“Writers make national literature, while translators make universal literature.” -José Saramago
Accepting Translations
Recently, Literally Literary did something new. We published a translation.
The translated story was my own and started as a simple exercise to maintain language skills. I’ve been blessed to learn three languages fluently. My native English, Spanish when I lived in South America as a teenager, and Romanian from living in Romania in my early 20s.
Language is an amazing thing.
But sometimes it is hard to be limited to just one. English is a beautiful language but it has so many idiosyncrasies and flaws. I love the quote by Gugulethu Mhlungu, “English is not a language it’s three languages wearing a trench coat pretending to be one.” Learning new languages opened up new understandings, ways of expression, and stories.
Now that I’m living in the United States I don’t have enough opportunities to practice speaking Romanian and Spanish. Only 24 million worldwide people speak Romanian, which is the population of Shanghai, China. I use Spanish more often but most people prefer to speak to me in English. So, during my lunch break I started translating Romanian children’s tales into English.
