2019 Reading Challenge

At the beginning of this year I took up a reading challenge set by the ACT library. The challenge was to read through the list below by the end of 2019. Here are the books I read, all but one finished.

A genre you’ve never read before: Coeurs barbelés by Claudine Jacques (fiction based on the modern history of New Caledonia, currently translating it)

Something that makes you laugh: La Baleine de Jonas by Claude Aveline (humorous twist on the story of Jonah and the whale, in French)

Has a one-word title: Castaway by Robert Macklin (a new version of a true story. Yes the truth can have many versions.)

Features time travel or time slip: Maya by Jostein Gaarder (not bad, but a good translation)

Written under a pseudonym: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (took me 52 years to read this after first seeing the film)

That celebrates diversity: The Adventurous Princess and Other Feminist Fairy Tales by Erin-Claire Barrow (lovely book of fairy tales by my illustrator)

Set in an imaginary or alternate world: Esme’s Wish by Elizabeth Foster (good book, first of three so I don’t know how the story ends)

Crime (non-)fiction: The Tatooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (incredible story stumbled upon by the author. I added the -non to fiction here.)

Features food: The Land Before Avocado by Richard Glover (very good nostalgic review of Australian ways in the 60s and 70s)

Something you can read in a day: The Golden Cockerel by Alexander Pushkin (beautifully illustrated Russian story)

Has a green cover: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (totally excellent book my father gave me as a child but which I never read till now)

An eBook or eAudiobook: The Birth of Bran by James Stephens (a funny Irish tale illustrated by Arthur Rackham)

Set in Africa : Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith (one of a collection about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency set in Botswana)

A gothic story: Princesse d’Italie by Jean Lorrain (dark story about a Salomé play, in French)

Something you want to re-read: The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (great story set in 19th-century Dorset)

Something you regret not having read yet: The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay (I don’t regret it any more)

Recommended by family or friend: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (I know now why it was recommended)

From/about antiquity (before Middle Ages): Trimalchio’s Feast by Petronius (decadent decadence, couldn’t finish it…)

Epistolary (letter or diary format): It was snowing butterflies by Charles Darwin (not bad but not my thing)

Recommended by [pop-up] library staff: Ripening Seed by Colette (excellent descriptions but surprisingly for a female author the boy has more fun)

There are many more books I’ve read this year in categories not included in the ACT Library challenge. My favourite this year, not mentioned above, was A Fortunate Life by A. B. Facey.

Albert Facey reaffirmed my own fortunate life. Not fortunate in the fortune sense, but in the blessed sense.

22 October, 2019

My authors: Claudine Jacques

On the unpredictable path of life I’ve ended up translating French literature from different hemispheres and different centuries. I’ve written about authors from 19th-century France who’ve taken my fancy with their fairy tales and fantasies, and now I want my readers to become acquainted with an author from 21st-century New Caledonia, Claudine Jacques.

My first encounter with Claudine’s writing was at university. I very much enjoyed studying the social problems laid out in her stories and was surprised to find numerous similarities between the histories of Australia and New Caledonia. Her writing is compelling and keeps me turning pages till the last. My favourite is Cœurs barbelés, part fiction, part history, based on the painful experiences of white Caledonians and the indigenous Kanak people trying to live harmoniously on an island.

I’ve enjoyed translating a few of her short stories into English and have been fortunate to have them published: ‘Life Sentence’, ‘The Mask’, ‘Guardian of Legends’, and three that are available online for free, ‘The Blue Cross’, ‘Other People’s Land’, and one set in Vanuatu, ‘Bitter Secrets’ .

Born in Belfort, France, Claudine moved to New Caledonia as a sixteen-year-old with her parents and has since made it her own country. Until 1994 she ran a vocational training centre, but once she had discovered the world of books, she established a publishing company and now devotes herself almost exclusively to writing. In 1997 Claudine and other authors founded the Association des Écrivains de la Nouvelle Calédonie (New Caledonian Society of Authors).

The bush and island life have profoundly inspired Claudine’s work. Her home in the bushland of this Pacific island, on a cattle station in Bouraké, has allowed her to become immersed in the heart of the country and to know it as an insider. Claudine’s novels and short stories are concerned with all “Caledonians”: those of the main island, Grande Terre, those of the smaller Loyalty Islands, the Caledonians of European origin, the Kanak, the Wallisians, the Vietnamese and Indonesians who are all part of the New Caledonian population. Her stories reveal a part of the Pacific that is modern and multicultural, a country in transition.

This is rich, sensual writing that moves readers with its power of suggestion. Knowing that Claudine’s stories are based on her island’s history, they will keep you turning pages. I personally found myself searching for light at the end of some dark tunnels. You’ll find it, as I did, at the end.

24 December, 201829 December, 2018

‘Bitter Secrets’ for Christmas

Mt Yasur volcano erupting, Tanna, Vanuatu, photo Jocy H, Wikimedia Commons

‘Bitter Secrets‘, believe it or not, is my Christmas present this year (I’m hoping it’s not the only one).

