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 Benjamin Kuntzer, the French translator of Room On Our Rock, by Kate & Jol Temple and Terri Rose Baynton. 

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 French translator Benjamin Kuntzer

Benjamin Kuntzer worked as a YA publisher, gradually moving into casual and then full time translation work. He has since translated over 60 picture books, including the famously clever and complex Room On Our Rock, which can be read front to back, and back to front.  

Q: How many Australian picture books have you translated in your career?  

A: To be honest, I’m not sure I knew Room on Our Rock was Australian, I don’t think the publisher mentioned it.  

Q: Do you notice similarities across the Australian books you’ve worked on that pose challenges to translation?  
A: I remember being confronted to a few vocabulary challenges when working on an Australian novel. I knew British people don’t count floors the same way as Americans, for instance, but I wasn’t sure about Australians. But I’d say each text has its own difficulties, regardless of the author’s nationality.

Q: For Room On Our Rock specifically, can you identify some of the challenges you faced? Are there particular pages or lines of text that were hard to render into French?  

A: Obviously the most challenging part is that this book can be read both ways, so I had to find turns of phrase that worked both ways. I first translated it following the traditional way (from the first page to the last), then copied each of my sentences on a separate document and reread it backwards. When a wording sounded wrong, I changed it so that it would fit, then I reread the whole text from front to back. 

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: When I first translated picture books, I didn’t have children of my own, so I was not used to this kind of literature. My main challenges were to decide which tense to use (past or present) and which register (I tried to make sure children who read alone could guess the meaning of a word using context, but I didn’t want to oversimplify it either). Some very basic terms are more easily understandable in English than in French (it’s probably also true the other way around). For instance, ‘hearing’ sounds like ‘to hear’, so any English-speaking child can easily guess what it means; the French translation of this word is ‘ouïe’, which doesn’t sound at all like ‘entendre’ (to hear). 

As regards the illustrations, they sometimes help me to choose the correct translation. For instance, when I read the adjective ‘purple’, I never know if I should translate it ‘violet’, ‘pourpre’ or ‘mauve’, the picture helps me solve that problem. However, it’s also more restrictive: when the expression ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ is illustrated with cats and dogs falling from the sky, the translator has to find a way to explain the drawing while conveying the meaning. 

Concerning rhyming texts, they are not as tricky as they seem, even though you more often than not have to take a step back (or a few steps back) from the original text. In French, we often use the Italian saying ‘traduttore, traditore’ (to translate is to betray). It’s probably never truer than with rhyming texts. 

Q: Finally, please tell us a bit about your career as a translator (background, education, experience, languages). 

A: I had a post-graduate diploma in translation back in 2005. I then worked as a YA publisher for a few years, working with French authors as well as translators. In 2007, I translated my first novel in my free time. When I started to get more than a couple a year, I quit my publisher job to devote my time to translation (some time around 2010 or 2012). I translated my first picture book in 2010 or 2011, in between two novels, and kept on doing it since then, even though it is now on a less regular basis than before. To date, I think I have translated about 60 picture books and almost 100 novels (and I’m still loving it). I only translate from English to French. 

Quality translation is a skilled blend of art and science. I hope this interview series helps elevate our respect for the creative efforts of translators, as well as the sophisticated (misunderstood!) work of children’s writers and illustrators.