Written Before It Vanishes

Fair point.

Though I'd argue the prize reaching something this thorny is at least a sign the committee is paying attention to something beyond the usual European literary orbit.

Puede.

Maybe.

Pero fíjate en que la novela solo existe para ellos gracias a la traducción al inglés.

But notice that the novel only exists for them thanks to the English translation.

Sin Lin King, este texto no llega a Londres.

Without Lin King, this text doesn't reach London.

El reconocimiento global de una literatura sigue dependiendo del acceso al inglés.

The global recognition of a literature still depends on access to English.

Eso no ha cambiado.

That hasn't changed.

Lin King is a fascinating figure in this story.

Young, American-born, Taiwanese background.

And the translation choices she made in a book where language politics are the whole point must have been nightmarish.

Pienso en algo concreto: en la novela hay personajes que hablan taiwanés, otros que hablan japonés, otros que hablan un mandarín que no es su primera lengua.

I'm thinking of something specific: in the novel there are characters who speak Taiwanese, others who speak Japanese, others who speak a Mandarin that isn't their first language.

Todo eso está aplanado en el texto chino original porque el mandarín lo unifica.

All of that is flattened in the original Chinese text because Mandarin unifies it.

¿Cómo le dices al lector anglófono que este personaje habla con acento, que ese otro titubea porque está usando un idioma prestado?

How do you tell the Anglophone reader that this character speaks with an accent, that that other one stumbles because they're using a borrowed language?

You can't, not fully.

That's a loss that's built into the act of translation, and it's almost more pointed here than in any other book I can think of.

Los mejores traductores saben que su trabajo no es reproducir, es recrear.

The best translators know their job isn't to reproduce, it's to recreate.

Lin King tuvo que encontrar en inglés una forma de transmitir esa textura de lenguas en conflicto.

Lin King had to find in English a way to convey that texture of languages in conflict.

Eso es un acto creativo, no solo técnico.

That's a creative act, not just a technical one.

I spent years interviewing people through interpreters, which is its own kind of translation, and you're always aware of what the interpreter is deciding for you.

There's a whole layer of editorial control happening in real time that you can't fully oversee.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y ahora súmale que en este caso el traductor también es parte de la diáspora taiwanesa.

And now add the fact that in this case the translator is also part of the Taiwanese diaspora.

Lin King no es neutral.

Lin King isn't neutral.

Tiene una relación personal con este material, con esta historia.

She has a personal relationship with this material, with this history.

Eso puede ser una ventaja enorme o una trampa.

That can be an enormous advantage or a trap.

En este caso, parece que fue lo primero.

In this case, it seems it was the former.

Let's stay with the colonial history for a moment, because I think it's worth explaining how layered Taiwan actually is.

Most people, if they know anything about Taiwan's history, know Japan and then the Nationalists.

But it goes further back.

Mucho más atrás.

Much further back.

Los holandeses tuvieron una presencia comercial importante en el siglo XVII, en el sur de la isla.

The Dutch had a significant commercial presence in the 17th century, in the south of the island.

Y hubo también una presencia española, aunque breve, en el norte, en lo que hoy es Keelung y Tamsui.

And there was also a Spanish presence, though brief, in the north, in what is today Keelung and Tamsui.

Wait.

Spain was in Taiwan.

I genuinely did not know that.

Dieciséis años, de 1626 a 1642.

Sixteen years, from 1626 to 1642.

Vinieron desde Manila, buscando una ruta comercial hacia China y Japón, construyeron un fuerte en el norte de la isla.

They came from Manila, looking for a trade route to China and Japan, built a fort in the north of the island.

Los holandeses los expulsaron.

The Dutch expelled them.

Luego llegaron los leales a los Ming, huyendo de la conquista manchú.

Then came Ming loyalists, fleeing the Manchu conquest.

Luego los Qing.

Then the Qing.

Luego Japón.

Then Japan.

Luego los Kuomintang.

Then the Kuomintang.

Es una isla que ha acumulado colonizadores como capas geológicas.

It's an island that has accumulated colonizers like geological strata.

Geological strata is exactly right.

And each layer suppressed or displaced the layer beneath it, which means Taiwanese identity is this incredibly contested, composite thing that different groups claim differently depending on which layer they're standing on.

Y eso tiene consecuencias literarias muy concretas.

And that has very concrete literary consequences.

¿En qué idioma escribe un autor taiwanés?

What language does a Taiwanese author write in?

¿En mandarín, que es lo que enseña el sistema educativo?

In Mandarin, which is what the education system teaches?

¿En taiwanés, que es una lengua min-nan con tradición oral fuerte pero menos presencia escrita?

In Taiwanese, which is a Min Nan language with a strong oral tradition but less written presence?

¿En inglés, para llegar al mundo?

In English, to reach the world?

Cada elección es política.

Every choice is political.

I covered East Timor for a period after independence, and you saw exactly this: writers and intellectuals agonizing over whether to write in Tetum, which was the language of national identity, or Portuguese, which was the language of education and international access.

Nobody wins that argument cleanly.

No.

No.

Y en el caso de Taiwán hay una presión adicional que viene de fuera: la de China continental, que considera el mandarín como la lengua del mundo chino, del que Taiwán formaría parte.

And in Taiwan's case there's additional pressure from outside: that of mainland China, which considers Mandarin the language of the Chinese world, of which Taiwan would be a part.

