Transblawg

I recently profiled a book, Rosa's Child, about a Kindertransport child. That book was co-written with a sort of ghost writer, but the story carried it. Some blog readers have actually got hold of the book, so I am going to recommend some more.

There's something invidious about reading accounts of people's misfortunes in the Third Reich. Sebald said in the Guardian interview that he objected to a film like Schindler's List because in between the shots of deprivation and maltreatment, the extras would be having a chat and enjoying their cups of tea. However, there is a fascination about these autobiographies. And when I was preparing to translate a book on memorial architecture at Dachau, I was drawn to the table of books for general consumption at the Jewish bookshop there - there's a smaller branch in Fürth too. Do look at the website at www.literaturhandlung.de (German only).

I have read the definitive version of Anne Frank's diary this year. Unlike the edition I first read decades ago, this isn't constructed to look as if the whole thing were devised from the outset as letters to Kitty, which made it look as if it had been at least heavily edited by an adult - but there are letters to Kitty, too, and also some extra pages. Anne Frank had two editions in any case, as she intended one for publication after the war. The helpers are given their real names now; the real names of the people hiding in the secret annexe are given in the introduction. As far as I remember, the first edition was just as good.

Another book I picked up in Dachau was Judith Kerr, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. I had heard about this but didn't realize it was so old (1971). It's the first part of a trilogy - the names of the books vary between UK and US - and it's easy to get second-hand copies, e.g. from abebooks.de. Judith Kerr (born 1923) is well-known as the author and illustrator of children's books (after my time) and her brother Michael Kerr (1921 - 2002) was a barrister and judge. Their father, Alfred Kerr, who was 54 when his first child was born, was a famous literary critic, the Reich-Ranicki of his day (although perhaps superior), who had made enemies of both Brecht and Hitler. He therefore had the good fortune, if it can be called that, of having to emigrate in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Ten days before the 1933 elections, he had a visit from an acquaintance who warned him that Hitler planned to deprive him of his passport. As Kerr was in bed with flu rather than out seeing people, he was able to leave the country for Prague at night without drawing attention to this, and his wife and children went to meet him in Switzerland the day before the election. The title of the book makes it sound as if it were the sad story of a little girl who lost her favourite soft toys and always missed them, but I suspect it was a publisher's title - in fact the children had quite an enjoyable time on their emigration, whereas their parents never had a real home of their own again, in Switzerland, France and England, and Alfred Kerr had scarcely any means of financial support. When Michael Kerr had a place to study at Cambridge, he was interned, like other Germans in the UK, no matter how anti-Hitler and pro-British they were. Actually these three books are said to be novels - novels written for children, incidentally - and the names of the brother and sister are changed, but this is definitely an autobiography.

I recently discovered another book of an emigration, from Leipzig to France and the USA. There must be many personal accounts, but this one is particularly well written and it is available as a free e-book online (it originally came out as a hardback). It is by Eve Rosenzweig Kugler, Shattered Crystals. It is written as a first-person account by her mother, Mia Amalia Kanner. Website with information on the time with foster parents in the USA, download Shattered Crystals here. This is the story of a family with three daughters who left Germany much too late, after waiting for year after year for a permit to go to Palestine. The father even spent a few days in Buchenwald. The family spent many years in France, eventually under German occupation, and the two eldest daughters were sent to the USA and lived there for five years (a time in which the daughters became estranged from their parents) with various foster families who were incapable of understanding their situation. The mother was long separated from her youngest daughter too. Both Eve and her younger sister Leah had blanked out their memories before the USA. I don't know whether any of those memories came back when the book, for which Eve had to work closely with Mia, was being written.

Finally, a book I missed when it came out, and of which a film was made which I also missed - and a book which is likely to arouse strong negative feelings in many people for the liberties it takes with history: John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Has anyone else encountered this? I can't say much about it because it is based on a surprise for the reader, which was clear to me from picking it up on the table of holocaust books. In fact it begins in almost exactly the same way as Judith Kerr's, with a nine-year-old boy packing his stuff in Berlin and leaving, never to return - but in this case his father is not an emigrating Jew, but the commandant at Auschwitz. I thought it was an interesting fable.

I've mentioned Michael Bohlander's translation of the German Criminal Code before. That was when he translated both Mord and Totschlag as murder.

I'm not sure that I mentioned his book Principles of German Criminal Law.

The great thing about this book is that the author has thought through the terminology of both German and English criminal law, and all his language is based on an understanding of both. That should go without saying in such a book, of course, but it doesn't.

