Doctoral thesis: The choice of literature for translation depends on local culture, politics and international trends
The Spanish-speaking world is a big place, but Spanish literature accounts for just 3% of all the world's literary translations. What is translated from the language tends to be on the fringes of literary translation in Estonia as well. Mari Laan, a PhD student at Tallinn University’s School of Humanities, investigated how the choice of Spanish-language books for translation in Estonia has been influenced at different times.
As a Spanish translator and publisher for Toledo Publishing, Laan sought to pinpoint the factors that have shaped the selection of foreign literature available in Estonian: is it the position of the source culture, the dynamics of international literary space, the political or educational needs of society, specific translators, publishers or other intermediaries that have been determining?
Laan includes in her doctoral thesis all of the fictional translations from Spanish that appeared in book or periodical form over a period of almost a hundred years – from the end of the 19th century to the second half of the 1980s. Her research showed that the earliest translations were 19th-century adaptations from German or Russian. Eduard Bornhöhe's Estonian take on Don Quixote was the first such work to be published, as a modest booklet, in 1900. Direct translations from Spanish began in the mid-1930s, but it was not until the 1970s that Spanish literature reached a wider readership, with the worldwide rise to fame of authors from the so-called Latin American boom, led by Gabriel García Márquez.
In her search for the factors shaping translation choices, Laan draws on the theory of Pierre Bourdieu which states that reasons for this exist at a number of levels. The nature of the surrounding culture into the language of which a work is translated are very important, as are the influence of the international literary scene and the role of specific individuals and institutions. The decision on which work to translate is made in the interaction of all these levels, with one or another prevailing depending on the circumstances.
Laan points out that, firstly, the choice of books for translation depends on the needs of the local culture. For example, it can be seen that during the new republic people turned to literary classics, with Cervantes' Don Quixote being repeatedly published in the 1920s and the 1950s, and theatrical productions of classic dramas from the Spanish Golden Age. However, literature in translation became a purely political instrument in the decade after World War II, and in the wake of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 the translation of Cuban authors favoured by the Soviet Union (and Latin American literature more generally) began in quite remarkable earnest.
Meeting society’s expectations requires the right people: competent translators and other intermediaries. Laan highlights the most prominent Spanish-Estonian translators of the 20th century: Ain Kaalep, Ott Ojamaa and Jüri Talvet. In this respect, she stresses, it is particularly important to find a translator who is committed to specific source literature, as Talvet has been since the 1970s – such intermediaries have a significant impact on the choice of translation, as well as on the meaningfulness and coherence of its wider reception.
At the same time, Estonian literary translation forms part of the international literary scene and is influenced by its general trends. Although the Spanish-speaking world is large, Spanish literature accounts for only around 3% of literary translations in the world and is therefore all the more dependent on the approval of dominant literary countries.
Laan's dissertation deals with translations of Spanish-language literature which are statistically on the periphery of the Estonian literary translation scene, but their story is just one part of Estonia’s translation and cultural history as a whole. The trends emerging from the research are partially specific, but partially also general, and allow broader conclusions to be drawn about the factors shaping translation choices and an understanding of literary translation processes.
Laan defended her thesis, entitled "The formation and shaping of the translation field: The history of Spanish-Estonian translation", on 4 November. The thesis was supervised by Anne Lange and Ülar Ploom, both docents from Tallinn University. Opponents were Maria-Kristiina Lotman, Associate Professor at University of Tartu and Elin Sütiste Associate Professor from the University of Tartu.