LOST IN TRANSLATION

Ten years ago it was hard to believe it, but today there is more and more literature translated into the Azerbaijani language, and not at public expense, but on quite a commercial basis. Belle, Hamsun, Orwell, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Ilf and Petrov - the list of works is widening day by day. In bookstores you can find an impressive and continuously expanding range of contemporary literature and classics in the Azeri language. More and more publishers are interested in translations. But how does this quantitative boom affect quality?

Stimulate the book business

Kifayat Haqverdiyeva is a translator of books. Since 2007 she has been translating books of classics - Hermann Hesse, O Henry and Jack London - into the Azerbaijani language for the Qanun and Altun Kitab publishing houses. She was the first to translate the Harry Potter books for Azerbaijani readers. "The problem is that there is not so much money in this business, and therefore, enthusiasts like me are often engaged in translations," Kifayat says. "It is very little money. For example, sitting in the office from start to finish, you can earn a lot more, and translations are very hard work, though very interesting."

But translations are not always satisfactory, and this is often mentioned by the readers themselves. "At times I visit book fairs and see that readers are not always happy with the result," she says. "Translations can be really different in quality, there are brilliant translations of German authors, and the excellent translation of "1984" by Orwell is very popular today." Literary editor and translator Samira Ahmadbayli says that during the Soviet period the quality of foreign literature in the Azerbaijani language was better, and there were objective reasons for that. "The fact is that publishing was carried out by state order before, and large teams of professionals worked with classical and contemporary texts," says Ahmadbayli. "A whole team of translators, editors, proofreaders and designers worked on every book." The state was engaged in literature, and it was ready to invest money in it. "All these people were given normal fees and had enough time, so the job was of high quality," the editor said. "But now publishers are private, and in a country where books are not so popular, earning a lot of money by publishing books is impossible. So publishers are forced to economize on everything and cut costs, while translators, editors and proofreaders get very little, and respectively, quality falls."

So the end result begins to depend solely on the good faith of those who could "touch the great" as a translator or editor, working on the texts of Kafka, Marquez, Dostoyevsky, and other masters of prose. Often (but not always) not a professional but an amateur decides whether the copy compares with the original.

According to the translator, publishers themselves cannot solve this problem. "There is too little money in the book business", and in this context, only the state itself can help. "State aid may be in the form of exempting the book business from VAT. Thus, it is possible to create good conditions for the development of this business and counteract monopolies," says Ahmadbayli.

Readers' opinions

Oddly enough, the main audience for books in the Azerbaijani language today is the youth. While many say that literature is dying worldwide, we have the reverse process. Reading becomes fashionable. Older reader Taleh says that he has been reading books in Azerbaijani since childhood. "But in this sense, I was a lot luckier than my peers. My mother was director of a library and found rare books for me. Indeed, there were not enough books in Azerbaijani, and one book went around the class. Today the situation is different, there is a great choice, but, alas, it is not always good. Personally, I desperately need a high-quality translation of 'Alice in Wonderland', but this task is very difficult," he said.

Tahir, a 23-year-old man, read books in English and Turkish until recently. "Before, there were no books I needed in Azerbaijani, and it was a good opportunity for me to learn English and Turkish better," he says. "But there were two problems. Books in English and Turkish, especially bestsellers, are very expensive, and the Azerbaijani language is closer to me and I have a better idea of what is happening in the novel." Over the past couple of years, Tahir has amassed a large collection of books in Azerbaijani, and does not miss any new books. "At one point, translations were not of very good quality, but it seems to me that the situation has been changing for the better over the past year," he said.

Indeed, a similar phenomenon when the book boom affected the quality of translation took place in many countries of the former Soviet bloc. And there, too, the situation began to level off over time. In the early 1990s, many publishers emerged in Russia at the same time. Trying to fill the market, they kept translators busy and did not care much about the end result. The main thing is the speed!

As a result, the market was filled with translations of King, Christie, Chase, Sheldon and other popular authors of such poor quality that no publisher dares to republish them now.

Andrzej Sapkowski, a famous Polish bestselling author, recalls that in the 1990s the situation was very similar in Poland. It got to the point that stalls in the metro and even respectable bookstores were filled with adventure stories, all sorts of fiction and all kinds of women's novels of poor quality not only in content, but also in the level of translation. In order to qualitatively stand out on this market, Sapkowski put an emphasis on a good level of Polish in his works, and knowing that the same situation prevails in neighbouring Russia, he personally translated his books into Russian.

The Polish, Russian and Ukrainian book markets "levelled off" and there were two main factors here. The fact that the market is glutted with bad translations made the reader picky. Competition between publishers made them meet this reader demand. Thus, there is every reason to hope that in our country, after reaching its peak, quantity will turn into quality.