It’s my translation of ‘Secrets amers’ by Claudine Jacques, and today it has been published in the latest issue of Transnational Literature at Flinders University, Adelaide, (despite the editors having, just days ago, told me they’d forgotten to read it and therefore had to reject it).

Yesterday I got a surprising message to say they’d quickly retrieved it, read it, liked it and wanted to include it. And since it’s an online journal, they could slip it in at the last moment.

Yay!

The setting for the story is the island Tanna in Vanuatu. If you like a story with a volcano, some white commerce, and a romance accompanied by unresolvable cultural conflict, then this one is for you. And you can read it for free!

Mt Yasur, Tanna, Vanuatu, a significant element in the setting of both ‘Bitter Secrets’ and ‘Tanna’, photo Philip Capper, Wikimedia Commons

An Australian-made film, Tanna, and Claudine Jacques’ ‘Bitter Secrets’ are surprisingly alike, though she had written the short story several years earlier. The film’s setting is Tanna, there’s a volcano, and it deals with lovers who cause conflict among their people. Even if the film is based on a true love story, the similarities between the two make me wonder if the filmmaker, Bentley Dean, had read the original in French.

By coincidence this film was shown here in Australia on SBS on Saturday night, just after I’d received the message about my translation being published!

If you’re wondering where you’d find Tanna, here’s a map of the island in the archipelago of Vanuatu, from Wikimedia Commons

Now, after writing the word ‘bitter’ several times I’d like to say something sweet:

Merry Christmas to all of you who read my blog posts. May you be blessed greatly in 2019.

20 June, 20188 August, 2018

Life Sentence and The Blue Cross

Today I was thrilled to receive ten copies of a small bilingual book of two short stories, Life Sentence and The Blue Cross, my translations of Condamné à perpétuité and La Croix bleue by the New Caledonian author, Claudine Jacques.

Life Sentence was published last year in Southerly Journal (Sydney University), and now it’s available in this little edition from Volkeno Books, Vanuatu. This is the second bilingual book published by Volkeno that includes Jacques’ original and my translation. The first was Le Masque / The Mask. Both The Mask and the new book are available to purchase from Les Éditions noir au blanc.

Life Sentence is concerned with leprosy, once an incurable disease among poorer New Caledonians. The Blue Cross tells the story of a wife dealing with an alcoholic husband. Both stories end with hope.

25 July, 201720 June, 2018

The Mask

My translation of Claudine Jacques’ short story Le Masque has just been published by Volkeno Books, Vanuatu, in a bilingual edition. Hold the book one way to read the original French story, then flip it over to read it in English.

The setting is a fare ofe, a bamboo house in New Caledonian bushland. The protagonist sees it as exotic and inspirational, just the impetus she needs to begin her writing career. She talks to a tribal mask left behind by a previous tenant, and it responds…

Available to order at noiraublanc.fr, here: http://noiraublanc.fr/index.php?route=product/category&path=62

*****

3 June, 2017

Southerly

My translation of Claudine Jacques’ Condamné à perpétuité, “Life Sentence”, has today been published by Southerly, the journal of the English Association at Sydney University. The journal is available to purchase in print or digitally.

Southerly is dedicated to publishing new Australian literature. I feel honoured to have had my work selected, given that the author I’ve translated lives in New Caledonia, a French island about two hours off the coast of Queensland. However, I’m Australian and the English is mine. The story has much in it that was familiar to me as a child in Queensland: tropical flora, heat, ocean. But one thing I’m not familiar with is leprosy, the topic. There’s a little island clearly visible from Brisbane called Peel Island, which in the past when anyone asked was always quickly identified as the leper colony. The question was a good conversation killer. All we knew was that those who lived there had been expelled from the mainland. No one actually knew what it was like to be there.

Reading Condamné à perpétuité gave me a bit of an insight into life on an Island of Lepers.

To encourage you to read the translation, I’ll reveal that “Life Sentence” has a happy(ish) ending.

I feel especially fortunate that Southerly has published it since the theme of their current issue is Persian literature! “Life Sentence” is one of the few stories included that are outside the theme. Thank you Southerly.

(Be assured this is the latest issue despite the 2016 date.)

*****

19 August, 2016

Women in Translation Month

August is Women in Translation month. This is a time to search for books by one of the minorities among writers, female authors who have been translated into English. As a translator of a couple of them, I’ve decided to slip out of my translatorly solitude and become somewhat actively involved. I’m very fortunate to have a daughter-in-law who works in a bookshop frequented by serious readers, ‘Paperchain’ in Canberra, so I took in a few copies of Spiridion by George Sand, (which I translated), and asked if she would be interested in making a small display of books authored by women in languages other than English. She selected a few from the shop stock and assigned a shelf to the cause, directly beneath the shelf assigned to Harry Potter books…

My translation of George Sand’s ‘Spiridion’ in the front row…

She then put a post on Paperchain’s Facebook page showing some translated books written by women and available in her shop.

