Interview with Anna Jampol’skaja, Translator from Italian into Russian

How did your relationship with Italian literature begin? Is there an episode, a particular encounter in your biography?

The first Italian book I remember was The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, published by Akademija. I remember starting to read it and not being able to put it down: I was about twelve years old, and for me it was like an adventure novel by Verne or Stevenson. A few years later, I enjoyed reading authors like Moravia and Pavese, who were published in the ‘Masters of Contemporary Prose’ series. My parents subscribed to the magazine Inostrannaja literatura (Foreign Literature), which regularly published Italian authors. I even read it at school, during the most boring lessons, which often led to embarrassing situations…

You have been teaching literary translation at the Gorky Literary Institute for over twenty years. How has student interest in Italian books changed in recent years?

As we used to say jokingly in the editorial office of Inostrannaja literatura, it would be more accurate to call the magazine Foreign Life: in Soviet times it was an open window on a world we could not see with our own eyes. Thirty years ago, this aroused great curiosity among students. Then, little by little, travelling in Italy ceased to be something reserved for the chosen few, and people began to look at your country with more disenchanted eyes: today we can speak not of blind exaltation, but of a conscious and authentic love. This is also true of books: they are now more readily available and the conditions have been created for comparing Italian authors with those from other countries, including Russia. Today’s student can easily judge an Italian book that has won a prestigious literary prize as mediocre, or find that it imitates the style of another foreign author, and conversely can better appreciate the specificity of his own national literature. On the one hand, we are gradually filling in the gaps of the past by translating authors who, for various reasons, have only come to us in recent years (Curzio Malaparte or Anna Maria Ortese, for example); on the other hand, we are now happy to publish, in addition to fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young people’s literature, fantasy, comics and graphic novels. Students now have more choice, they can find what they feel is closest to their interests and sensibilities.

Does the work of a translator still have the prestige it once had in Russian literary culture?

I am afraid not. Our profession has lost some of its prestige, and the reason is what I said earlier: in the past, the translator was the one who acted as a link to the inaccessible world of foreign countries, which has now become accessible to everyone. The position of the translator in the publishing world has also changed: publishers listen less to the advice of translators when choosing titles to publish, and are guided more by sales rankings, awards won, contacts with agents, what is presented at book fairs. The literary translator has become almost invisible: if the translation is not good, people talk badly about him, but if it is good, hardly anyone remembers who he is. Nevertheless, the profession of translator is still attractive, although students should be warned, in the interests of honesty, that it is not a livelihood in itself. But it is a creative profession that gives the same satisfaction that an instrumentalist gets from performing the works of great composers.

Which Italian authors have you recently translated? Do you choose the works you want to translate or are they suggested by publishers?

My translation of Alessandro Piperno‘s novel Di chi è la colpa has just come out, and Zanzotto‘s short stories will be published soon. I have already finished the translation of Gianfranco Calligarich‘s novel L’ ultima estate in città. The next project I will be working on is Natalia Ginzburg‘s novel Tutti i nostri ieri.

In terms of selection, sometimes I accept publishers’ proposals, for example for Corpus Editions I have translated Paolo Cognetti, Elena Ferrante, Paolo Sorrentino, Paolo Giordano, Umberto Eco. On other occasions I have been able to persuade publishers to accept my choices: a collection of the early works of Aldo Palazzeschi, Roberto Calasso‘s La letteratura e gli dei, a volume of fables and verses by Roberto Piumini. One of my most recent works is the translation of Anna Maria Ortese‘s novel L’iguana, published in an issue of Inostrannaja literatura, dedicated to Italian women writers, which I edited [no. 5, 2022]. I cherish this issue, a project that has been almost twenty years in the making: I confess that it was not easy to convince the editorial staff and male colleagues. Unlike in Italy, women’s literature has only recently begun to be considered a phenomenon in its own right and worthy of attention. It seemed important to me to present it in its historical perspective and not as the product of a contingent ‘fashion’. In this sense, there is a connection with another recent work of mine, the translation of Artemisia by Anna Banti (2021), a book that has been very well received by lovers of literature and art. Almost at the same time, the novel Hanno tutti ragione by Paolo Sorrentino appeared, on which I worked with great pleasure. Sorrentino is very popular in Russia, his books are bestsellers.

It should be added that the books I selected and proposed, as well as the special issues of Inostrannaja literatura dedicated to Italy [in addition to the one mentioned, no. 12 of 2018], were published thanks to the financial support of the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Publishers are reluctant to publish authors who are unlikely to sell large numbers of copies and therefore do not generate sufficient profit, so contributions to supplement the budget are essential.

Is there a long ‘waiting list’ of authors you would like to translate?

There are a number of authors I would like to translate, both from past centuries and contemporary authors. I won’t name them: some have been waiting for their turn for a long time, others might interest me, but then I change my mind. For example, it would be interesting to work on authors who have a connection with the territory. This is unusual for Russia: for us, local traditions – in terms of language and mentality – are much less important. But there are many good Italian authors who have not yet been translated and who need to be introduced to the Russian public. In general, I am interested in authors who, on an artistic and formal level, represent a challenge that I have not faced before.

What do you think is the most important rule for a translator? Or is it a set of rules? Have these rules changed in the course of your work?

I think the first rule for a translator is to be open to listening to the author. It is no coincidence that good translators are usually people with psychological intuition. One should not put one’s ‘ego’ first, and there is no need to do so when dealing with a talented author. When I translated Malaparte, for example, I had the feeling of being on the dance floor with a very experienced partner: the result would have been good if I had simply let myself be guided without taking the initiative.

And there is another danger, that of working in a certain way and of getting stuck in a more or less wide range of solutions. That is why it is important to try to translate texts that are different in style and form. I always make my students practise verse, even if they want to become prose translators. It is necessary to constantly develop one’s taste and ability to translate. It is necessary to read Russian authors to enrich one’s linguistic repertoire, but also to develop one’s ear and eye, to listen to music, to see works of figurative art and plays. Take the musical component of a text: the tonality, the rhythm, the change of pauses. Much of this is intuition that makes us recognise it, but intuition is based on the amount of what we have seen, heard and read.

At the same time, it is necessary to be selective, to devote oneself only to good authors, because trying to improve a text, to cover up its faults, is a thankless task. And, of course, it is very important to love what you are translating: sometimes it is a feeling that you do not immediately feel, you get used to your author as well as to the person with whom you live, but without love the union is not destined to bear good fruit.