Following the release of my translation of Paradise Denied on 10 November, I was fortunate to be able to meet the authors just a week later at a reading in Berlin. This is a brief report on the event and some thoughts arising from it.
The reading took place at Galerie Fantom in Charlottenburg, which is currently hosting a video installation that reflects on the situation of refugees in Europe in the light of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Zekarias Kebraeb and Marianne Moesle read extracts from the book, which recounts the true story of Zekarias' journey from Eritrea to Europe as a refugee. Zekarias also described his experiences since finishing the book: he has now been granted German citizenship and is working actively with refugee organisations and the political opposition to the Eritrean regime.
The reading took place at Galerie Fantom in Charlottenburg, which is currently hosting a video installation that reflects on the situation of refugees in Europe in the light of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Zekarias Kebraeb and Marianne Moesle read extracts from the book, which recounts the true story of Zekarias' journey from Eritrea to Europe as a refugee. Zekarias also described his experiences since finishing the book: he has now been granted German citizenship and is working actively with refugee organisations and the political opposition to the Eritrean regime.
I am deeply (one might say nerdishly) familiar with Zekarias' story, having read his book four times in the process of translating it, and so it was a great pleasure to be able to finally meet him and hear more from his perspective. I noted that he placed great emphasis on a topic in the book that I have tended to overlook when I have written or talked about it: he is greatly concerned with raising awareness about the specific situation in Eritrea, which is ruled by a brutal military dictatorship and has been described as "the North Korea of Africa". The book recounts how the regime quietly abolished press freedom and made mass arrests while the world was distracted by the spectacle of 9/11. Zekarias himself was forced to stop publishing stories in a youth magazine, and one key motivation for him to leave was so that he could live in a country where he had the freedom to write and express himself - though having now published a book in Germany, he says his future plans currently revolve around politics rather than being a writer (though he may write something in Tigrinya). Despite his initial misapprehensions (he described going to great lengths to avoid travelling through Germany when he was attempting to travel to Sweden) and his ordeals in the German prison and asylum system, he now says that he generally likes Germany and the Germans.
In person, Zekarias makes the same impression as in the book: friendly, intelligent, wryly humorous. Some things have changed, of course; when the book begins, Zekarias is a truculent teenager still prone to fierce rows with his mother (Marianne and Zekarias read one such scene at the reading); now, aged 29, he is a man of the world, adeptly fielding questions in a foreign language and inundated with interview requests and messages on his smartphone; he arrived at the reading fresh off the plane from Rotterdam for a conference of the Eritrean opposition. His polyglotism is remarkable: in the course of the evening, I heard him speaking fluently in four different languages, and I know from the book that he speaks at least smatterings of several more.
As a translator, this process of mediation between different languages is naturally of great interest, and it was something that kept cropping up throughout the evening, just as it does in the book (one amusing moment related to this topic occurred early on when I introduced myself to someone, in German, as the English translator. The response: "Ach Sie sind der Übersetzer? Und Sie können auch Deutsch?!" - "Oh, you're the translator? And you can speak German too?!"). Zekarias himself has worked as a de facto translator (he translated a radio show about Michael Jackson when he lived in Eritrea) and interpreter (on behalf of refugees who don't speak German; he explained at the reading that other less fortunate refugees end up with interpreters sent by the Eritrean embassy, who try to intimidate them into silence rather than facilitating communication). Even in the German "original", Zekarias' story is in many respects translated and mediated: co-authored with a German journalist, Marianne Moesle, and containing records of conversations as well as extracts from songs and poems that have been translated from the language in which they originally occurred. At the same time, the book also contains many untranslated snippets of Tigrinya, Arabic, Italian and Swiss German that give a sense of place in the various countries Zekarias passes through, as well as snippets of English as a "world language".
There was a lot of discussion of the process of translating. One question that was raised was whether book will be translated into Tigrinya, Zekarias' native language: Zekarias replied that many Eritreans make this request but (and this was something I hadn't considered) this isn't really a book for Eritreans; millions of them have gone through the experiences described here or worse, and don't need to be told about them. The book's intended audience is readers in Europe and America who are unaware of the situation in Eritrea and the ordeals faced by refugees to their countries. For this reason, if it could be translated into another language, Zekarias would suggest French would be the best option. Meanwhile, as I discussed with Marianne and Zekarias, my own translation wasn't simply a matter of German to English. At one point, I had to refer back (with the help of a friend's friend's mother) to the Eritrean original of a song that I only had in German translation to know how to translate an ambiguous term ("wählen"). At other points, I introduced German back into the English translation to recreate the same "sense of place" given by snippets of Arabic, Italian, etc. - and to make up for the loss of the English snippets (which, of course, in English translation simply merged into the English text). Marianne and I were amused to note the extent to which our roles as mediators of the text overlapped - she had to deal with a lot of ad hoc translation from various languages, while I had to carry out a lot of additional research into minor terms (ably assisted by a host of helpful friends on Facebook). In particular, I discovered that we both spent a lot of time looking at pictures of various asylum centres on Google Images and Street View trying to understand their layout and construction.
