Víctor Obiols, a translator from Spain, was commissioned to provide a Catalan translation of Amanda Gorman’s viral “The Hill We Climb” poem. After completing the project, however, he said that the publisher had rejected the translation, saying that they wanted a translator who was “a woman, young, activist and preferably black.”
According to BBC News, “Víctor Obiols, whose previous work includes translations of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, was asked to translate Gorman’s poem and a foreword by Oprah Winfrey into Catalan several weeks ago.”
“But the editor of Barcelona publisher Univers told Spain’s Efe news agency on Wednesday that after the translation was complete, the company received a request from the US group Viking Books for the work to be carried out by a female activist with African-American origins, if possible,” the report continued.
This comes soon after Dutch translator Marieke Lucas Rijneveld — who is “outspoken on issues including gender equality and mental health” and “identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them” — stepped down after Janice Deul described the selection of a white translator as “incomprehensible.”
“I’m not saying a black person can’t translate white work, and vice versa,” Janice Deul said. “But not this specific poem of this specific orator in this Black Lives Matter area, that’s the whole issue.”
“[Gorman] is someone who’s into slam poetry and slam poetry is about flow and rhythm. When you don’t know that, the whole form will have a different meaning and rhythm.”
Speaking with the AFP news agency, Víctor Obiols said “They told me that I am not suitable to translate it. They did not question my abilities, but they were looking for a different profile, which had to be a woman, young, activist and preferably black.”
“But if I cannot translate a poet because she is a woman, young, black, an American of the 21st Century, neither can I translate Homer because I am not a Greek of the eighth century BC. Or could not have translated Shakespeare because I am not a 16th-Century Englishman.”
“It is a very complicated subject that cannot be treated with frivolity,” Obiols added.
According to The Guardian, “Obiols said the publisher had promised to pay him for the work nonetheless.”
As reported by CNBC, “Amanda Gorman made history [on January 20] when she became the youngest inaugural poet during President Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony in Washington.”
“Gorman ended up staying up late following the unprecedented attack and finished her piece, ‘The Hill We Climb,’ [the night of January 6]. The poet, whose work examines themes of race and racial justice in America, felt she couldn’t ‘gloss over’ the events of the attack, nor of the previous few years, in her work.”
“There is space for grief and horror and hope and unity, and I also hope that there is a breath for joy in the poem, because I do think we have a lot to celebrate at this inauguration,” she told the New York Times.
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