I was reminded of its usefulness this week when I was translating something about Absicht (dolus directus ersten Grades). I would usually translate this as specific intent - for instance, to be found guilty of theft, you would need to have specific intent to steal. But when it comes to a text that is more detailed, then I need to go to a textbook for more vocabulary.

Categories of Intent and Delineation from Advertent Negligence

Depending on the degree of knowledge and will employed, German law traditionally recognises the following degrees of intent, in descending order:

a) direct intent in the first degree: Absicht, wissentlich, wider besseres Wissen, 'um zu';

b) direct intent in the second degree: Direkter Vorsatz or dolus directus; and

c) conditional intent: Bedingter Vorsatz or dolus eventualis.

I found the term delineation in the heading a bit odd. Advertent negligence is used for bewusste Fahrlässigkeit.

There is more following this introductory list. The book is recommended thoroughly as one of those books comparing two legal systems that are so useful in legal translation.

These are the Bechhöfer twins, Susi (on the left) and Lotte. They were born to an unmarried Jewish mother (and long-time resident of Fürth) in Munich in 1936. They were sent on the Kindertransport to Liverpool Street Station in 1939, and then they were fostered by a Welsh Baptist minister and his wife, who renamed them Grace and Eunice and destroyed all traces of their former life. Their mother Rosa died in Auschwitz. When Susi did her GCE O Level exams she first found out her real name was not Grace Mann but Susi Bechhöfer - Edward Mann could not adopt the twins until they were eighteen.

Lotte had an incurable brain tumour, was ill as a teenager and died at 35. It wasn't until Susi was over 50 that she found out that she was Jewish and how she had come to the UK, and found a cousin and family in New York and a half-sister in Germany.

A TV programme about Susi's story influenced Sebald's Austerlitz - see a Guardian interview shortly before he died. Austerlitz, unlike Susi, was 7 when he left for Britain and had childhood memories he rediscovered:

The story concerns Jacques Austerlitz, who is brought up by Welsh Calvinist foster parents and in his 50s recovers lost memories of having arrived from Prague on the Kindertransport, the lifeline to Britain of some 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish children in 1938-39. It was spurred by watching a Channel 4 documentary on Susie Bechhofer, who in mid-life remembered coming to Wales on the Kindertransport. She shared a birthday with Sebald, May 18, and was from Munich. "That was very close to home," he says.

Susi's husband is Alan Stocken and her son Frederick Stocken, a composer.

You can see a bit of the book in Google books search.

LATER NOTE: apparently the book has been translated into German and was published in 1998.
Jeremy Josephs / Susi Bechhöfer: Rosas Tochter. Bericht über eine wiedergefundene Kindheit. Piper Verlag
München 1998, 191 S., ISBN 3-492-03993-6, DM 36

Social customs

When you go to Germany you will probably want to adapt yourself, in reason, to German customs and conventions. You will find, for instance, that most German men wear hats which they doff with a sweep whenever they meet anyone they know, both male and female. ... Even if you wear a hat, however, there is no need to become flamboyant in acknowledging or giving salutes ...

Ladies should not smoke in the street, although they can do so in restaurants and, without offence, in smoking compartments on trains. There are no special restrictions on women's dress, such as the wearing of slacks.

As the Germans do not show the same self-discipline which Britons possess, you will find that there is no queueing, say for buses, and it is often a case of the most pushing persons being first. Nor do the Germans have our particular sense of humour - theirs is rather a "heavy" brand - so, however well a German may speak English, he will seldom be able to understand (or appreciate) what I might term "sly digs." It is best to be careful in this respect.

You should learn how to schunkeln, which is a swaying of the body to keep time with music or singing, usually linking arms with those next to you - even if you do not know them. This sociable action occurs quite frequently in places where people are in a merry mood, so there is no reason why you should be the odd person out.

Gordon Cooper, Your Holiday in Germany, 2nd ed. 1957

(originally recommended, I think, by Count Des)

It's been widely reported, even in English-language papers, that a vault containing Franz Kafka's papers was opened in Zurich yesterday, I believe in the presence of several people including one Germanist.

The Independent:

Just why it has taken so long for the hidden manuscripts to see the light of day is a story of Kafkaesque proportions in itself. Born in Prague in 1883, Franz Kafka – whose surname means "magpie" in Czech – was a little-known Jewish writer with a handful of published German stories to his name when he died.

I don't know why we need to be told that Kafka means magpie in Czech - especially since it doesn't, it means jackdaw. Not that I know any Czech, but Google thinks magpie might be straka.

