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Thoughts from the U.S. Editors of Samir and Yonatan
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 13:47:33 -0600
Arthur Levine, Editorial Director of Arthur A. Levine Books, the U.S. publisher of Samir and Yonatan, and Zehava Cohn, Special Projects Editor there who worked on the manuscript, have offered to share their
thoughts on Samir and Yonatan. Their comments follow in this message they asked me to post.
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center
Zehava: SAMIR AND YONATAN first came to us from a meeting Arthur had at the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna.
Arthur: I'm always hopeful that I'll find something extraordinary there. What I hope to get from a book that originates overseas is something extra, something special that grows out of a particular place, and culture not our own. When the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature told me about SAMIR AND YONATAN it sounded attractive on several levels. Since my own childhood I'd been reading stories in newspapers, and seeing television reports of violence and terror in the middle east. But as upsetting as those reports are, they rarely give us an extended glimpse into the minds and hearts of the people who live there. A talented novelist could. And who better to accomplish this, I thought, than someone living on the front lines. Someone for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict is not something unfortunate "out there" somewhere, but a part of everyday life. Daniella Carmi had an excellent reputation as a fine up and coming writer in Israel, and I was hopeful that her work would be special. So I asked for the novel to be sent.
Zehava: Since I speak Hebrew I read it first. What struck me immediately was the beautiful way Daniella Carmi used language to convey the complexity of the children's thoughts and emotions. All the children n the ward are dealing with their own physical pain as well as the pain of alienation and isolation normal to a hospital ward. In Samir's case he is dealing with the added strangeness and fear of being among people he's always known to be the enemy.
Arthur: I'll never forget the last line of Zehava's first reader's report. She said, "This is a quiet novel that screams below the surface." I was convinced by the combination of the book's powerful subject matter
(which I could evaluate myself) and Zehava's assessment of the original character and literary strengths of the prose (something only a Hebrew-speaker could tell.) So we began the process of finding a translator, and creating an English language text.
Zehava: I knew that to do the book justice, we'd need to find a translator who responded to all of Daniella's lyricality and conveyed it as honestly as she could in English. I think we found that in Yael Lotan.
Israelis learn English from the time that they are in day school and Daniella feels comfortable enough with the language that she wanted to be involved in the translation process. Yael was very kind and responsive to Daniella's comments and in fact Daniella had a chance to look over Yael's first draft before I did! But as a result, Daniella, Yael, and I were able to speak (sometimes in English and sometimes in Hebrew!) about specific words or phrases and why some worked better than others. Daniella was also able to inform us of her authorial choices for using certain words and Yael and I were able to respond by honoring those choices with their English equivalents.
There are inevitably some things that are, literally, lost in translation, as everyone knows. An example is Tzahi's name: in Hebrew, "Tzachi" comes from "Tzchok" which means laughter or a joke and we see that Tzahi is a boy who is full of jokes and games and laughter. There's simply no way to
"translate" his name, but we were confident that his character's nature still comes through clarly.
Arthur: I felt very lucky to have Zehava as the English-language editor for this book. With her skills I could have confidence that we were getting the best possible translation. I think we both learned a lot from the process.
Zehava: It was a wonderful process working with Daniella and Yael and Arthur. We are all thrilled and honored to be recognized by the Batchelder award committee.
Received on Mon 19 Mar 2001 01:47:33 PM CST
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 13:47:33 -0600
Arthur Levine, Editorial Director of Arthur A. Levine Books, the U.S. publisher of Samir and Yonatan, and Zehava Cohn, Special Projects Editor there who worked on the manuscript, have offered to share their
thoughts on Samir and Yonatan. Their comments follow in this message they asked me to post.
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center
Zehava: SAMIR AND YONATAN first came to us from a meeting Arthur had at the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna.
Arthur: I'm always hopeful that I'll find something extraordinary there. What I hope to get from a book that originates overseas is something extra, something special that grows out of a particular place, and culture not our own. When the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature told me about SAMIR AND YONATAN it sounded attractive on several levels. Since my own childhood I'd been reading stories in newspapers, and seeing television reports of violence and terror in the middle east. But as upsetting as those reports are, they rarely give us an extended glimpse into the minds and hearts of the people who live there. A talented novelist could. And who better to accomplish this, I thought, than someone living on the front lines. Someone for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict is not something unfortunate "out there" somewhere, but a part of everyday life. Daniella Carmi had an excellent reputation as a fine up and coming writer in Israel, and I was hopeful that her work would be special. So I asked for the novel to be sent.
Zehava: Since I speak Hebrew I read it first. What struck me immediately was the beautiful way Daniella Carmi used language to convey the complexity of the children's thoughts and emotions. All the children n the ward are dealing with their own physical pain as well as the pain of alienation and isolation normal to a hospital ward. In Samir's case he is dealing with the added strangeness and fear of being among people he's always known to be the enemy.
Arthur: I'll never forget the last line of Zehava's first reader's report. She said, "This is a quiet novel that screams below the surface." I was convinced by the combination of the book's powerful subject matter
(which I could evaluate myself) and Zehava's assessment of the original character and literary strengths of the prose (something only a Hebrew-speaker could tell.) So we began the process of finding a translator, and creating an English language text.
Zehava: I knew that to do the book justice, we'd need to find a translator who responded to all of Daniella's lyricality and conveyed it as honestly as she could in English. I think we found that in Yael Lotan.
Israelis learn English from the time that they are in day school and Daniella feels comfortable enough with the language that she wanted to be involved in the translation process. Yael was very kind and responsive to Daniella's comments and in fact Daniella had a chance to look over Yael's first draft before I did! But as a result, Daniella, Yael, and I were able to speak (sometimes in English and sometimes in Hebrew!) about specific words or phrases and why some worked better than others. Daniella was also able to inform us of her authorial choices for using certain words and Yael and I were able to respond by honoring those choices with their English equivalents.
There are inevitably some things that are, literally, lost in translation, as everyone knows. An example is Tzahi's name: in Hebrew, "Tzachi" comes from "Tzchok" which means laughter or a joke and we see that Tzahi is a boy who is full of jokes and games and laughter. There's simply no way to
"translate" his name, but we were confident that his character's nature still comes through clarly.
Arthur: I felt very lucky to have Zehava as the English-language editor for this book. With her skills I could have confidence that we were getting the best possible translation. I think we both learned a lot from the process.
Zehava: It was a wonderful process working with Daniella and Yael and Arthur. We are all thrilled and honored to be recognized by the Batchelder award committee.
Received on Mon 19 Mar 2001 01:47:33 PM CST
