‘I could hear how Scandinavian novels could sound in English’
She is the English translator of the International Booker Prize longlisted novel Is Mother Dead by the Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth. In this first instalment of our On Translation series, Charlotte Barslund reflects on her life and work as a literary translator.
What draws you to translation, and how did you start out?
I was born in Denmark and finished my secondary education there. I have always been an avid reader of fiction, and I realised in my teens that I could hear how Scandinavian novels could sound in English. Sometimes, when I read a book, my brain would begin translating it, and I wondered if I might one day become a literary translator.
However, I initially wanted to work in theatre, so I moved to England. My first degree was in English and Drama at London University, and then I worked with several theatre companies. I loved discovering the wide range of meanings that actors and directors could find in words and their sounds, how rich a text could become in performance, why a line worked better if stressed in one way but not another, and why it had to be one particular line rather than a paraphrasing – even if the meaning was essentially the same.
I started to translate plays, initially literals of Ibsen and Strindberg. Ibsen is a great craftsman, translating him is the chance to look into the engine room of how a play is constructed. I learned a great deal about lining up my linguistic dominos so they fall smoothly and take the audience to the end of the text. I still translate plays today and the translation of dialogue remains my first love. However, I returned to my original ambition to translate prose. An MA in Scandinavian Translation brought me into contact with several UK publishers. By this time I had translated a wide range of texts and worked as an interpreter and I was offered a contract to translate my first novel.
Photography: Mads Odgaard Smidstrup, Scandinavian Fiction
Today, I have translated many novels and plays, and I can talk about translation on an academic level, but ultimately for me, it is about gut instinct and resonance. There are some authors with whom I have an immediate affinity and others where I have to acknowledge that I am not the right person for a book, even though technically I could do a perfectly good job, and the reader would never know.
I have a particular love of translating Norwegian and Danish into English. I’ve also studied French and German, but I never had the same reaction to those languages, it was always clear to me that Danish and Norwegian were the ones for me. Translation is a cerebral process, an academic discipline, of course, and you do need to have excellent knowledge of the culture, politics and history, and current affairs of the countries that you translate between, but ultimately for me, it is a deeply intuitive process. When I translate the first draft of a novel, there are certain sentences which I know will be in the final version. Others I know will need more thinking and polishing. I keep working on a translation until I have smoothed out every bump in the text, every instance where I feel it sounds stilted until it has become a coherent entity in English.
Do you remember when you first encountered Vigdis Hjorth’s writing, and what were your first impressions?
I first read Long Live the Post Horn! ten years ago, and my immediate reaction was that I wanted to translate Vigdis Hjoth because she is a writer of ideas. I had attended an event organised by NORLA, the Norwegian organisation for literature abroad, with other translators, and we had been asked to pitch a Norwegian book we would like to see translated. At that time, identity was becoming a major theme in Norwegian fiction, especially auto-fiction through which an author explores their own identity.
Hjorth seemed to me to be doing something different. True, she starts with an everywoman in a domestic setting, but it is a springboard for an exploration of themes which she believes are relevant to a wider audience. In fact, she has said in a recent interview that when she has an idea that might turn into a novel, she will explore if it resonates with other people. If she finds it is of interest only to her, it doesn’t become a novel. If, however, it has traction, then it can become a book. Her ability to spot themes and dilemmas, with which many of us struggle, and her skill in articulating them make her not only a leading Norwegian writer, but a global one. And I’m so pleased that the 2023 International Booker Prize nomination for Is Mother Dead acknowledged that.
Do you recall any specific challenges in translating a Vigdis Hjorth book?
Translator Charlotte Barslund. Photography: Private
Vigdis will sometimes write very long sentences with little punctuation when her protagonist is in turmoil, warming to her theme or reaching a conclusion. The writing beautifully expresses the character’s stream of consciousness, but it can be a challenge for the reader in translation who might wonder if the translator has got the punctuation wrong. My background in drama translation comes in very useful here. I will read aloud these internal monologues to myself, as if they were to be performed on a stage, to make sure that the rhythm and delivery of the sentences guide the reader, and that the meaning is as clear in English as it is in Norwegian.
Another challenge is that Vigdis doesn’t use traditional chapters, instead her writing is a series of shorter or longer pieces of texts, and she will sometimes include quotes or references to other creative artists or philosophers. It’s essential that the translator picks up on these references – often to Kierkegaard, Ibsen, and many other writers – because another joy of Hjorth’s writing is that her protagonist is aware that her dilemma is unlikely to be original to her, and is seeking inspiration and comfort from literature and philosophy.
As her English translator, why do you think readers in the UK and beyond feel drawn to Vigdis Hjort's books?
Vigdis Hjorth articulates dilemmas familiar to many people in social democracies: The paradox of choice, the opportunity for personal growth, and the pressure to live up to lofty ideals, responsibilities towards ourselves and other people. What it is like to live with very uncomfortable feelings. Living with the consequences of the choices you have made. Her characters desperately want to know themselves, they understand the complex nature of whatever issue they are grappling with, and yet they are unable to come up with a solution to their situation or stick with any decisions they do make. At the same time, they have enough self-awareness to realise this, and Hjorth’s compassionate exploration of what it is like to be alive today is part of her universal appeal. She is a great investigator of the human condition.
Charlotte Barslund is a hugely experienced translator of Scandinavian novels and plays. Her translation of Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023.
