VO-VF Festival: "Make Gif-sur-Yvette the capital of translation"
View of the round table around the editions of the Portrait, with the translators Céline Leroy, Rachèle Bevilacqua (editor), Laurence Richard and Mona de Pracontal, during the VO-VF Festival in 2019. © Juliette Berny / VoVf
Text by: RFI Follow
71 mins
“The translators speak best about books.
The 8th edition of the VO-VF Festival dedicated to translation will be held from October 2 to 4, in Gif-sur-Yvette, a few RER stations from the center of Paris.
This annual event brings together translators and audiences who love - sometimes rare - languages and foreign literature.
Publicity
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By Françoise Delignon,
This year, the Far North is in the spotlight, but there will be something for everyone!
Keeping the VO-VF festival in the midst of a health crisis “
is an act of resistance
!
», Says Hélène Pourquié, bookseller in Gif-sur-Yvette and at the origin of the festival with her colleague Pierre Morize.
The only general public event dedicated to translation in France will take place in accordance with current health protocols: reservations required, reduced-size rooms, signposted circulation and unique dishes for the festive meal, taken outdoors under the hall of the Place du market.
However, lectures and debates in the great hall of the Château du Val Fleury will be broadcast live on the festival's youtube channel.
The trigger of the festival
At the start of this festival, there is the Liragif bookstore - an almost perfect anagram of "the giraffe", a mascot that sits in the store - where Hélène Pourquié, previously translator from Italian, and Pierre Morize, author of a documentary for Arte on the diversity of languages, used to organize meetings with foreign authors.
It was on the occasion of one of them that the festival clicked: the Iranian writer Zoyâ Pirzâd and her translator and interpreter Christophe Balaÿ came to present a book at the bookstore, and while the The author was rather reserved, her translator had been particularly talkative and fascinating, presenting the context and the genesis of the novel, and adding anecdotes to her about the text he knew from the inside for having translated it.
“
This is where we said to ourselves that the translators speak best about books,
” explains Pierre Morize.
The festival would, moreover, be the means of publicizing a bookstore which, because it was too far from the center of Paris, struggled to attract people, even when it invited a renowned foreign writer.
View of the Château du Val Fleury, location of the VO-VF Festival dedicated to translation which will take place from October 2 to 4, in Gif-sur-Yvette.
© Juliette Berny / VoVf
When prestigious translators meet the general public
Successful bet.
In recent years, the festival has welcomed 3,000 people - a reduced number in 2020 due to the health context.
The idea of bringing translators and readers together is central for the two booksellers: “
Translators are people in the shadows, easier to contact than authors.
Very quickly came prestigious, learned translators, little known to the general public but recognized in their profession
”explains Pierre Morize.
"
Translators who were, at the same time, delighted to share with the general public, to get out of the
core
of the profession
" continues Hélène Pourquié.
In the green setting of Gif, very close to the many university or research centers of the Chevreuse Valley, in the friendly atmosphere of the festival, the debates, of high quality, are lively, and the public, open, curious, lovers of foreign literature asks for more.
The figures, moreover, speak for themselves, since 40% of the literature sold in France is foreign literature (against only 3% in the United States).
The festival also seeks to highlight rare languages, to respond to another imbalance which means that 60% of foreign books sold in France are books translated from English.
A festival for the general public, completely free
From its first edition, the festival has welcomed distinguished guests (Claro, André Markowicz, Albert Bensoussan, translator of Mario Vargas Llosa, Pierre Assouline, author of a report on translation in France ...) and received the support of institutions: the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations Inalco (an Inalco translation prize will be awarded during the festival), the Bulacc, i.e. the Inalco library, the association for the promotion of literary translation Atlas, the CNL (National Book Center) and ETL, a translation school created by Olivier Mannoni, the Isit which trains in translation and interpreting, the Île-de-France region, etc., as many important partnerships for the festival, which, in order to remain a festival for the general public, insists on being completely free, thanks to the support of 50 volunteers, locals or students of translation and languages.
Another clue showing that the festival is aimed at all audiences: children's programming.
Pierre Morize: “
We quickly realized that the issue of translation was going in all directions.
We organized meetings on the translation of cookbooks, thrillers or essays.
There is something for everyone, and translating children's books is a real question.
Many children's albums are translated, and their translation is often very constrained, because it must be done in connection with the image.
This year, with a program that highlights the literature of the Far North, children will be able, for example, to attend an introductory workshop to Inuit writing, with the Inuksuk association.
The translator André Markowicz in Gif-sur-Yvette, during the VO-VF Festival in 2019 © Juliette Berny / VoVf
The music of the language, from Toni Morrison to Vyssotsky
For adults, the events on offer are not limited to classic round tables.
