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| Dr Nazry Bahrawi, Singapore University of Technology & Design |
What aroused your
interest in translation, and what was the first piece you ever translated?
My journey to
literary translation began as an academic interest. As a doctoral student
reading comparative literature at the University of Warwick, I was supervised
by Susan Bassnett, a household name in translation theory. So, while my thesis
wasn’t directly about translation, I began to explore this field of study first
through conversations with her. Today, I continue to research into translation
to unveil its multifaceted role at shaping what scholars call ‘world
literature’. As an indication of just how complicated translation can get, I’ve
published a comparative analysis of the Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia
versions of Syed Hussein Alatas’ seminal book The Myth of the Lazy Native and
found that the former sharpens the ethnic divide between Malays and Chinese in
line with the Malaysian ruling party’s (UMNO) ideology of ketuanan Melayu
(Malay supremacy). This affirms the proposal that translation is mired in
practices of patronage and power as the translation theorist André Lefevere had
pointed out in his book Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary
Fame. This was one of my earliest academic essays. It’d convinced me to dive
deeper into translation research.
After my studies
in 2013, I returned to Singapore. This was when my first foray into literary
translation as practice began. Then, literary translation was starting to gain
traction in my multilingual city-island, though there'd been attempts in the
past. I was invited to deliver a public lecture about translation, and I was
excited to share what I’ve learnt with others. After the lecture, I was
approached by the playwright Nadiputra, a Cultural Medallion winner in
Singapore, to translate a musical that he was writing from Bahasa to English. I
said yes, and the result was a bilingual publication titled Muzika Lorong Buang
Kok (Lorong Buang Kok: The Musical), a play about the last kampong (village) in
urban Singapore. I’ve found the process to be nothing short of cathartic.
Embodying first-hand some of the challenges I’ve read about made the practice
of translation even more complex than I've imagined, and this made it alluring
– an enigma that’s inviting me to explore its depths. Today, I’ve translated
short stories and poems, surtitles for a theatrical adaptation of Anthony
Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, subtitles for a 1960 black-and-white Malay movie
as well as judged a translation contest. Most recently, I partook in a
performance-lecture about my process as a literary translator.
Who are the most
exciting writers in Bahasa Melayu today?
I’m glad you've
asked this. I want to preface my answer by saying that literary works from the
Malay world – encompassing the modern nation-states of Malaysia, Singapore,
Brunei and Indonesia – are not well-read outside of their own jurisdiction.
That said, my favourite contemporary author is Eka Kurniawan. While he’s been
described as the next Marquez, I think he’s charting his own path, drawing on
local folklore and narrative styles rather than blindly mimicking Marquez’s
style. But, Eka’s already making his mark in literary circles given that his
novel Man Tiger was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize.
So I’d like to bring
out some works by other talented authors. At the moment, I’m taken by the
writings of Farihan Bahron, a poet and author on the rise in Singapore. I’m in
the process of translating some of his works for an anthology, and I’ve found
it challenging to mimic the rhyme and rhythm of his flowery prose. I hope to
bring justice to his writings for the wider world soon. Speaking of aesthetics,
I’ve also found the work of Indonesian author Nukila Amal to be beautiful in
the original. I’m in the midst of reading her novel Cala Ibi which has been
translated as The Original Dream by Linda Owens for Amazon Crossing. The most
exciting writer from Malaysia is the prolific Faisal Tehrani whose maverick and
erudite novels have often been banned. The Professor is his latest translated
work, and would appeal to anyone interested in the clash of liberal and
conservative values in Malaysia. You can tell that I’m a fan of contemporary
writing especially if these are works that experiment with forms yet speak to
current affairs.
In one of your
interviews, you say, “It is important to note that a translator does not need
to agree with everything the author whom s/he translates.” Could you give us an
example of something that you translated that you disagreed with?
