Rebecca Carter is on holiday. A View from This Bridge is written this week by Briony Everroad, Harvill Secker Editor.

This is a very exciting week for us here at Harvill Secker. The deadline for our inaugural Young Translators’ Prize has just passed, and the entries received at the office over this weekend have now made it up to our floor. We’re still doing the final count, but there are over 200 of them. We teamed up with Waterstone’s to launch this exciting new venture as a way to recognise and encourage young translators coming into the field. It’s all part of Harvill Secker’s centenary celebrations this year. (Click here to find out more.)

The translator’s role in the publishing process is often discussed. To state the obvious, when it comes to a foreign-language text we would have no book without them. How the translator fits into the editorial process varies greatly between publishers. I’m surprised at a question that pops up with some frequency: ‘Does a translation need editing?’ For me the answer is a resounding yes! Unless it has been agreed with the agent and author at acquisition stage, you are unlikely to do much of a structural edit, but there is so much to look at line by line. A translation, like any piece of writing, needs to be read and listened to closely.

Sometimes when I chat to people about my job, I sense a certain disapproval when I mention the word ‘edit’. Perhaps it conjures up a malevolent spirit gleefully destroying someone’s well-crafted words with a thick red pen. In my own experience this couldn’t be further from the truth. Editing is a conversation. This applies to translators as much as authors. The translator has spent months and months, perhaps even a year, going through every word an author has written. From the seemingly infinite number of words and phrases they could use to convey the author’s story to a reader in another language and across another culture (a piece of wizardry that leaves me in permanent awe of translators) they have chosen the ones you are reading in their manuscript. For me it is a privilege to work with someone who has engaged on this level with a book that you love. And just as the translator has been very close to the book, you can now look at the book with fresh eyes, a stand-in for the reader who will hopefully pick up the book months down the line. 

Do all the phrases seem fluently expressed, is there a passage that could be made clearer, is there a consistency mistake in the original? I make a few suggestions, and ask numerous questions. Unless the source text is written in French, in which case I can read it alongside the English, the translator is my key into this other world that is the source text and culture in which it originated. I once asked a translator ‘Is it right that there are two single duvets on the double bed in this scene?’ only to learn that this is common practice in Scandinavia. A tiny detail, perhaps, but one that is worth understanding and getting right. Retaining the flavour of the original culture is every bit as important as choosing the right words. I have the greatest appreciation for the sense of nuance that the translator brings to the process and I’m mindful of that with every stroke of my pencil.

Briony Everroad, Harvill Secker Editor.