70 years old | The importance of translation is huge for all of us, says Kristiina Drews: “Without translation, our worldview would be quite different.”

“It feels like it so stupid to remind of this, but the translator is the author, ”translates Kristiina Drews tokaisee. Unnecessarily, translators are often ignored, and journalists, for example, forget the names of translators.

“I must have emailed you about it, too.”

It helps to admit it – and to promise to improve oneself.

The study room of one of Finland’s best-known and most respected translators in Punavuori is small and homely, full of books. The profession did not come as a bloodline, but the parents were employed by the business. At home, attention was paid to the language, Drews recalls.

After the student writings, Drews began studying at the Savonlinna Language Institute, with the aim of graduating as a diploma translator. However, her boyfriend and other “bad reasons” pulled back to the capital, where Drews began studying English philology and domestic literature.

At the university Drews was, among other things, a writer, a translator Eila Pennanen courses and got acquainted Kersti Juva mixed Leena Tammisenwho advised Drews on making this first sample translation.

“I then sent it to all the publishers there were in Finland at the time.”

Drews rises to rummage through the bookshelf and lays a red-edged novel on the table. Irishman Flann O’Brien The third constable Admittedly, Drews did not translate the sample translation into Finnish until five years after it was sent, as the publishers did not immediately understand its value. When the translation finally appeared, Drews received a state award for it.

Instead, Drews’ first novel translation became in the fall of 1979 Michael Kenyonin detective story Rape.

Translation the significance is huge, Drews says. “Translation has always been a key element in human interaction. Without translation, our worldview would be quite different. ”

“Finns would not have become acquainted with world literature if Finnish translators had not translated it for generations.”

Most people today know how to speak English, and some books are read in English.

But, “It’s a vai-wed-a language,” Drews emphasizes. “The vocabulary is extremely extensive, with ingredients from an awful lot of languages.”

Many are able to read English on a surface level, Drews notes. However, there are so many meanings beneath the surface that few notice them. That’s why Drews enjoys reading the Finnish translations of his colleagues.

Often, however, the work done by translators seems forgotten, both in terms of visibility and money. Over the years, Drews has been actively involved in the Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters as a shop steward, board member and vice chairman.

“Sometime in the late 1980s, we thought this would improve the situation, raise fees, and improve our position,” Drews says. “Well, that hasn’t happened.”

Most translators are highly educated, but the fees rarely correspond to the level of education.

“This is a long tradition and a terribly complex issue,” he sighs. The salaries of many people, from the author to the publisher, from the translator to the merchant, are paid for by one translation book.

Today’s contracts are also complicated by various digital formats, e-books and audiobooks, for which the translator does not always receive any compensation. However, Drews does not want to get caught up in the paper book.

“An audiobook and a paper book are not mutually exclusive in any way,” he says.

What a fiction translator then really does?

Knowledge of language and culture is an absolute prerequisite, but it is not enough to look for the Finnish equivalent of words: the translation must have its own literary ensemble that reaches the subsurface meanings of the original language work.

Attempts have been made to compare translation to, for example, acting, playing, painting. However, the comparison is pointless, Drews says.

“Why compare to something? Like my colleagues Stefan Moster says, “Turning is turning and it’s neat!”

For Drews, the hardest thing to translate so far has been Vladimir Nabokovin The glow of the calf (Pale Fire, 1962, suom. 2014). One does not really know what a linguistic maze classified as a novel is.

Translating plays has also brought challenges. Drews ’first translation of the play was British Nick Dearin The Art of Successof which the instructor Hannele Rubinstein ordered a translation.

“It had quite a bit to do before it got on stage,” Drews recalls. “I had to translate the whole text again a couple of times.”

Bringing the right tones into the shifts of plays is always tricky. In addition, the play lives in an instant, and the viewer cannot return to it in the same way as, say, a novel. The text must arrive in real time.

About translation has become a way of life for Drews and he has no plans to retire. “It’s hard for me to imagine I wouldn’t turn around.”

Currently on the desktop is Anne Carsonin a novel Autobiography of Red as well as a stack of scots Ali Smithin season quartet, the first part of which Autumn will be released in August. There is “a lot of difficult stuff” in the book.

“He’s teasing the tongue!” Drews exclaims. “It’s exhilarating.”

Kristiina Drews had two wishes for her birthday: to go to the Yrjönkatu swimming pool to swim with her colleagues – and to be able to read the sea. Neither succeeds, the latter due to Yle’s regulations and the former because of the pandemic.

“Then in the summer,” Drews sighs, smiling happily.