"They did not print my book": Interview with Jonathan Littlel

The author of "Benefithers" about the difficult fate of his novel in Russia

This year, the AD Marginem re -released Roman Jonathan Littlel, “Benefitan”. The scandal accompanied the repeated exit of the novel: it turned out that during the first translation into Russian, many fragments of the manuscript were seized - from individual sentences to entire paragraphs. They were returned to the new edition at the insistence of the author. Vladimir Raevsky talked with Jonathan Littlel about the fate of the Russian translation of his most successful book.

- Why did the bills returned to the novel only ten years after the release of the book?

The answer is quite simple: because I did not know about them until recently. Let me tell you everything in order. On the eve of the publication of “goodwriters” in Russia, I talked a lot with publishers, especially with Alexander Ivanov [editor -in -chief of the publishing house Ad Marginem], to which I always treated very well and with great respect. The translation process that Irina Melnikova was engaged was quite long. When he was completed, Sasha Ivanov said that he would like Melnikova’s translation to be edited by someone a little more experienced. Such a person was Maria Tomashevskaya from Foreign Literature. I had no problems with this. This is a common practice in some countries. Not in France, but, say, in Germany - yes, there is usually a translation editor. Well, I said that everything is in order, and the book was published. Of course, I know Russian, but I don’t read very fluently, so I looked at a few pages, looked at the beginning, but I didn’t read the translation. Ivanov assured me that everything was in order, translated very literary and very in Russian. I trusted him.

And then - it was 2016 - my book was transferred to Latvian. My Latvian translator, his name is Dance Diminsh - a brilliant polyglot. He says, I don’t know, eight, nine, maybe ten languages. And when he translated the book to Latvian, he, of course, worked with the French original, but also looked at the English, German and Russian translations for comparison and to find decisions that other translators resorted to. After several months of work, he wrote to me: "Jonathan, do you know how many fragments you have disappeared from the Russian translation?" I said: “I have no idea,” I was very upset and asked him to send details. After some time, Dance sent me an Excel file with a report on the study of the first two chapters and all of them. Somewhere it was one sentence, somewhere-whole paragraphs, and sometimes more.

Then I just fell out. I took both editions, walked along the table and realized that whole fragments really fell out of the novel. First of all, I wrote to Alexander Ivanov, and he replied that there were no bills there. I sent a table from Dance and wrote that all the bills were recorded by me personally. So he was forced to admit that there really is reductions. And then his reaction was completely different as it should: he was silent and refused to seriously talk about it. I never received an intelligible explanation, but it became clear that the translation editor Maria Tomashevskaya really introduced reduction into the text of the novel. As far as I understand, Alexander Ivanov was not even aware, he does not read French. But the American edition has already been released, and he could compare if desired. But he did not do this - and okay, but when everything was already clear, he even refused to recognize the problem. The last thing he told me with our direct contact: “The translation was served by serious editing and began to read as a classic Russian novel (such as“ War and Peace ”).

- How is it?

The general idea was such that I should not complain, because the translation with its bills was so good that the book became famous in Russia. I replied that it doesn’t matter to me whether I am known in Russia or not, it’s just not my book. They printed anything, but not my book, its text is promoted. To which they answered me: this is not censorship - this is an improvement. Then we began to swear, and I realized that I needed to distance myself and conduct further negotiations through the agent. Soon our contract ended. And they sent a proposal to extend it. So I had the opportunity to make them make a new edition with all the returned fragments. By this time, trust, of course, was completely undermined. Negotiations went well. The creation of a new edition took a year, because Dance had many other things. I trust him - although he is not a native speaker, he grew up in the USSR, and he is also the most qualified professional of all that I know. In any case, I will not trust any of the Ad Marginem. In general, all this took about three years.

- How do you know that the bills were made by Maria Tomashevskaya, and not the original translator Irina Melnikova?

This is what Ivanov claims: it was Maria who was engaged in bills.

“Have you ever met her personally?”

Once, at the very beginning of the entire process. A large passage from the book was published in Foreign Literature before Roman came out. I went to their office with Sasha Ivanov and then met with her. That's all.

“Have you talked about the translation with her?”

No. We talked about the editing process, but I do not remember the details. In general, this was that she intended to improve the language, to make it more literary.

- As far as I know, in the book there are about 600 cut fragments of different numbers. Does anything unite them?

If you fold everything together, it will turn out about 20 pages. Business - from a few words to, as much as possible, one and a half pages. Sexual scenes, but not even sex, but reflection [the hero of the book] Max [aue] on the theme of gender, the nature of male and female, which sound quite ambiguous. It seems to me that it was the ambiguity that confused her. But not only. For example, in the “Stalingrad” chapter, I describe how Max becomes worse and worse, and his visions become more strange and strange. But in the novel, visions and reality are described the same. Both for the reader and for Max it is not completely clear what is happening in reality, and what is in his imagination. This was done by me completely intentionally. So, many of these hallucinations are cut out of the book. It is especially important that one is cut out - where Max sees his friend Thomas, wounded in the stomach. He rises, bandages himself, laughs and goes forward. I don’t know, probably, Mrs. Tomashevskaya began to work in Brezhnev times. Then, with Brezhnev, it was probably completely normal to reduce the author’s text simply because the author had no rights. But it is amazing for me that in the 21st century, such a high -class publishing house as AD marginem, in fact, approves and protects this practice. It terribly disappointed me.

- And how do they protect this practice?

I did not understand this. It seems to me that the answer to the question lies in the nature of authorship. A good book, a bad book, is my book. I have no problem with the editing: when I worked with my editor in France, I was offered changes, bills, alterations, edits, and this is completely normal, a joint way to improve the book. But I can’t imagine that someone in Gallimar behind the author’s back (no matter, Franco or foreign) decided to reduce the book without informing him about this. Not only is it prohibited by a contract, there is also an ethical, moral aspect.

-Did someone apologize to you?

No, no one. They only quarreled with me. It would be the simplest to write: “God, Jonathan, how monstrously it turned out, we ask for forgiveness. Let's make a new edition as soon as possible. ” But they didn’t write to me. And they only defended Tomashevskaya.

- After the release of the book, Maria Tomashevskaya spoke in an interview with Radio “Freedom”: “If I were not a translation editor, but an editor of the text, I would have reduced the novel very much. There are a huge number of repetitions. ”

Please, you can think anything - especially if you are a literary critic. But do not cut someone else's text without permission.

- Now your book is coming out with excerpts returned to the text, right?

This time, Dance read the Grani and confirmed that everything that was seized was returned to the place. Russia is a country that is very close to my heart, and the translation of the "good -nobility" into Russian is extremely important for me. I am very offended by the people who read the cut version for ten years.

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The response of the editor -in -chief of AD Marginem Alexander Ivanov can be read here