Welcome to Talking Translation, where we go behind the scenes and between the lines to learn more about the process of translating Australian children’s books. Today we meet Elena Montemaggi, the Italian translator of books by Aaron Blabey, Philip and Laura Bunting, Nick Bland and many more.
Why talk about translation?
Children’s and YA books make up over 54% of the international rights sales of Australian literature. They are vibrant agents of cross-cultural exchange and exciting contributors to the arts economy. And Aussies love an international success story! So, by all means, praise the authors! Praise the illustrators! But do remember that none of this success happens without exceptional translators, who deftly manipulate words to ensure new audiences can enjoy the same reading experience as the book’s first readers. In the age of AI it’s never been more important to celebrate these gifted creators who do SO much more than swap one word for another. Let’s make our translators visible!
Talking Translation with Italian translator Elena Montemaggi
Elena Montemaggi is a dynamic, highly experienced translator of Australian children’s books into Italian. Elena has translated some of Australia’s best-known titles, from Pig the Pug, to The Very Cranky Bear, and Amy & Louis – which won the prestigious Nati per Leggere (Born to read) award at the International Book Fair in Turin, 2022. Amy & Louis is a charming and sophisticated book in any language, but to take out the award in a language other than English, the translation must be exceptional.
Q & A with Elena Montemaggi
Q: How many Australian picture books have you translated in your career?
A: About 31, including…
- Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood: Amy & Louis.
- Emma Allen and Freya Blackwood: The Terrible Suitcase.
- Aaron Blabey: Pig the Pug series (9 books); Thelma the Unicorn series (2 books); Piranhas Don’t Eat Bananas; I Need a Hug.
- Nick Bland: The Fabulous Friend Machine; The Very Cranky Bear; The Very Hungry Bear; The Very Noisy Bear.
- Philip & Laura Bunting: Another Book About Bears; The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants; Give Me Some Space!; Democracy (in translation).
- Zanni Louise and Philip Bunting: Mum for Sale
- Melynda Szymanik and Nikki Slade: Sharing with Wolf.
- Heath McKenzie: This Very Hungry Dragon.
- Kate & Jol Temple and Terry Rose Baynton: Move that Mountain.
- Craig Smith and Katz Cowley: The Wonky Donkey.
- Craig Smith and Scott Tulloch: The Scariest Thing in the Garden; My Daddy Ate an Apple.
Q: Do you notice similarities across the Australian books you’ve worked on that pose challenges to translation?
A: No, each author has their own characteristic view of the world of childhood and their own typical writing. Each text presents a new challenge every time. For example, both Aaron Blabey and Nick Bland devote multiple rhyming texts to a particular character (a pug and a bear, respectively). They are all enjoyable, fun, rhyming and up-tempo stories with an intrinsic message and yet they have a different irony that transpires through their personal use of words, rhymes and illustrations.
Q: For Amy & Louis, specifically, can you identify some of the challenges you faced? Are there particular pages or lines of text that were hard to render into Italian? For example, the rhyme ‘coo-ee Louis’ has been problematic for translators. I would love to hear of some other examples.
A: The Italian translation of this book is based on the Australian version. As far as the characters’ names are concerned, at the beginning I was thinking of adapting them to similar assonant names like ‘Emma e Lucio’ (the appropriate translation would be ‘Emilia e Luigi’) but then I thought that the original names are short and simple and that today Italian children are becoming familiar with the English language at school so I decided to keep Amy & Louis, thus respecting the identity of the characters.
- Both the text and the illustrations are poetic and delicate, so in translating the book I tried to be loyal to these two main characteristics.
- For what concerns the special call between Amy and Louis: coo-ee, Lou-ee! and coo-ee, Am-ee! my first choice was “cuuu-ì Luuu-ì / cuuu-ì Aaam-ì” in order to convey the original cultural heritage and sound but that would have implied a footnote with an explanation perhaps too abstract to understand for very young “readers” (3- 6 yrs old). So I was asked to somehow domesticate the call and find a credible and fitting solution that could save meaning, assonance and render the idea of a special call between the two children. I came up with the following solution: “Uh-iii, Louiii!” and “Ee-iii, Aam-iii!” Two actual and similar calls for attention that in Italian rhyme and play with the names of the children. The two calls have the same meaning of coo-ee and a similar sound. So maybe we lost something on the one hand but gained something on the other hand.
- The book won the “Born-to-Read Prize” in 2022. Nati per Leggere (Born to read) is a national reading promotion programme aimed at families with pre-school children. The competition rewards the best publishing production for children.
