Michele Hutchison talks to top translators Anthea Bell, Margaret Jull Costa and Paul Vincent about developing their practice and improving as a translator

One of the difficulties of being a translator, I’ve discovered, is that you’re on your own with all your insecurities. Translation is a painstaking and difficult process and it’s easy to become overwhelmed by a tricky book project, particularly a long one. Whilst translating Fortunate Slaves by Tom Lanoye these past months – a colourful, linguistically inventive Flemish novel – I’ve often felt that the task I’ve been set is impossible. And one question that has been going round and round in my mind is how do translators get better? How can I learn to vault the hurdles with style and panache? Can I improve so much that it’s no longer this painful?

Top translators don’t often admit to having got better at what they do. That would be like admitting their earlier works were of inferior quality. Nothing a translator does can be of inferior quality. We cannot damage an author’s fragile trust in us as guardians of their children, and we cannot have publishers think we might be making mistakes. There’s a taboo there. Translators are expected to be brilliant, right from the start. Authors, on the other hand, are allowed to improve, mastering literary skills as they gain experience. More.

See: English PEN’s World Bookshelf

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