Don Bartlett nominated for 2014 Best Translated Book Award

From the website Typographical Era [see below] I was pleased to learn that translator Don Bartlett has been nominated along with author Karl Ove Knausgaard for the 2014 Best Translated Book Award. Don translates Jo Nesbo and K.O.Dahl among others; so he has brought to mono-linguistic English readers  many exciting books over the past few years. I was very pleased to see part of my interview with Don was used to publicise the award. The photo shows Don with the late Maxine Clarke, a great champion of Scandinavian crime fiction and an admirer of Don’s work. 

“A novel, short story, or other piece of fiction might be great in its original form, but let’s face it, without the loving attention of a skilled translator it could end up destroyed when it arrives in its English version.  The Best Translated Book Award isn’t just about the authors, it’s about the translators who take their work and make it accessible to an even greater audience as well.  To drive that point home, the award’s$10,000 cash prize is split equally between the winning author and the translator of his or her book.

My Struggle: Book Two / A Man in Love
By Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Don Bartlett lives in Norfolk and works as a freelance translator of Scandinavian literature. He has translated, or co-translated, a wide variety of Danish and Norwegian novels by such writers as Per Petterson, Lars Saabye Christensen, Roy Jacobsen, Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Jo Nesbo and Ida Jessen. (Official Bio, taken from My Struggle: Book Two / A Man in Love)

Bartlett on translating from the Norwegian: …I read the book in Norwegian first, get an idea of what strengths there are, what I will have to make sure I bring out, what knotty problems there might be, then make a first draft, which is usually poor because it keeps too close to the source language. Then I start making it sound more English and slowly begin to crack the problems. I go through three or four drafts and there are more adjustments as the translation goes through the editing stage. No such thing as perfection, just gradual improvement. (from Crime Scraps)”