Can a translated novel become an original work?

When an author translates his/her work into another language, it instead becomes a rewrite. This eliminates any chance that the copy of the text becomes compromised. The worst that can happen is that the text will not surpass the modifications and alterations required by the new language and its recipients.

Self-translation, however, ignores another kind of mediation that elevates the translated text and is present in every translation, which is the role of the carrier language.

The role of the carrier language

The carrier language also plays an important role, even if translated by the original authors themselves, as the work steps from one language into another and, essentially, from one cultural space to another.

The work addresses a different recipient. Even if the author of the text remains the same, many variables change, which demonstrates that the transition into another language can even distance the text from its author and liberate it from their own censorship.

This argument is cited by those who hold that texts written in the carrier language will always be translations. Even if the translation was done by the author of the text, in their opinion, the new language inevitably harms the original text, "dragging it, taking from it, and challenging it," according to Kundera.

Some even argue that the author does not command the meanings of what they wrote, even in their own language, nor do they control their text. Each text involves, in their view, a semiological density that makes even its author incapable of confining it.

The great Arab thinker of the 10th century, al-Tawhidi, described this as: "residues that he cannot control." This is because writing deposits residues that escape all careful censorship and make the text dodge even the grip of its author.

Even the authors themselves cannot extend their authority over the text to limit and control their meanings, and to control how the recipient receives the text, regardless of the diversity of their linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Other critics respond to this objection, saying that the text will, of course, be affected by what each translation does to it, but when the author takes care of their text, this will mitigate the translation effects. The author would discover what was hidden from them in the first version and what was incorporated in their "original" writing.

As Kundera previously explained in a TV interview: "When you live between two languages, and when your language becomes subject to the control of a language that you are translating to, it seems as though these two languages are looking at each other in a mirror, and as if every word you use, you use it as closely as possible to the intended meaning."

The translation becomes a tool for awareness of the connotations of the original within the limits of language. It will reveal to the author the association of their text's words, its meanings' ambiguity, and its diverse interpretations.

These authors would not have realised these difficulties, nor would they have spotted that association and confusion had they not attempted to translate it into another language.

The translation process helps shed light on the original text, revealing, even to the authors themselves, what the original language contains, and sometimes even exposing the shortcomings of the original.

Defining what's original

But what is the meaning of the 'original' in this type of self-translation?

If the original is the text the author published the first time, we have two texts published by the same author. The self-translation, then, raises the question of distinguishing between the original and the copy, between the author and the translator, and between creation and translation.

In other words, the original concept loses, when translated, at least the value given to it being original. When the author introduces an amendment to his text when transferring it to another language, the text should not be considered to be compromised but, instead, modified or rewritten.

The copy here, then, does not adhere to the original. Or let's say, at least, that the copy is not inferior to the original – it is equal.

Perhaps this prompted some scholars to say that the original in this type of translation exists between the two languages.

Irish novelist Samuel Beckett is cited as an example of this. When the Swedish Academy presented him with the Nobel Prize, it considered his works in French and English as an original text existing between the two languages.

When most of these writers self-translate their books into other languages, which is often the dominant language (Rainer Grutman indicates that most of the known self-translations today are in English), it is because they are dissatisfied with the translations of their original works.

We see this clearly in Kundera, and before him in Nabokov.

When Nabkove looked at the English translation of his novel 'The Black Room', which he authored in 1935, he said, "This translation is approximate, impromptu, full of slips and shortcomings, lacks accuracy, and it is written in an English language so superficial that I could not read the entire text."

He continued: "All this offends an author who is keen on the absolute accuracy of his work and does his best to achieve this, but the translator destroys every sentence of his text in the end."

In addition to the translators' faults, Nabokov mentions another factor that relates to the two languages the author-translator adopts. Some authors resort to transferring their writings to another language because of what a particular language offers.

Diversity of styles and strengths

An excellent example of this is the self-translations of Samuel Beckett.

The Irish author wrote his novels into French for its "austere aesthetics," as one of the critics explained, and wrote his plays in English for "eloquent discourse." This would be true if we agreed that Beckett considers one of his texts the original, as he did not deal with the two texts and the two languages as a translator.

In both cases, he did not feel that he was writing complete originals, as he was rewriting even when he was translating, and his self-translation was nothing but a rewriting. 

Beckett does not, therefore, deal with two equivalent languages. If one is suitable for one field, the other is more suitable for another. However, this inequality is only sometimes limited to reasons related to style. It can be more challenging when translation occurs between two languages with different strengths.

The matter, therefore, relates to the status of the language, its value in literature due to its antiquity and the importance of its poetry, the sophistication of its creations and traditions, and the literary influences dependent on its translators.

This is what phrases such as "the language of Al-Jahiz," "the language of Molière," and "the language of Shakespeare" refer to. This intertwined relationship between languages does not allow us to measure their strength and literary capital by the number of their writers and readers.

Still, we must see the number of bilinguals available and the number of translators who work to facilitate the movement and transmission of texts, whether exporting or importing, to or from the language.

Unfair comparisons

In this case, we cannot measure an author like Beckett, who writes in both English and French, against the Algerian novelist Rachid Boudjedra or the Moroccan Abdallah Laroui, who uses Arabic and French.

Some critics compare writers, who write their literary texts in French or English first and later translate them themselves into the Arabic language, with writers such as Beckett.

This comparison is not fair for the chief reason that the relationship between the French and English languages is not the same as the relationship between the Arabic language and those two languages. This is because, in this day and age, the English and French languages monopolise "literary recognition."

There is, then, a vast difference in the intensity and nature of the two relations of power. This is a fundamental issue that cannot be ignored debating the merit of self-translation in different spaces.

The practice of self-translation cannot be justified simply because of dissatisfaction with the translation, and the matter is not always limited to selecting a specific language for its rhetorical characteristics.

Instead, it is a "literary impartation" process and a tool for "literary recognition." It is one of the qualitative forms of conflict in the international literary space.

Transferring a text from a weak language to a stronger language is a pursuit of what they call "literary nobility." The matter goes beyond simply transferring it to any other language, but rather elevating the text and enabling it to become a member within the "International Republic of Literature."