other translations can embolden us as translators dare us to be a little cheekier. Translating by could not should!#The more translations there are the more room they create for play and experimentation.'#which i really really love#particularly when i think about how there's a pressure on less-commonly translated languages to be 'definitive' translations#authors and translators from certain literary cultures are burdened with the expectation to be and do ~everything~#a whole new (old) form of literary and linguistic tokenism upheld by the western publishing industry :/#so i love this movement to push back against 'the definitive' in translation and instead embrace a multiplicity of voices and renderings#and in layering those voices there's the potential to create something more profound and beautiful than would otherwise be possible#<3