LATER NOTE (August 2010): here is a photo of a jackdaw on Fürther Freiheit:

I summarized a number of small German-English law dictionaries some time ago. Here's another one, by Karin Linhart: Wörterbuch Recht, Beck Verlag.

Now a review of this dictionary, in German, by Christine Haselwarter, has appeared in the ADÜ Nord Infoblatt, 2/2010, available online as a PDF at www.adue-nord.de.

As I've said before, I don't think these small dictionaries are so useful for translators, because there are bigger ones available and there is a limit to the number one wants to consult. But they are an ideal size to be carried in a bag, for instance by law students.

This seems to me - on a cursory inspection - a good and reliable dictionary from US legal English into German. It has a number of Infokästchen - boxes on a grey background with extra information - very popular with students and with the review too. For instance, on contingency fees (only US), punitive damages, zealous lawyer (seems to be a US term), jurisdiction (US only) and many more. There are frequent references to US terms that are not translated into German, but cited and explained. In the DE>EN direction, there are fewer boxes.

There is extra material at the end, for example ten rules on how German lawyers should behave 'im englisch-sprachigen Ausland'. Here I note that Karin Linhart is familiar with US law and South African law, but I don't know how far her rules apply to all common-law countries. For example, there is no need to use euphemisms when looking for the loo in the UK - in fact, it might be counter-productive. I have my doubts about South Africa too, but I've never been there ('Fragen Sie niemals nach der "Toilet"!).

So without doing a proper full review, I would just like to say I think this dictionary should be seen in an American context, and I think that's what very many German law students want in any case.

There is another book by Karin Linhart, Englische Rechtssprache - Ein Studien- und Arbeitsbuch. I really must say I have no idea why the book is so huge - A4 with thick paper. The paper may be because one's supposed to write the answers on it. The nice thing about this book is that it really is full of exercises, with fairly short introductions. It has suggested solutions in the back. Many books on English for lawyers, at least those written for lawyers, have pages and pages of reading and only short exercises, if any. For those who want the terminology first and learn vocabulary in this way, this is an attractive volume. There are many English-German lists and comments on vocabulary too. The book is based on Karin Linhart's work with students at Würzburg University. (Incidentally, there is a small section on Office Language, quite useful I think, with terms like paperclip, stapler, ring binder, hole punch - this EN>DE list possibly explains the presence of some of the terms the ADÜ dictionary reviewer found superfluous).

LATER NOTE: Richard Schreiber has an entry on this dictionary at the Übersetzerportal.

There is a new edition of the BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English available, 24 euros for the paperback. Here is a PDF workbook which gives a good impression of the contents.

According to the John Benjamins Book Gazette, the new edition has 20% more material. It looks to me as if it has much more information on BE/AmE differences.

I had meanwhile gone over to the Oxford Collocations Dictionary. (amazon lets you look inside). That seems larger, and it has some pages summarizing differences which might be useful for foreign learners. In the middle, it also has some workbook pages it describes as 'photocopiable', which I suppose means free to use in class without copyright considerations.

Since I only use these books occasionally to get an idea for a verb combination, I appreciate the fact that I have found them both reliable and full.

The first edition used to be available online, but if anyone is looking for an online collocations dictionary (the search words that most frequently bring people to this site), Mark Davies' page at Brigham Young University is the way to go.

As for German collocations, if you search for a word in DWDS, it will show you some collocations too.

Nicky Harman teaches technical translation at Imperial College, London, and translates modern Chinese novels in her spare time.

There is a video interview with her at Jostrans.

See also Paper Republic, a site of resources on Chinese literature for publishers and translators, which I believe she helped seet up.

Last year I read a novel translated by Nicky and published by the University of Hawaii Press, Banished! by Han Dong. Google Books has a bit on it.

I was persuaded to buy it at Arthur Probsthain last year by Mr Probsthain when I was stocking up on translations of classical Chinese novels. Banished! is a partly autobiographical account of banishment to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. It is not strictly chronological. It starts with the family's journey to the countryside and ends with what happened some years later, but in between the earlier story of the family is sketched in, and a number of thematically arranged chapters move from the more straightforward elements such as the choice of a village to go to, the journey to the village, and life there, to a variety of difficulties.

On the Google Books page, you can see the Notes on Translation, where Harman explains the use of terms like CultRev for the Cultural Revolution - which I found odd. I also wondered about using an exclamation mark in the title.

