By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
A common interest in Korean poetry has turned into a winning collaboration, as two U.S.-based professors, Song Chae-pyong and Anne Rashid, won the Grand Prize for Poetry at the 40th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards.
Song, an associate professor of English at Marygrove College in Detroit, Mich., and Rashid, an assistant English professor at Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Pa., were recognized for their translation of six of Kim Hye-soon' poems.
The two professors decided to join the competition because they ``wanted to be a part of this exciting opportunity to promote modern Korean literary translations." Together, they worked hard to submit their best work but didn't quite expect to take home the top prize.
``We put our best into the translation so we felt confident, but, knowing that lots of first-rate translators are out there, we weren't totally sure about our chances. It's a great honor to win the prize," Song said in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times.
Since both teach at U.S. colleges, Song and Rashid noticed that not many Korean works have been translated despite their strong literary qualities. They were drawn to Kim's poetry after she won the 2008 Daesan Literary Award, and felt her poetry, with its unique raw quality, deserved a wider audience beyond the Korean community.
``We started our translations to contribute to a wider circulation of Korean literary works for our students. Kim's work interests us because of her strikingly unique images and her relentless commitment to social justice via her staunch critique of patriarchy... Often, her writing exposes injustice or violence done to the female body and psyche. This was something we hadn't encountered in other writing and, because of this, we felt her work deserved to be heard by a wider audience," the Korea-born professor said.
The process of translation was difficult, especially in dealing with some of the long and winding imagery in Kim's poetry. Despite these challenges, they thought translating Kim's poetry was also fun.
``To discover Kim through translation was the most exciting thing; to negotiate constantly for the best form and content for the English readers has offered lots of room for our own creation. We learned through this process that translation brings about new and organic interpretations of the original work," Song said.
For Song and Rashid, a good translator is a person who can find the right balance between the original and target language. Faithfulness to the original text is not enough; translators should also be sensitive to the readability of the translated text.
``In the end, a translator should question whether or not the target language speaker will understand what has been translated. A good translator must always attempt to strike a balance between the original and translation. Moreover, translation is a constant process, just like any form of writing. One can become a good translator only by willing to revise one's draft constantly, we believe. Anne and I sometimes went through 10 revisions before feeling that a translation was finished. In the end, it is a rewarding process," Song said.
Song, who was born in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, and has been living in the U.S. for the past 20 years, said there is a need for more translation of Korean literary works. If time permits, he and Rashid would like to translate more Korean poems, especially those by lesser known female writers. They also want to publish editions of Korean literature with essays that introduce Korean literature and culture to the general public.
``Thanks to The Korea Times as well as institutions like the Daesan Foundation and the Korea Literature Translation Institute, we have seen an increasing number of Korean literary translations, but we still have a long way to go. There are still so many good works in Korean that haven't been translated yet," he said.
Asked for their advice to budding translators, Song says, ``Sometimes you may feel translation is tedious work, but remember that there is room for creation in translation. What you learn about yourself as a writer and editor will be invaluable."