Interview with Pello Zabaleta
Abstract
This article consists of an interview with Pello Zabaleta, who last year was awarded the Basque Countrys prize for translation for his version of The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll. At the beginning of the interview he comments on how the idea of translating this novel came about, and later deals with the specific questions involved in translating from German to Basque in comparison with the translation of other languages as well as the way he has dealt with the particular styles of the different authors he has translated.
The interview then goes on to a general analysis of the present situation of translations into Basque, both in the Government, the mass media and in literature itself. In his opinion, excessive efforts are made to translate official documents which have no influence on improving the situation of the Basque language, due, among other reasons, to the fact that the language used is obsessed with its own purity, lacking in any pedagogical function.
On the other hand, he discusses the poor reception which Basque-speakers usually give to translations into Basque, due partly to the fact that foreign literature has reached these readers via Spanish, a situation that has created a very deep-rooted tradition, and equally due to what he calls the "second eye", i.e., to the custom of Basque readers of making a linguistic criticism and not a purely literary reading of the work in question. For this reason, he highlights the importance of reversing this tendency in the younger generation, and the need in the future for doing translations without feeling any kind of "complex", so that young people can also receive the literary production of other languages in Basque. In this sense, he points out that the existence of some type of corrector is important for the translation, not with the purpose of telling the translator how he has to translate, but to give him a different viewpoint on his own work, so that he can make improvements in his technique.
Lastly, there is a short discussion of Basque dictionaries and the way in which they are employed (incorrectly on many occasions), as they are used without the spirit of criticism which should be the mark of a good translator.
