(Admin note: Matteo will be here with a longer piece next month, same time. This time I caught him by surprise, and he didn’t have as much time as he wanted. I asked him just for a short introductory piece…and here you have it. He’s an Italian author who writes in English as well as his native tongue, a translator, and a great guy. Enjoy! - DNW)
by Matteo Curtoni
I’m not sure I know who the Good and the Bad really are, but I can tell you something about the Writer. That much I can do, and I think I should since it’s my first post here. The Writer is 34, he’s Italian and he’s always loved language so much (or so obsessively, you’ll be the judges) that some years ago he decided that writing in his native tongue was not enough. Just not enough. So he started writing stories in English as well. Those stories won a couple of contests and the Writer got noticed by an Italian publisher. The publisher offered him a contract. Of course the novel he wrote for the publisher was in Italian but it was based on one of the short pieces he’d written in English because, hey, linguistic schizophrenia needed to be fed somehow. The novel was quite sick, dark and weird but it sold reasonably well anyway. Since stories and novels or ideas for stories and novels unfortunately aren’t accepted as currency, while working on further indignities he’s planning to subject his readers to, our man makes living out of translating. From English to Italian. He’s translated novels by Joe Hill, Douglas Coupland, Katherine Dunn, James Lee Burke, just to name a few, and he considers himself damn lucky for the opportunity to translate their works. He keeps wondering about the Good and the Bad and about what the hell they’re doin’ inside his head, but he has reason to suspect that they’re studying French. Sooner or later he’ll find out, anyway. Last but not at all least, he’s terribly happy for the chance to contribute with his words here. Hope you’ll enjoy them, ladies and gentlemen.
–Matteo Curtoni
8 Comments, Comment or Ping
Thomas Sullivan
Weldom, Mateo. As a former polyglot — whose language range has sadly declined to a single last stand in English — I find you inspiring already. Writ on…
– Sully
Mar 6th, 2008
Thomas Sullivan
“Writ”? Alas, I meant “Write,” of course. An example in kind of that declining range I mentioned…
– Sully
Mar 6th, 2008
Thomas Sullivan
Er…welcome, welcome. Weldom. Yeesh.
– S
Mar 6th, 2008
Brian Hodge
Benvenuto, Matteo. I’m looking forward to your contributions here. Don’t know if it will come up, but…
I once read that Hunter S. Thompson gave himself an early home study course in writing by copying a variety of novels by Hemingway and others. His notion was that this would force him to analyze what the authors were doing to a degree that simply reading the novels wouldn’t get to.
I’m curious if a similar thing happens in the translation process, where you’re not only recreating the novel, but also trying to retain something of the flavor of the prose style, recast idioms that may not have a direct equivalent, and so on.
Mar 6th, 2008
Janet Berliner
Welcome, Matteo. Glad to have you with us. –Janet
Mar 6th, 2008
Matteo Curtoni
Hi Sully, Brian and Janet! Thanks for your welcome (and weldom ;-)) comments. It’s great to be here.
As for the translation process, yeah, the Hunter S. Thompson method *does* sound familiar to me in some ways. For me translating is like stepping inside another author’s skin and once you’re there, inside that skin, you get to know the author’s work in a way that reading just won’t allow you. I’m going to post something longer about the subject, about stepping inside some very interesting but also very uncomfortable skins…
Mar 6th, 2008
Richard Dansky
Welcome! Glad to have you on board!
Mar 6th, 2008
Teresa
I’d like to ‘weldom’ you, too Matteo. I look forward to your posts. I don’t know any language other than English.
Mar 7th, 2008
Reply to “THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE WRITER”