The novel gives a very detailed account of what the village was like, how the family planned to survive (the father's first plan was to Strike Root, to settle the family in the village as that might be the best they could hope, and Strike Root was the meaning of the original Chinese title). It also describes the various ways people had of dealing with the Cultural Revolution and banishment, whatever their position in society. One chapter traces the history of the family's four dogs, at least three of whom were eaten by the villagers, partly because they were better fed than most dogs. The author does not condemn the characters. He gives a rather descriptive view of life during the Cultural Revolution, through which the suffering gradually appears.

The villagers were consumed with envy at first when they saw the Taos feeding meat to their dog. Then they relaxed. They actually hoped that the Taos would fatten him up even more, into delicious dog meat. Patch was converting the Taos' meals into food that they could eat. They had already found out that the Taos did not eat dog meat, especially not Patch's meat (they quite understood this). But dogs were there to be eaten. If he were not, it would be a waste of a nice, fat dog.

Anyway, Google Books now allows you to read the beginning.

I had also read K – The Art of Love by Hong Ying, which I didn't realize till now that Harman had translated. It was based on Julian Bell's relationship with a married Chinese woman in the 1930s - see Wikipedia.

There have been some reports on prizes for literary translators recently. As one of my commenters said elsewhere, it's time we had a prize for non-literary translators! I know literary translators do a great job, but I sometimes have a reprehensible feeling of 'How can X have the nerve to be a full-time literary translator when it doesn't pay the rent?' Of course if that were followed, we would probably have no authors either, so it needs rethinking.

Anyway, the Times Online reports in Found in Translation on the TLS translation prizes. It also mentions Ralph Manheim's translation of Mein Kampf:

Ralph Manheim, an American, was commissioned to translate Mein Kampf in the early years of the Second World War. It has remained the definitive, scholarly edition of a volume that has long been banned in Germany. Its peculiar skill lies in replicating the ranting, incoherent and prolix tone of the original.

(For another early English translation, see the end of this blog entry)

That 'banned in Germany' is not exactly true, as has been mentioned here in comments before. The copyright is owned by the Land of Bavaria and has been relinqished for the English, Swedish and Dutch editions: I quote Wikipedia (English and German):

The government of Bavaria, in agreement with the federal government of Germany, refuses to allow any copying or printing of the book in Germany, and opposes it also in other countries but with less success. Owning and buying the book is legal. Trading in old copies is legal as well, unless it is done in such a fashion as to "promote hatred or war," which is generally illegal under anti-revisionist laws.

The German article reports that the Munich Institut für Zeitgeschichte has begun to prepare a critical edition. Work began in 2009 and is expected to take about 5 years. (The copyright runs out in 2015).

The English article reports that there was a defective official translation into English, discovered in 2008:

A previously unknown English translation was discovered in 2008 which was produced by the official Nazi printing office, Franz Eher Verlag. The Nazi propaganda ministry hired James Murphy to create an English version of Mein Kampf they hoped to use to promote Nazi goals in English speaking countries. While Murphy was in Germany, he became less enchanted with Nazi ideology and made some statements the Propaganda Ministry disliked. As a result, they asked him to leave Germany immediately. He was not able to take any of his notes but later sent his wife back to obtain his partial translation.[5] These notes were later used to create the Murphy translation. The Nazi government did not abandon their English translation efforts. They used their own people to finish the translation and it was published in very small numbers in Germany. At least one copy found its way to a British/American Prisoner of War camp. This version is filled with errors including punctuation and grammar mistakes. It is however an interesting effort because it was the only official English translation produced by the Nazi government and printed on Nazi printing presses. This translation has been re-published and is available as a new printed book.

This translation is available at Project Gutenberg.

LATER NOTE: I see that a James Murphy translation appeared in the USA in 2003, so the above is not quite correct. But anyone who is interested can pursue it further! James Murphy apparently died in 1946.

EVEN LATER NOTE: A FAZ article on James Murphy can be found in the Deutsch-Österreichisches Informationsjournal (scroll down to 'Wie die NS-Propaganda um die Gunst des englischen Publikums warb'). There is some detail about Murphy's life in Germany.

(Thanks to Sarah for original Times link)

Can anyone tell me why Lustrum by Robert Harris, the second volume of the trilogy on ancient Rome, is called Conspirata in the USA?

(Titan is the name of the German translation by Wolfgang Müller).

Maybe they confuse lustrum with lust over there?

The Observer reviews Manhood, by Mels van Driel.

