This year, the annual meeting of the CEATL will take place in Copenhagen, and as part of this gathering, the delegates and the general public are invited to a special edition of the literary event The Red Couch.
On Friday 11 May, literary translator Niels Brunse is in conversation with colleague François-Eric Grodin on borders in literary translation: on being a mediator of literature across cultural and linguistic boundaries and on limitations and possibilities in translation as an art form.
Niels Brunse (photo: Krestine Havemann)
Niels Brunse has translated more than 200 works from, among other languages, English, German and Russian into Danish. In recent years, he has been working on a retranslation of a complete edition of Shakespeare’s plays, and five of a total of six volumes have been published so far. Beyond that, he has translated works by Goethe, Thomas Mann, Chekhov, J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey and Daniel Kehlmann He has received numerous prizes and honours for his work.
François-Eric Grodin (photo: Tina Schwarz)
François-Eric Grodin has subtitled for television and film since 1995, translated comics and children’s literature since 1998, and fiction and poetry since 2005, among which are works by Oscar Wilde, Édouard Louis, Riad Sattouf, Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold, NoViolet Bulawayo, Faïza Guène, Andrieu & Goscinny and Jean Genet. Furthermore, he has worked as a sound director, associate producer and producer from 1990-1995 and as copywriter since 2001. He translates from English, French, Norwegian and Swedish into Danish.
Afterwards, subtitler and author Kirsten Marie Øveraas will give a talk, titled ‘At the edge of translation – What subtitling can teach us’. The strict time and space constraints of subtitling forces the translator to be creative and prompts all of us to ask: What is allowed within translation? How much can you change and still be loyal to the source text? And what to do when loyalty to the source text bids you to translate it into something completely different – for all the viewers to scoff at, due to the feedback effect. Join her for a guided tour through a few of the subtitler’s dilemmas and creative solutions.
Kirsten Marie Øveraas (photo: Jacob Thøgersen)
Kirsten Marie Øveraas has worked for the past 12 years as an audiovisual translator, mostly subtitling all kinds of television from English, Norwegian and Swedish into Danish. Concurrently, she has taught translation studies at the University of Copenhagen, written two books about translation, given numerous interviews and public talks about subtitling, translation strategies, journalistic translation etc. and is blogging about all things translation. She’s a great believer in communicating to the end-users that translation is both difficult and important – two things that not everybody takes for granted, but most can learn to understand.
The Red Couch takes place at the Danish Authors’ Society (http://danskforfatterforening NULL.dk/danish-authors-society/). It is sponsored by the Danish Authors’ Society and the Danish Arts Foundation (https://www NULL.kunst NULL.dk/english/danish-arts-foundation/).
Date: 11 May 2018 from 5 to 7 p.m.
Adress: Strandgade 6, 1401 Kopenhagen
Admission is free and open to all. The event will be in English, and will be recorded by the online radio Den2Radio (http://den2radio NULL.dk/).