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Over at the (which is relatively new and very solid), South African author Michiel Heyns has an interesting essay about creativity and translation:

I have just sent off the first draft of a translation of a 130,000-word novel, Etienne van Heerden���Ĵ�ý�s 30 Nagte in Amsterdam (30 Nights in Amsterdam). By chance, on the same day, I receive a Call for Papers from the University of Swansea in the UK for a conference on ���Ĵ�ý�The Author-Translator in the European Literary Tradition.���Ĵ�ý� The call for papers kicks off with the following paragraph:

The recent ���Ĵ�ý�creative turn���Ĵ�ý� in translation studies has challenged notions of translation as a derivative and uncreative activity which is inferior to ���Ĵ�ý�original���Ĵ�ý� writing. Commentators have drawn attention to the creative processes involved in the translation of texts, and suggested a rethinking of translation as a form of creative writing. Hence there is growing critical and theoretical interest in translations undertaken by literary authors.

The topic interests me, because I have published four novels and three literary translations (not counting this latest, as yet unpublished one), and I have from time to time asked myself, in an informal sort of way, about ���Ĵ�ý�the creative processes involved in the translation of texts���Ĵ�ý�: is it in fact ���Ĵ�ý�a form of creative writing���Ĵ�ý�? And if so, how does it differ from the more traditional kind?

Writing this, it occurs to me that the word ���Ĵ�ý�recreate���Ĵ�ý� encapsulates the problem: for if it means simply rendering the work in another language, then it���Ĵ�ý�s more a question of transliteration or transposition than creation; but if it means ���Ĵ�ý�re-create���Ĵ�ý� as in creating anew, then one is stressing the creative contribution of the translator: the translation, then, carries the stamp of the translator as unmistakably as the original carries the stamp of the author.

But of course translation is also, inescapably, a second-order activity, derived very directly from the creation of the author. If the translation is a creative act, it is yet unlike the writing of a novel in that it does not require that most difficult of creative feats, which is to create from nothing. A novelist creates and peoples a world; a translator reports back on that world to people who wouldn���Ĵ�ý�t otherwise have access to that world.

I like his take on this (although the bit about author’s craving a “faithful rendering” when their books are translated feels a bit reductive), and his novel, looks really interesting as well.