And as for rigour, well I am no urologist, but I do doubt whether researchers really found that the "average diameter of the fully erect penis was approximately 121mm". That is nearly five inches or about the same size, in cross section, as a compact disc. A simple mistake, I'm sure, substituting diameter for circumference, but such things ought to matter in this book.

Earlier in the review:

And yet, even when one has finished the task of absolving him and his translator from their many sins of style and punctuation, Van Driel's book remains, by any normal measure, a botched job.

Yet no other example of translator's errors are given, and the punctuation may be down to the editor. At amazon.co.uk you can look inside the book and see if it reads badly. It reads well to me. The translator, Paul Vincent, has a good reputation in the ITI. I wonder if the reviewer is getting carried away.

The German Book Office New York issues lists of German non-fiction books whose rights can be bought for translation into English (it has fiction lists too). Here's a link to Spring 2009 (PDF).

The Folks in Germany in the Empire and the Weimar Republic.
Folk groups, which had an ideology that was based on racist nationalist...Stefan Breuer, expert in the area of radical flows of the 19th and 20th century...

Völkisch movement (Wikipedia)

I also had my doubts about the Children's Oddesy - on the run from the Third Reich in the promised land (by Jutta Vogel).

Mind you, this is a context where perfect translation doesn't matter too much.

I've now finished this novel. I took some advice from the internet to split it in two and also split the footnotes in two, although my copy did not have as many pages as the hardback, but the pages were more closely printed. The only reason I went on reading till the end was because some of the reviews said that people who have read the whole thing then want to start reading it again. I can reveal that the only reason for this is that the plot is left completely in the air, so maybe people want to read again to see if they can find any clues.

Clues to potential later events, including spoilers, at Notes and Speculations. Many other links too here. Some reviews.

This book appeared in a German translation earlier this year. The translation was clearly very good. At the time, there was also high praise for the novel - see Iris Radisch here (German).

Wer den Beckmesser spielen wollte, müsste sagen: Als Roman ist das Ding aus dem Ruder gelaufen. Aber es handelt sich, gerade deshalb, um große Kunst. Es ist komisch bis zum Kalauer und erschütternd bis zum schwer Erträglichen. Wer es gelesen hat, ist danach ein anderer.

I have severe doubts about that.

When I first started reading Bryan Garner on legal English, little did I know he would one day write a book on American English usage. This is a book that has a recommendation on the cover by William Safire and came out in its third edition in August. Here it is at amazon.com. You can read his defence of his prescriptivism in the preface there.

I hope this doesn't keep him away from legal usage. But perhaps, having written on that subject and revised Black's Law Dictionary, he has had enough of it.

At all events, Bryan Garner has sent out a call for his readers to buy one or more copies of the new third edition at www.amazon.com or www.bn.com

This is because the main U.S. bookstore chains are not stocking the book and they have told OUP that they consider usage guides a "defunct category".

It might be even better for Americans to go to their bookstore and order it.

Or why not order the Chicago Style Guide, or, for Britain, New Hart's Rules, or Judith Butcher on copyediting? Here's a Wikipedia list.

I'm not sure what the situation of British bookshop chains is, but I suppose even if Germany is being Thalia-ized, the Duden is safe.

Here's the rest of Garner's email, which someone sent to me:

If you’re curious to see what effect you’re having, watch the rankings on Amazon.com or Bn.com in coming days and weeks. We’ll be alerting the major chains to those numbers, and we want to get as close to the top 50 as we can. If you're trying to order and see that the book is labeled "out of stock," order anyway: the effort is also to ensure that the online booksellers keep adequate stocks.

In return for this favor – it’s a grassroots effort – I’ll be happy to inscribe copies that you send to LawProse for that purpose, if you (1) include a filled-out FedEx airbill for returning them to you, and (2) suggest an appropriate inscription.

Thank you for whatever help you can provide in this endeavor to show booksellers that the concern for good English is alive and well.

Bryan A. Garner

Bryan A. Garner
LawProse, Inc.
14180 Dallas Parkway
Suite 280
Dallas, TX 75254
(214) 691-8588

In DDR Pulps, John Brownlee doesn't give a shit about the difference between East and West Germany (see comments):

I was a tad vague, and used a bad example to start the series. Also, ultimately, I don’t give a shit. Still, this one may very well have been from East Germany, considering it was published in 1993. The Deutschemark was being used even in East Germany then.

Apart from anything else, one wonders if the artwork on 'Rückkehr der Saurier' was done in Germany at all.

(Via Boing Boing - more comments there)