"
Translators often speak of the music of the language, which is what gave us the idea to diversify, to mix genres,
" notes Claire Darfeuille, head of programming.
Thus, this year, there will be a musical reading in tribute to Toni Morrison, on October 3.
The next day, songs deemed untranslatable by the Russian poet and singer Vyssotsky will be sung by Yves Gauthier, his translator and biographer, with Slava Ardachev.
The public will also discover an exhibition on comics in the Maghreb, will be able to watch, in the presence of the director, the Nurith Aviv film on Yiddish, or the documentary by Henry Colomer:
Voices in the heart
- praise of the translators.
Finally, as every year, we will be able to buy books at the ephemeral bookstore whose profits are donated to the association that manages the festival.
How do we live between several languages
?
One of the inaugural screenings of the 2020 festival will be a cross interview between Barbara Cassin and Gilberte Tsaï.
“
The issues raised by translation echo many other questions, whether they are philosophical or topical, as Barbara Cassin argues
: how do we welcome the other, how do we live between several cultures , several languages -
highly topical questions
, ”comments Claire Darfeuille.
Writers who have chosen French as their writing language, although speakers of another language, are also present at the VO-VF festival.
This year, the Présence africaine editions will host a meeting with the Senegalese writer Ken Bugul, whose French sometimes borrows from Wolof.
The festival organizers say they are interested in "
a French reconfigured or enriched by other languages, a French whose
arm
had to be
twisted
a little
", so that it can translate other languages.
Long before the health crisis, the festival was already going on on its very rich website festivalvo-vf.com: meetings from previous years to listen to on Soundcloud, links to radio or TV shows devoted to translation, Facebook page… This summer , a series of short videos feature translators talking about a book they have translated.
For this virtual extension of the festival, the idea, again, came at a precise moment.
A debate on the Kurdish language made available to Internet users
“
We had organized, with Bulac, a fascinating meeting on Kurdish literature,
underlines Pierre Morize,
because Kurdish is an important language, never taught.
There is a very interesting history of the diaspora, and we see how the translation enriches the Kurdish language.
We were very proud to have gathered, one Sunday morning, in Gif-sur-Yvette, around thirty people around such a particular subject and it seems important to us to make available on the internet content likely to interest readers. spread all over the world.
"
“
Our goal is to make Gif the capital of translation,
” says Claire Darfeuille with mischief.
In the meantime, let us wish the festival version 2020 good success, the extension of its network at the service of translators and their meeting with readers.
The poster for the VO-VF Festival dedicated to translation which will take place from October 2 to 4, in Gif-sur-Yvette.
© VoVf Festival
As a contribution to this network under construction, here is the link to a montage of sound archives from RFI and INA, presented last year at a Franco-German conference,
Translators in the global archives
.
We can hear the voices of two personalities present at Gif this year: Barbara Cassin and Claude Bleton, honored translator for the 2020 edition. We also talk about machine translation (also mentioned during a round table at Gif) , and a subject dear to the festival is tackled: translators, the best readers of the work they have translated.
(Please find the sequence details and the names of the speakers in these sound archives on the list below.)
Translators in the radio archives (editing of sound archives produced by Françoise Delignon and Thomas Trochaud).
RFI
ANNEX
Translators in the radio archives
: a sound sample
Montage of archival sounds from INA and RFI collections, presented as part of the international conference:
"
Translators' collection in the global archives /
5th Thinking in languages meeting - In Sprachen denken
",
at the Mémoires de l'Edition Contemporaine Institute, IMEC,
Caen, November 28, 2019
Archive research and design:
Françoise Delignon
Editing and mixing:
Thomas Trochaud
The dates indicated correspond to the first broadcast date.
"Machine translation" sequence:
Report from the 40th Lépine competition
12/09/1949
RDF / RTF / INA
Sequence Elmar Tophoven:
Extract from: The good pleasure / Nathalie Sarraute
Producer: Kaye Mortley
05/11/1985
France Culture / INA subsequently
cited as: The good pleasure Nathalie Sarraute / 1985
Translating: a passion, luck, a job
?
Claude Bleton
“
Reading a text is a bit like watching a show, and translating it is watching it from behind the scenes.
»
Extract from: Entre
lesignes 05/16/2004
Producer: Kathrin Rousseau
RFI / INA
Marthe Robert
“
I started translating only for others.
»
Extract from: Bare voice: great talks of yesterday and today, part 2
19/03/1991
Producer: Katharina von Bülow
France Culture / INA
André Markowicz
“
So my mother knew Efim Etkind…
”
Extract from: In G major
Producer: Yasmine Chouaki
RFI / INA
Andreas Staikos
“
I started translating to keep my Greek.
