Two Voices Salon: Bela Shayevich on Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich
Center for the Art of Translation | 582 Market Street, Suite 700 | San Francisco, CA
Translator Bela Shayevich discusses her translation of the new work by 2015 Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich. Secondhand Time(opens in a new tab) is a look at the generation that saw the end of Communism and the first post-Soviet generation in Russia and former USSR states.
Senior Editor Scott Esposito talked with Shayevich about the challenges presented by Alexievich’s unique style, which consists almost entirely of interviews she conducts with ordinary people. In this wide-ranging conversation, Shayevich delved into the challenges of translating from 70 years of different kinds of speech from across the immense geography of Russia, discussed the necessity of footnotes in this project, critiques of Alexievich for fudging her facts, and what it was like to wake up and suddenly find out the author you were translating had just won a Nobel Prize.
AUDIO TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introductions
2:00 What it was like the morning Alexievich won the Nobel Prize
6:08 Why translate Alexievich?, and the editing process for the book
7:39 What Second-Hand Time is about
13:03 The critique that Alexievich fudges her details
19:39 Translation challenges in Second-Hand Time and what’s up with the Russians and salami?
26:50 The footnotes in Second-Hand Time
30:50 The question of freedom in Alexievich’s work
35:40 Activism in Russia and the final monologue in Second-Hand Time
40:50 Audience Q & A
Bela Shayevich is a Russian translator who lives and works in New York City. She studied Comparative Literature at Emory University and earned a Masters in Russian translation from Columbia University. Shayevich is the translator of Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s The Big Green Tent and 2015 Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time.