It is precisely
this concern that my artistic collaborators (Nabilah Said and Adib Kosnan) and
I wanted to explore in-depth through the format of a performance-lecture that
I’ve mentioned earlier. Titled Rasa Sarang, this performance-lecture was based
on my experience translating a short story written by Mohamed Latiff Mohamed,
one of Singapore’s most renowned Malay authors, for his short story collection,
Lost Nostalgia. Composed about four decades ago, the story recounts a whirlwind
love affair between a Malay man and a Korean woman in Seoul. While translating
this story, I was troubled by what I saw as reductive renderings of two things
– the female figure and a foreign culture. Yet, I also know the author as a
stand-up person, a literary father-figure, who is concerned about the plights
of the downtrodden in society. It’s highly likely that he wasn’t trying to be
exploitative, that he was a man of his time. My experience with Malay prose of
the 1980s is that very little of them account for ‘intersectionality’ or
‘gender performativity’ even when they were written by a female author. My
publisher and I had discussed the possibility of removing this story from the
collection, but we eventually decided against it because this accounts as
censorship. I’ve decided then to make minor tweaks to the story that would give
it some measure of satire. The clearest instance of this was its title. Instead
of literally translating it to ‘The Love of a Korean Woman’, I’ve decided to
call it ‘K-Love’ which feeds into the hallyu craze of K-pop and K-dramas. I
imagine that the title alone would give pause to someone familiar with Bahasa
to think through some of the word and phrasing choices I’ve made in the text.
Hopefully, that reader will revisit the original to compare. And if the reader
has no knowledge of Bahasa, then I’m hoping that the title would signal to them
that the story may be satirical. And that they could still enjoy reading it.
I’m still on the fence as to whether this was the best decision but it
represented what I thought was the best move to not censor the author while
still addressing my unease as a translator. In the interest of transparency, I
felt that it's important to relate what I did to the readers, and I did this
through my translator’s afterword. I much prefer writing an afterword than a
foreword because this lowers the chances of influencing the way a text is
read.
In a fascinating
conversation you had with Susan Basnett,
she gives a very interesting example of mutually incompatible styles, and the
challenges that they pose to translators. Are stylistic differences a problem
when translating from Bahasa Melayu to English?
The differences
between languages are riveting to me. True to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which
has it that the languages you speak influence the way you think, I’ve found
that the Arabic language, which I’m currently learning, is more mathematical in
structure than Bahasa or English. Let me revisit some examples from ‘K-Love’ to
demonstrate stylistic differences between Bahasa and English. You’ll find that
there’s some truth here to Basnett’s observation that British English
understates, and I’ve used this feature to satirise the short story. A scene in
the story describes the male protagonist Yadi fantasising about his crush
Hyun-soo, a Korean woman, one night in his hotel room. The line reads:
“Alangkah manisnya jika tubuhnya dapat dibaluti oleh kain kebaya dan kain
songket”. Literally, it should read something like: “How sweet it would be if
her body was enveloped in kebaya and songket”. Instead, this was what I did:
“You would look so sweet in kebaya and songket”. A Bahasa reader might think
that there appears to be a terseness, even cold distance, in the English
translation. In terms of aesthetics, the original Bahasa sentence sounds much
more florid. But I’ve decided to downplay it as my way of silently protesting,
even distancing myself from the assumptions within the sentence. Another
stylistic difference between the two languages concerns idioms and metaphors.
In this same story, the author Mohamed Latiff uses the word ‘sembilu’ to
describe Hyun-soo’s reaction to Yadi staring intensely at her. In Malay, the
word ‘sembilu’ means ‘a sharp pain’ though its use often denotes a welcoming
kind of intensity, and this is the meaning that Mohamed Latiff was probably
going for in the context of this story. Translated into English, though, the
word vaguely suggests that the stare is disturbing, and I’ve left it at that.
This accounts for another instance of how I’ve articulated my unease.
Anything you’d
like to add about any translation projects you are currently working on?
I’m excited about
the two translation projects I’m working on this year. The first is a late
nineteenth century Malay epic poem whose title I shouldn’t reveal yet. I would
say that this has been a challenging task because I’m attempting to retain some
semblance of the strict rhyme pattern of the pantun style. Most translations of
old epic poems aren’t as concerned about rhyme and rhythm. I see this as my
humble contribution to introduce a piece of classical Malay work to the wider
world. I’m also editing an English short story collection of Malay science
fiction from Singapore that'll also feature some stories that I’ve translated
from Bahasa, including some works by Farihan Bahron. I see this volume as an
important intervention to the state of race relations in Singapore because one
of the things I hope to achieve here is to challenge the view that the ethnic
minority Malays aren’t scientific or futuristic in their outlook, an
unfortunate stereotype that’s inherited from the British and Dutch colonisation
of the Malay Archipelago. The idea of the lazy native. Lastly, my plan next
year is to translate a novel from a notable Malaysian author. This too is
thrilling and I’m currently at the early stage of exploring possibilities.
