Interview of the month – Kostas Koutsourelis

Interview of the month – Kostas Koutsourelis

(Translator, author,
winner of the Aris Alexandrou Prize and the Prize for Literary Translation from the German Language (2012).

Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you first get involved in translation? 

I started translating almost instinctively, when, as a student, I spent days and nights working on foreign texts that inspired me. After all, each reader does something similar in his head, even when reading works in his own language: he translates them in his personal parlance, makes them speak in his own voice. However, later things changed and translation became my focus, at times my obsession and even my livelihood. Today it is as natural for me as writing itself: it is an act of creation and at the same time an opportunity for me to practice in other forms and ideas, often very distant from my own.

What are the particularities of German as a source language? What would be your advice to younger colleagues who are translating to and from this language?

Contrary to other languages, for example the Romance ones, German literary language is a whole new world to us. It differs, not only in terms of structure, but also in terms of the experiences it conveys, its subjective worldview, its emotional scale. The Greek translator must always have in mind this radical foreignness and never hesitate to distance himself from dry word-for-word translation if he wishes to reconstruct the original text’s form and meaning with his own means.

What were the major difficulties you faced in your awarded translation of “Hymns to the night” by Novalis and how did you overcome these difficulties? 

The greatest obstacle was the multitude of forms used in the book. Prose structured in long sentences, verses of a biblical rhythm, verses and stanzas in multiple metres and rhyme schemes. The work of Odysseas Elytis was my biggest ally. Had I not been familiar with it, I doubt I would be able to understand, at least to the degree that I did, the particularities of this great work. Generally speaking, I believe that Elytis’ poetry is the greatest introduction for Greek speakers interested in German romanticism. Besides Solomos’ mature poetry, “The Oxopetra Elegies” is our most important tool to enter this inaccessible world.

Finally, in your opinion, what is the role translation can play in today’s economic/publishing/translation environment?

Unfortunately, literary translation generally constitutes another “minus” in our commercial and cultural balance. It is worth mentioning that 40-50% of our domestic book production consists of translations-an extremely high percentage for a mature literature. In this impersonal multitude of translated works, the truly creative translations, which are equal to the original work and convey it to our reality, are often neglected. This inevitably leads to a negative ratio of quality versus quantity. As an example, our poetry translations are far inferior to the ones produced in the period between the two World Wars. On the other hand, it is a well-known fact that translation is very poorly remunerated, a problem that has been largely exacerbated due to the crisis.