The underdogs of the media world (II)
The media industry isn't just made up of CEOs, publishing executives, editors-in-chief, editors, and journalists. This article is about all the others. By Karl Lüönd, a freelance writer and author
It will probably never become a book, but it may become a small, against-the-grain series in Werbewoche: my overview of the underdogs and grottoes of the media world, those people who are indispensable but who are treated and paid less than they deserve. Older readers will remember the newspaper carriers who are still paid lousy wages by the state-owned postal service and for whom even the union has so far been unable to help them get a decent minimum wage.
Let's talk today about another shadowy plant that is rarely mentioned: the translator. There are quiet stars among them. I know one who sits in a cosy house on the shores of Lake Hallwil and translates everyday texts and non-fiction books - not just German-English; rather, he can switch between English, American and globalized English, he masters the business codes of many industries and doesn't have to ask back when the German text mentions "Landsgemeinde" or "Alpaufzug". Every author is in good hands with such a translator. He is paid decently, but not sensationally - because these are orders from the corporate publishing sector: around 3 francs per line, or around 90 francs for a manuscript page, including googling, research, queries and countless changes.
Literary translators can only dream of such approaches. I know someone who used to be culture editor at the Tagi newspaper with a great and incurable love for the Hispanic world and its literature. Almost thirty years ago, he decided to turn his passion into a profession. Since then, Peter Schwaar, as he is known, has been the top address for translations from Spanish in the German-speaking publishing world. He has translated around a dozen books by the great Eduardo Mendoza, including La cuidad de los prodigios ("The City of Miracles"), a grandiose and entertaining masterpiece, something like a sensual Barcelona version of James Joyce's Ulysses. This translation was Schwaar's breakthrough; since then, Spanish literary greats such as Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Tomas Eloy Mártinez and others have entrusted him with their works. Schwaar has translated over fifty books and has been awarded honorary prizes by the City of Zurich and the Spanish Embassy in Germany.
Schwaar lives in his linguistic world, in Gràcia, the most beautiful quarter of Barcelona, and translates with the discipline of an old soldier. His absolute musical ear for the melody created by the author using language and for the mood of the setting, his perfect command of the language, his meticulousness and unyielding attention to detail are currently rewarded by the big-name German-language literary publishers with 18 to 22 euros per manuscript page. Any cleaning lady would indignantly reject the resulting hourly wage. Some Romanians and Bulgarians, however, are fobbed off with 2 to 3 euros per page.
In recent years, translators have struggled to get a share of the box-office takings, i.e. a modest royalty depending on the number of copies and a share of the subsidiary rights revenue. Incidentally, translators are still treated like the mute servants at the entrances to stately homes, those carved Moors that serve as umbrella stands or hat racks: practical, indispensable perhaps, but at the end of the day not real housemates.
Translators are bridge builders between cultures, scouts in foreign worlds, travel guides in uncharted territory. Examples of appreciation for these cultural and media workers are rare. All the more remarkable is the Translators' House in Wernetshausen (Zurich Oberland), which has been offering translators from every conceivable language area affordable work opportunities and an ideal place to live since 2005 (www.looren.net). The house belonged to the publisher Albert Züst; his descendants have made it available for a good cultural purpose without stepping into the limelight. In the meantime, many works have been created here and ideas and contacts have been exchanged without the vain clamor of the media business. Thanks to this house and its users, for example, the great text "De Goalie bin ig" by Pedro Lenz has been translated into Glaswegian, the Scottish dialect of the city of Glasgow. Whether something like this is important is not important. What is important is that something like this is possible.