- The book was nominated “for the poetic way in which a boy and a girl build and maintain their friendship in spite of family events that separate them. For the realism, authenticity and strength of a childhood language that overcomes the obstacles of a seemingly insurmountable distance with imagination, fantasy and trusting obstinacy”.
Q: You have also translated some works by Philip & Laura Bunting. Was there a particularly challenging or interesting example from their works?
A: Philip and Laura Bunting too have their own particular irony that shines through in their books. I admire their love and respect for the environment and I love it when they bring wildlife into their books.
In Another Book About Bears, for example, I discovered and learnt the existence of animals like echidna, marmoset, star-nosed mole and blobfish. As it happened with the translation of Craig Smith’s The Wonky Donkey, one of the main challenges was to find a good translation for the English adjectives ending in “y” – because Italian adjectives end always differently. To end in the same way in Italian (see The Wonky Donkey) we must opt for a specific type of suffix (augmentative, diminutive or other suffixes that denote different kinds of characteristics) and where we don’t have a corresponding Italian adjective (see Another Book about Bears) it must be created.
Obviously, the chosen adjectives must trigger the same hilarious effect with the same intensity. But the greater the challenge the greater the fun. This sort of challenge fuels my fantasy that’s why batty becomes pipistrelloso, pinchy=pizzicoso, jumpy=saltelloso: there are no Italian target words for these adjectives so they are modified adjectives that you will never find in vocabularies. In these cases, I (need to) stretch and bend the words, playing with them and creating a new hilarious language. This is a sort of added value: children can learn that playing with the language is a fantastic game, that a language is a fascinating world to discover.
Another challenge was the translation of the slogans of the bears on strike. The author can play with the sound of the word “bear” and the meaning of “grizzly” but in Italian we can’t do the same so I played with the words “libero-libro-orso” (free-book-bear) finding each time different combinations for amusing, assonant and credible slogans: “libera l’orso dal libro”, “libero orso in libero libro”.
Interior spread from Another Book About Bears by Philip & Laura Bunting. Image credit
Q: What are some of the challenges involved in translating picture books, in general? For example, how do the illustrations impact the way you translate the words? How do you adjust rhyming texts?
A: Illustrations are the first real translation of the text and they are very helpful when I need a translating term that allows me to keep/preserve meaning, rhyme, meter and rhythm. As for example the beginning of The Very Cranky Bear by Nick Bland:
English version:
In the Jingle Jangle Jungle on a cold and rainy day
Four little friends found a perfect place to play….
Italian version:
Nella giungla fitta e scura in un giorno freddo e piovoso
Quattro piccoli amici si ripararono in un antro cavernoso..
Observations:
- Most of the time the Italian language has more words – and longer words – than the English language. Here we have more or less the same number of words but they are longer.
- In Italian the translation of “jingle jangle jungle” doesn’t render the effect of the original assonant wordplay so I had to play with the word “jungle” in another way, finding adjectives that would convey the same dynamism.
- In Italian most of the time the adjectives follow the nouns and in this particular case I needed (once again) two adjectives with the suffix “oso” to stress the characteristics of both the day (rainy) and the cave (cavernous).
- So thanks to the settings and the atmosphere transpiring from both the text and the illustrations the translation of the first page has kept: main intention (the group of friends finding shelter from the storm), rhyme, rhythm, meter.
- The fact that they were looking for a perfect place to play, lost in the first page, was regained in the second page and this once again thanks to the illustration:
I quattro giocavano sereni in quell’antro asciutto e ombroso
ignari che fosse abitato da…
Q: Finally, please tell us a bit about your career as a translator (background, education, experience, languages).
A: I have a C2 Proficiency qualification in English, a Diploma in literary translation and a Diploma in audio-visual translation with a specialisation in subtitling for hearing impaired children.
I have a Diploma in teaching English to pre-schoolers and I’ve been teaching English to very young learners in Italian pre-schools for about 20 years. I was a CLIL methodology Teacher Trainer for Primary and pre-school teachers at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice and I’m currently a Teacher Trainer for the project “Hearing and feeling the English language in the 0-3-6 age group” offered by the Emilia Romagna Region in collaboration with the University of Bologna. I also write articles for a prestigious Italian magazine for teachers.
In the past, I have translated biographies, autobiographies, essays, novels and detective stories. I have also worked for a short time as a subtitler for independent film festivals and translated and adapted dialogues for dubbing (lip sync, non-lip sync and oversound) for television documentaries.