Aside from that, audience members asked questions about people smuggling (now a lucrative industry with costs running into the thousands or tens of thousands - and, as Marianne explained at the reading, the threat of being kidnapped and having your organs sold if you don't pay up), how the situation has changed in the intervening period (better in some respects, worse in others; more Eritreans are now granted asylum but the sea crossings have become more dangerous and Libya has become even more unsafe for refugees), colonialism (according to Zekarias, Eritrea is lucky never to have had its own languages and culture expunged by colonists, and there is less hatred among Eritreans for their Italian colonists than for their British ones) and Zekarias' mother (apparently a common question at these readings; fortunately, as a German citizen he is now able to invite her to visit regularly). On this occasion, to the relief of all those in attendance, there were no representatives from the Eritrean embassy, who often attempt to disrupt Zekarias' readings.
All in all, it was a fascinating evening. I hope that at some point in the future that a reading event may take place in the UK or America too - watch this space!
In person, Zekarias makes the same impression as in the book: friendly, intelligent, wryly humorous. Some things have changed, of course; when the book begins, Zekarias is a truculent teenager still prone to fierce rows with his mother (Marianne and Zekarias read one such scene at the reading); now, aged 29, he is a man of the world, adeptly fielding questions in a foreign language and inundated with interview requests and messages on his smartphone; he arrived at the reading fresh off the plane from Rotterdam for a conference of the Eritrean opposition. His polyglotism is remarkable: in the course of the evening, I heard him speaking fluently in four different languages, and I know from the book that he speaks at least smatterings of several more.
As a translator, this process of mediation between different languages is naturally of great interest, and it was something that kept cropping up throughout the evening, just as it does in the book (one amusing moment related to this topic occurred early on when I introduced myself to someone, in German, as the English translator. The response: "Ach Sie sind der Übersetzer? Und Sie können auch Deutsch?!" - "Oh, you're the translator? And you can speak German too?!"). Zekarias himself has worked as a de facto translator (he translated a radio show about Michael Jackson when he lived in Eritrea) and interpreter (on behalf of refugees who don't speak German; he explained at the reading that other less fortunate refugees end up with interpreters sent by the Eritrean embassy, who try to intimidate them into silence rather than facilitating communication). Even in the German "original", Zekarias' story is in many respects translated and mediated: co-authored with a German journalist, Marianne Moesle, and containing records of conversations as well as extracts from songs and poems that have been translated from the language in which they originally occurred. At the same time, the book also contains many untranslated snippets of Tigrinya, Arabic, Italian and Swiss German that give a sense of place in the various countries Zekarias passes through, as well as snippets of English as a "world language".
There was a lot of discussion of the process of translating. One question that was raised was whether book will be translated into Tigrinya, Zekarias' native language: Zekarias replied that many Eritreans make this request but (and this was something I hadn't considered) this isn't really a book for Eritreans; millions of them have gone through the experiences described here or worse, and don't need to be told about them. The book's intended audience is readers in Europe and America who are unaware of the situation in Eritrea and the ordeals faced by refugees to their countries. For this reason, if it could be translated into another language, Zekarias would suggest French would be the best option. Meanwhile, as I discussed with Marianne and Zekarias, my own translation wasn't simply a matter of German to English. At one point, I had to refer back (with the help of a friend's friend's mother) to the Eritrean original of a song that I only had in German translation to know how to translate an ambiguous term ("wählen"). At other points, I introduced German back into the English translation to recreate the same "sense of place" given by snippets of Arabic, Italian, etc. - and to make up for the loss of the English snippets (which, of course, in English translation simply merged into the English text). Marianne and I were amused to note the extent to which our roles as mediators of the text overlapped - she had to deal with a lot of ad hoc translation from various languages, while I had to carry out a lot of additional research into minor terms (ably assisted by a host of helpful friends on Facebook). In particular, I discovered that we both spent a lot of time looking at pictures of various asylum centres on Google Images and Street View trying to understand their layout and construction.
Aside from that, audience members asked questions about people smuggling (now a lucrative industry with costs running into the thousands or tens of thousands - and, as Marianne explained at the reading, the threat of being kidnapped and having your organs sold if you don't pay up), how the situation has changed in the intervening period (better in some respects, worse in others; more Eritreans are now granted asylum but the sea crossings have become more dangerous and Libya has become even more unsafe for refugees), colonialism (according to Zekarias, Eritrea is lucky never to have had its own languages and culture expunged by colonists, and there is less hatred among Eritreans for their Italian colonists than for their British ones) and Zekarias' mother (apparently a common question at these readings; fortunately, as a German citizen he is now able to invite her to visit regularly). On this occasion, to the relief of all those in attendance, there were no representatives from the Eritrean embassy, who often attempt to disrupt Zekarias' readings.
All in all, it was a fascinating evening. I hope that at some point in the future that a reading event may take place in the UK or America too - watch this space!
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