This month, try to read at least one translated book originally written by a woman. I’m reading a book of poems by New Caledonian author, Déwé Gorodé, translated by Raylene Ramsay and Deborah Walker, and from the same island some short stories by Claudine Jacques, which are not yet available in English but will be, just as soon as I find a publisher for my work!

So, think outside the box that contains only male English-writing authors, and enjoy some of the other outstanding books from around the world.

*****

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10 May, 201617 July, 2018

Happenstance

A few days ago I discovered by happenstance, through a friend, a staff member at the National Library of Australia, that some New Caledonian legends I translated a few years ago have been published. My friend was flicking through a new book, preparing it for the catalogue, and saw my name as translator. She sent me an email about it, but it was all news to me.

I hotfooted it over to the library to see for myself, and there they were, my translated legends at the back of the book. Sometimes life throws up surprises, and sometimes they’re good. I’ve contacted the author, Claudine Jacques, to let her know I found them. She thought I knew…

My English translations appear in Sillages d’Océanie 2014, which is not available online. But an excellent illustrated edition is available, in French, at the digital publishing platform, Issuu, at this address.

Le Gardien des légendes by Claudine Jacques, illustrated by Papou

Take a look. Even if you can’t read French, you can get an idea of the stories from the colourful illustrations by Bernard Billot, aka Papou.

To leave you with another taste of New Caledonia, I’ll point you back to the header at the top of this post, my photo of a Noumea sunset, surely the most perfect I’ve ever seen.

*****

20 February, 2013

A Short Story from New Caledonia about Japan. Translated from French

Origami

by Anne Bihan

Trembling. It’s what I do best. I’m an expert at trembling. I have an incredible mastery of trembling. Had it since I was very small. Since the day I started kindergarten, the teacher has been telling my mother who comes to pick me up every day, running from the Sendai–Minami Sanriku train; she has been telling my father who never misses a fete at the Shizugawa school: Your daughter, she trembles; it’s amazing how she trembles; it’s amazing how well she trembles. Perhaps she didn’t say exactly that at the end, Your daughter, how well she trembles, but she looked so impressed that I think she did. I am the best at trembling.

It began the first time someone said, All children under the table. At first, I hesitated. When the voice repeated, All children under the table, the Earth is trembling, I thought, it’s the table with the red tablecloth, and on top of it all the flowers and the birds and the horses and the multicoloured lanterns of the origami class for the school fete, if it starts trembling, us underneath, no one to watch it, everything will be knocked to the ground, the fete knocked to the ground. But the voice insisted, so I slipped under the table with the others, and I thought the only thing to do was to tremble all together, me, us, the table, the flowers, the birds, the horses, the multicoloured lanterns of the origami class for the school fete. And that’s what I did; every time, that’s what I did and the teacher said, Your daughter, she’s an earthquake on legs; and the old doctor Tokiji Watanabe looked at me for a long time, a long time, and he said, There is actually a sickness called ‘Essential Tremor’ or ‘Familial Tremor’, but to be sure, we’ll have to wait till she grows up, and she’ll have to learn to live with it.

Learn to live with it; Papa says, It’s Shinto, it’s knowing that everything is connected, nothing and no one is ever separated, it’s our pride. I’m not sick, my name is Katsumi, Victorious Beauty; my father chose my name and he never misses the school fete that takes a long time, a long time to get ready, sometimes all year, and every day when parents ask, What did you do today?, me, Katsumi, I answer, Today we got ready for the school fete, and the next day, and for days and days, when Papa or Mama asks What did you do today?, always the same answer, Today we got ready for the school fete.

This morning, Friday 11th March 2011, for the school fete, for the origami class, I brought in some beautiful old paper that Grandma Sadako gave me. There’s a drawing on it that frightens me, but Papa says, Fear is like the tengu, like trembling, you must tame it; take this picture, it’s by Hokusai, our ‘Old man mad on painting’, his Great Wave off Kanagawa, it’s everywhere in the world, it’s our pride. So I dared to take it because folding, it calms my trembling, and especially because I saw her in the folds, the creases, the teeth and the claws of the sea on the paper: the crane of my dream. She was just waiting for me so she could fly away. And that’s what I did. All morning, I had to fight with this rotten drawing and my trembling. In the end, she was standing on the table with the red tablecloth; the one‑thousandth crane for Grandma Sadako, who folds one every day, saying, It’s my prayer; and she was the most beautiful, too.

She’s Prussian blue and yellow ochre, with greys like you’ve never seen over her whole body; here pale like shellfish soup, there dark like pea soup, and a very white spot on her throat. The great wave living inside her doesn’t frighten me any more. Papa is right. Everything is connected, no one is separated. It was 2.30pm when the voice shouted, All children, quick, the Earth’s trembling. I held her close to me under the table with the red tablecloth. Both of us lying down, folded, patient. When I put her up to my ear, I clearly heard the roar of the sea; Mama, running from the Sendai–Minami Sanriku train; Papa, his footsteps, full of pride, coming to the school fete. She was just waiting for me so she could fly away. I’m not trembling any more.

Anne Bihan, Noumea, New Caledonia, 29 April 2011