The Millions

Translation as a Condition of Life: The Millions Interviews Aron Aji

Before I took the translation workshop with Aron Aji at the University of Iowa, I had translated two novels from English to Chinese. Literary translation struck me as hard labor, often times low paying. But Aji’s class turned out to be a life-changing experience for me.

When I began translating from my native Chinese to English for his class, I thought I must be “faithful” to the original text (words, phrases, and sentences) so I wouldn’t lose or distort the work’s meaning. But my initial translations were too awkward to resonate with any of my English-speaking classmates. I had a meeting with Aji in which he asked me to read him the Chinese text. I did. And I was astonished to see that he—someone who doesn’t speak Chinese—could correctly point out the rhythm, cadence, and emphasis of every sentence. He showed me that sometimes I could move away in order to get closer.

I had always wanted to share Aji’s brilliance with more translators, readers, and literary tourists in between languages and cultures. So we had the following conversation shortly before I left Iowa in July.

In this interview, he points out problematic nature of the words “mother tongue:” the phrase is itself a social/ideological construct that serves the power of modern nation-states. One’s command of language is not determined by birthplace, but by practice. He also speaks about our current “Age of Translation,” when myriad speakers can skirt the many gatekeeps in the publishing industry and find new voices, forms, and ideas to enrich our literary world culture.

The Millions: You were raised in a household where four languages—Ladino, Hebrew, Turkish, and French—were spoken. What was that experience like? How has that upbringing shaped you as a translator?

Aron Aji: I was born and grew up in Izmir, the second most cosmopolitan city in late Ottoman period and the early Turkish Republic. A port city, Izmir was home to several Levantine communities, including Greek, Italian, French, Armenian, and others. Practically speaking, many residents of Izmir interacted in a rich translational space because quotidian life, from basic commerce to business, brought them into contact with people outside their respective language communities.

TM: What was a typical day like in a multi-lingual city like that? For example, what language did you speak when you bought groceries?

Our multi-lingual house was located inside the larger multi-lingual city, although by the time I was born Izmir saw an influx of newcomers from the provinces, and Turkish became the language of small trades, say, while buying groceries. Before I attended elementary school, I had significant exposure to Ladino (the Spanish spoken by the Sephardic Jews who had arrived in the city in 1492, after they were expelled from Spain), French (the lingua-franca practiced among the Levantines), and Hebrew (our liturgical language). My grandmother did not like speaking in her broken Turkish and insisted that we all learn and speak Ladino. In

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