Lost in translation: Briton in strife again over Korean stories

By Ko Dong-hwan

Deborah Smith speaks during a press conference at COEX in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul in June 2016. Korea Times file

Did British translator Deborah Smith ― who worked on Korean fiction including the 2016 Man Booker International Prize winner “The Vegetarian” ― alter the meanings of some words and phrases in her latest translations of Korean stories?

Literary critic Lee Ji-eun, speaking at an academic forum at Seoul National University, questioned Smith's translation of “The Accusation,” a short story collection by anti-Pyongyang writer with the penname “Bandi.”

The British academic, 31, not only added her own explanations of original texts to the work, but interpreted texts in ways with which the writer did not agree, according to the critic.

One problem occurred in a story about a North Korean family forced to move close to the Yalu River on the border with China because they were deemed to oppose a government campaign.

About the family's “home that blossomed with persimmon” in the original, Smith wrote “our home, where we'd often been able to sate our hunger by simply reaching up to pluck a ripe persimmon.” This particular sentence reportedly led to Smith adding to the original her own descriptions like “close to the border with China” and “this barren, unfamiliar land.”

The descriptions, according to Lee, reminded readers about “hunger” or “starvation” in the communist state, which did not match Bandi's intent of highlighting the country's “violence or deception that rattled demotic consciousness.”

The forum heard that Smith was also wrong on simple word-to-word translations. In another story, “Unit 5 on sixth floor” was translated as “fifth floor,” “trade office building” to “military department building,” and “youth laborers” to “young farmers.” In a different story, she changed the name of a character “Min-hyuk” to “Min-soo” and then later to “Min-hyuk.”

Smith was previously involved in a controversy over “The Vegetarian” because her translation of the Korean novel by Han Kang led to criticism that Smith did not fully understand Korean culture and language.

Critics and professors had criticized the translator for “making mistakes that even beginners could avoid,” while others said she “may have taken some liberties while translating.”