Usar el mandarín y que te lea el mundo puede parecer, desde Pekín, una validación de esa afirmación.

Using Mandarin and having the world read you can seem, from Beijing, like a validation of that claim.

Which the New York Times would call a tension and I'd call a trap.

And it makes the question of whether this is 'Chinese literature' or 'Taiwanese literature' genuinely politically loaded in a way that, say, debating whether Borges is Argentine or Latin American just isn't.

El Booker lo catalogó como literatura taiwanesa.

The Booker catalogued it as Taiwanese literature.

Eso es una declaración.

That's a statement.

Quizá la más explícita que un jurado literario anglosajón puede hacer sin entrar en política exterior.

Perhaps the most explicit one a British literary jury can make without entering into foreign policy.

In a year when the geopolitical pressure on Taiwan has never been more visible.

The timing isn't nothing.

La literatura siempre llega antes que la diplomacia.

Literature always arrives before diplomacy.

Cuando los países no pueden decirse ciertas cosas, las novelas las dicen primero.

When countries can't say certain things to each other, novels say them first.

Taiwán lleva décadas afirmando su existencia cultural con mucha más claridad que su existencia política.

Taiwan has spent decades asserting its cultural existence with much more clarity than its political existence.

Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage in 2019, first in Asia, and this novel has a queer relationship at its center.

Those two facts aren't unconnected.

There's something Taiwan has been doing culturally that projects an identity distinct from the mainland in ways that are very hard to argue with.

Es una de las estrategias más inteligentes de afirmación nacional que he visto: no a través de retórica política, sino a través de la cultura, a través de los derechos, a través de lo que una sociedad permite que sus ciudadanos sean y digan en voz alta.

It's one of the most intelligent strategies of national affirmation I've seen: not through political rhetoric, but through culture, through rights, through what a society allows its citizens to be and say out loud.

Eso crea una identidad mucho más difícil de borrar que cualquier constitución.

That creates an identity much harder to erase than any constitution.

And a novel that wins the International Booker becomes part of that project, whether Yang Shuang-zi intended it that way or not.

The book now exists in the world as evidence of something.

Como evidencia de que existe una tradición literaria taiwanesa con sus propias obsesiones, su propia historia, su propio idioma, aunque ese idioma sea prestado.

As evidence that there is a Taiwanese literary tradition with its own obsessions, its own history, its own language, even if that language is borrowed.

Y eso, en este momento, tiene un peso que va mucho más allá de cualquier jurado literario.

And that, at this moment, carries a weight that goes far beyond any literary jury.

A thought on the translation prize itself: the International Booker splits the award between author and translator equally, financially.

Which is rare, and which matters, because it recognizes that Lin King's labor is inseparable from whether this book exists for most of the world.

Y hay algo casi poético en eso dado el tema.

And there's something almost poetic in that given the subject matter.

Un libro sobre el poder del lenguaje, sobre lo que se pierde y lo que se preserva cuando una cultura tiene que hablar a través de otro idioma, y resulta que su propia existencia en el mundo depende exactamente de eso.

A book about the power of language, about what is lost and what is preserved when a culture has to speak through another language, and it turns out that its own existence in the world depends on exactly that.

Right.

You used a phrase a while back that stuck with me, 'un texto escrito desde dentro de varias jaulas a la vez,' a text written from inside several cages at once.

I want to ask you about that 'a la vez,' because I noticed you reach for that construction a lot and I've been trying to figure out if 'al mismo tiempo' would work the same way.

Son intercambiables en muchos contextos, pero 'a la vez' tiene algo más comprimido, más inmediato.

They're interchangeable in many contexts, but 'a la vez' has something more compressed, more immediate.

Decir 'varias jaulas al mismo tiempo' suena más descriptivo, casi periodístico.

Saying 'varias jaulas al mismo tiempo' sounds more descriptive, almost journalistic.

'A la vez' tiene más densidad.

'A la vez' has more density.

Caben las dos acepciones: la temporal, que significa 'simultáneamente,' y algo más cercano a 'a un tiempo,' que en español antiguo tenía connotaciones de unidad, de convergencia.

Both meanings fit: the temporal one, meaning 'simultaneously,' and something closer to 'a un tiempo,' which in old Spanish had connotations of unity, of convergence.

So 'a la vez' isn't just 'at the same time,' it has this extra compression where two things aren't just happening together, they're almost fused.

Which, given the book we've been talking about, is a perfect description of what it does: the colonial and the personal, the historical and the intimate, all fused.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y también se usa para subrayar tensión o contradicción: 'es dulce y amargo a la vez.' No solo coexisten, sino que chocan.

And it's also used to underline tension or contradiction: 'it's sweet and bitter at the same time.' Not just coexisting, but colliding.

Si dijeras 'al mismo tiempo' en ese contexto sonaría clínico, casi como un informe.

If you said 'al mismo tiempo' in that context it would sound clinical, almost like a report.

'A la vez' conserva el choque.

'A la vez' preserves the collision.

That's the kind of thing you can only learn from hearing it used by someone who actually thinks in the language.

I'll probably still say 'al mismo tiempo' by reflex and you'll correct me, but at least now I'll know why I'm wrong.

Mientras no me digas que estás 'muy embarazado' por el error, lo damos por bueno.

As long as you don't tell me you're 'very pregnant' because of the mistake, we'll call it good.