»
Extract from: Carnet nomade / To live is to translate?
Producer: Colette Fellous
05/16/2003
France Culture / INA
Agnès Desarthe
“
I was in pain everywhere.
»
Extract from: Avoir raison with
Producer: Geneviève Brisac
08/14/2017
France Culture / INA
Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt
“
I didn't want to translate.
»
Extract from: Ideas
Producer: Benoît Ruelle
02/15/2004
RFI / INA
Bernard Hoepffner
“
I am a manual, I am not an intellectual.
»
Extract from: Eclectik
Producer: Rebecca Manzoni
09/21/2008
France Inter / INA
“Automatic translation” sequence:
Extract from: Knowledge of man / Scientific study of language, 31: The translating machines
22/08/1962
INA
Elmar Tophoven sequence:
Extract from: Radio creation workshop / A weighing of words
Producer: Jean-Loup Rivière
Recording of Elmar Tophoven: Kaye Mortley
01/31/1982
France Culture / INA subsequently
cited as: ACR / A weighing of words / 1982
"
Translating is the best way to read a text
" (Italo Calvino)
Jacques Derrida
opening the 15th Assises of Literary Translation, and delivering the speech which will then be published under the title "What is a relevant translation?"
»:
Extract from: Staccato / Translation in all its states
11/16/1998
France Culture / INA
Guy Regis Junior
reading an extract from his translation of Proust in Creole
Extract from: In G major
Producer: Yasmine Chouaki
09/08/2013
RFI / INA
Guy Regis Junior
“I absolutely wanted to read this text and be steeped in it.
»
Extract from: In G major
Producer: Yasmine Chouaki
08/09/2013
RFI / INA
France Culture / INA
Bernard Hoepffner
“We read every comma.
»
Extract from: Eclectik
Producer: Rebecca Manzoni
09/21/2008
France Inter / INA
Tiphaine Samoyault
“Translation is such a close reading, so physical…”
Extract from: Le rendez-vous / Arthur Nauzyciel, Tiphaine Samoyault
Producer: Laurent Goumarre
01/06/2014
France Culture / INA
“Automatic translation” sequence:
Extract from: The risk of translating
Producers: Andrée Appercelle, Georges Kassai
06/02/1967
France Culture / INA
Sequence Elmar Tophoven:
The good pleasure Nathalie Sarraute / 1985
The translator
: the one who disappears or the one who imposes his voice
?
The example of Armand Robin
Philippe Jaccottet
“
Armand Robin, in his translations, it is really his own language that stands out.
»
Extract from: Affinités electives
Producer: Francesca Isidori
04/17/2008
France Culture / INA
Extract from a program produced by Armand Robin
Extract from: Poésie sans passeport / Poésie Néerlandaise
25/01/1953
INA
Antoine Berman
“
There are those who criticize him for being too literal and those on the contrary who criticize him for being too free.
»
Extract from: The paths of knowledge / Armand Robin, anarchist of grace: part 3
Producer: Roger Dadoun
04/10/1989
France Culture / INA
"Automatic translation" sequence:
Extract from: Les afternoons de France Culture
03/18/1977
France Culture / INA
Sequence Elmar Tophoven:
jealous - eifersüchtig
The good pleasure Nathalie Sarraute / 1985
Fidelity or interpretation?
Efim Etkind
“
The beauties are unfaithful in different ways.
»
Extract from: The risk of translating
Producers: Andrée Appercelle, Georges Kassai
02/06/1967
France Culture / INA
Maurice Pons
'
... find an equivalent in French to verbal delirium Norman Mailer ...
"
Excerpt from: Wide / Translators filigree
Producers: Françoise Estebe Andre Marcowicz
26/03/1996
France Culture / INA
Jacques Lacarrière
“
… the interpretation with what it has of arbitrariness and essential, as in music…
”
Extract from: Open letters / Literary magazine
Producers: Roger Vrigny, Eveline Schlumberger, Christian Giudicelli, Jean Paul Horn, Patrick Besson, Martine Cadieu
04/02/1986
France Culture / INA
“Automatic translation” sequence:
e - a - u, water
Extract from: Futura / La Parole Synthetic
11/30/1980
France Inter
Sequence Elmar Tophoven:
sie sinkt - sie singt
ACR / A weighing of words / 1982
Translate voices
Georges Perec
, in English, with translation
“
I have been asked to explore the potential of the human voice.
»
Extract from an interview recorded by Kaye Mortley in 1982 with Georges Perec, in English, and broadcast on the program: The passengers of the night / Friday special issue # 27 - Perec in English: What a Man!
Producer: Thomas Baumgartner
05/06/2011
France Culture / INA
Georges Dutter
“
In a good subtitle, we must also try to restore the flavor of the original film.
»
Extract from: Magnetic Nights / Passing into the other's language: translation, migration
05/26/1993
France Culture / INA
Olivier Le Lay
Berlin Alexanderplatz, a megaphone book
Extract from: Surpris par la nuit / Alfred Döblin Platz: Painting and scissors
Producers: Christine Lecerf, Alain Veinstein
05/06/2009
France Culture / INA
"Automatic translation" sequence:
Extract from: Science frictions / Automatic translation
Producer: Michel Alberganti
06/07/2003
France Culture / INA
Sequence Elmar Tophoven:
stocksteif - versteinert
ACR / A weighing of words / 1982
Translate Freud, Sartre, ...
Janine Altounian
“
As a writer, Freud has a very playful relationship with language.
»
Extract from: For interior / Janine Altounian, translator, essayist
Producer: Olivier Germain Thomas
01/29/2010
France Culture / INA
Jorge Luis Borges
“
Each language is a way of feeling the world.
»
Extract from: Interviews with / Jorge Luis Borges, part 3
Producer: Jean Daive
03/15/1978
France Culture / INA
Bernard Hoepffner
“
Every time I translate 'blue', I feel that I am making a mistake.
»
Extract from: Eclectik
Producer: Rebecca Manzoni
09/21/2008
France Inter / INA
Vincent von Wroblewsky
Why is it so difficult to translate Sartre into German?
Extract from: Bare voice: great interviews of yesterday and today / Vincent von Wroblewsky: part 2
Producer: Dominique Treilhou
04/24/2007
France Culture / INA
Jean-Louis de Rambures
“
There are times when all of a sudden we go from the simple past to the imperfect.
»
Extract from: From day to day / Paul Nizon for his book
The year of love
Producer: Alain Veinstein
05/03/1986
France Culture / INA
Jean Pierre Lefebvre
“
When someone fits into the mold of French syntax, he completely disrupts the follow-up of the thought of a German thinker.
»
Extract from: From day to day
Producer: Alain Veinstein
20/12/1995
France Culture / INA
"Machine translation" sequence:
ich zeige meine Fähigkeit zwanzig Sprachen sprechen
Extract from: LSD, the documentary series / My twin, the robot: 4th and last part
Producer: Perrine Kervran
04/05/2017
France Culture / INA
Elmar Tophoven sequence:
weiter - los - weiter
ACR / A weighing of words / 1982
Retranslate
Adrienne Monnier
the modifications made by Valery Larbaud to the translation of Auguste Morel
Extract from: Pour un club des translucteurs /
Ulysse
by James Joyce, 4
Producer: Jacques Dombasle
06/07/1948
RDF / RTF / INA
Hélène Cixous
“
The old translation of Ulysses dates, incredibly.
»
Extract from: From day to day
Producer: Alain Veinstein
06/17/2004
France Culture / INA
Boris Vian
“
The translation of 1893 was nevertheless very far removed from the Swedish text.
»
Extract from: Boris Vian: his translation of
Mademoiselle Julie
de Strindberg
Journalist: Michel Polac
07/12/1952
RDF / RTF / INA
Henri Meschonnic
“
The history of translating cannot be separated from the history of intercultural rationality.
»
Extract from: Bare voice: great interviews of yesterday and today / Henri Meschonnic: part 3
Producer: Antoine Spire
05/22/1991
France Culture / INA
"Machine translation" sequence:
Extract from: The spirit of initiative / The first book translated by an artificial intelligence
Producer: Emmanuel Moreau,
10/19/2018
France Inter / INA
Elmar Tophoven sequence:
note what happens while translating
The good pleasure Nathalie Sarraute / 1985
Translating makes you think
George Steiner
“
We are all translators when we talk to each other.
»
Extract from: Le carrefour des Français
12/12/1978
France Culture / INA
Barbara Cassin
“
In this
Dictionary of untranslatable
, it is the footnotes that have become full text.
»
From: The scientific conversation / What does translate mean?
Producer: Etienne Klein
03/11/2017
France Culture / INA
Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt
“
If we were able to identify what a language does not translate, we would have a sort of fantastic, hollow portrait of the language.
»
Extract from: Tire ta langue / German-French vice-versa
Producer: Antoine Perraud
03/02/2004
France Culture / INA
Thanks to:
Geraldine Poels, responsible for the scientific development of archives, INA
Estelle Caron, responsible for the Documentation department, INA
Cécile Mégie, director of RFI
Vanadis Feuille, responsible for documentation of RFI
Christian Mondion, DTSI RFI
Pascal Lebeurier, INA, and all the research colleagues of RFI and INA
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