Born in Romania in 1952, Magda Teodorescu’s career as a literary translator only properly launched after the downfall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Since then, however, her translation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was adapted for the stage and met with great acclaim in Bucharest. Likewise, her endeavour to bring new Irish writers to Romanian readers has come to fruition in her translations of Colm Tóibín’s The Story of the Night and The Master. Currently, she continues to lobby for the translation of other contemporary Irish writers such as Deirdre Madden and Anne Enright, while hoping to realize her own ambition of writing a novel.

Tell us a little about yourself!
I think I’ve always lived in between two languages: Romanian and English. I reached my current academic position as Associate Professor at Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, through hard work. However, this would not have been possible before 1989. Tough as it was, I had time to read, and I devoured books and wrote short-stories, which I never published. To be teaching English for architects to be now is extremely enjoyable and rewarding most of the time. The kids have other ways of expression, they communicate through drawing, so teaching them verbal communication in a foreign language adds up to their cultural and mental background. It also helps me bridge the gap between apparently distant worlds. I do some research on architectural vocabulary, and since I’m among the few translators in this field, I translate a lot: books, magazine articles, essays. In fact, my workday is divided in two, sometimes, three different activities: literary translations, architectural translations, and teaching. Still, there is some time left for daydreaming.

How did you come to translate Irish literature?
In 1996, I was among the editors of the issue on Ireland published by a famous literary journal, Secolul 20. For that issue, I translated three short stories by James Joyce and two stories by W. B. Yeats. In fact, I was the one who chose the title for the chapter on contemporary Irish literature: “In the Shade of Martello Tower.” This chapter included translations from prominent contemporary Irish writers like Frank O’Connor, Colm Tóibín, Hugo Hamilton, Roddy Doyle, and others, yet not too many. We were happy to present Seamus Heaney to the Romanian readers – he had just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. This issue sold out so quickly that I had to protect my own copy fiercely.   

In 2000, Mircea Mihăieş, Professor of English at Timişoara University, and a well known literary figure on the Romanian stage, and not only there, suggested I translate Oscar Wilde, that is, a new version of his essays, Intentions. I remember that the book sold extremely well and there were some articles about it in the papers. It seems that the Romanians are still attracted to Wilde; they’ve been so since 1911 when the first translations from Wilde were published, though I suspect they translated his work from French! The Wilde project went on, and so I translated The Picture of Dorian Gray and De Profundis. The Picture of Dorian Gray was staged by an extremely resourceful director, and the play was a smashing success. It is still on at the Odeon Theatre.

Is Irish literature particularly difficult to translate?
As I always say, any kind of translation is difficult. In the particular case of Irish literature, well, it depends on what you translate, I think. As I mentioned before, I tried my hand at Joyce’s work. In my opinion, the real difficulty arises from the writer’s subtle intertwining of Irishness and Englishness; they are like two minds sometimes struggling and competing to express their own personality. Then, there is the local element, the concrete history, the facts, which sometimes, when rendered in prose or verse, are hard to translate. I keep thinking of Swift – no one until Swift had this gift, God’s gift indeed, to invent, to coin words, to travel between two languages. In fact, Gulliver’s Travels is a novel about a voyage within languages, manners, and minds. Joyce is much indebted to Swift. The most difficult texts are those which are marked by genius loci, and as a translator you shouldn’t be misled by the apparently “international” character of their expression in English. I remember that in one of his letters, Wilde mentions something about his use of future tense (he preferred “will” to other more colloquial expressions of future, just to challenge the British). When I translated Colm Tóibín’s The Story of the Night, for instance, I had an argument with the editor on this particular issue, because as “international” as his language might seem, there are aspects of his private language emerging in his prose, and, most of all, his apparent simplicity, the words stripped off their rhetoric inflexions, are indeed hard to capture. Whenever I read an Irish writer, not just for translating, my senses are fully awake and I wonder how I should translate this or that. So, yes, it is difficult to translate Irish writers, but you know that at the end of the day your efforts will be fully rewarded, your cognitive capacities will have been enriched. It’s amazing what the marriage of two minds can do, isn’t it? 

How did the translation of The Master come about?
I knew that Colm Tóibín was working on this novel in 2002 when he came to Bucharest to launch his Story of the Night. Being an admirer of Henry James’s work, I was anxious to read it, so I asked him to send the Romanian publisher a copy. I first read the proofreading, and I was fascinated with his work. It was so different, so unlike his other writings, yet so close to his hidden self! It took quite a long time for the publisher to decide on purchasing the copyright which made me quite upset. Finally, it was Mr. Bogdan Stănescu, the new director of the collection, who acquired it and I started translating it that very day, i.e. in April 2006. I submitted the translation to the publisher in mid December, hoping that it would be printed by June this year and launched at Bookfest, one of the two Book Fairs held in Bucharest every year.

Tell us about working on the translation in Ireland.
When I arrived in Dublin, I had already translated seven of the eleven chapters, I think. I was looking forward to walking the streets and visiting the places where Henry James once had been. I followed his route from Dublin Castle to the former Royal Hospital, recalling Colm Tóibín’s descriptions. I compared them with my translation and hands-on facts and understood more about it, although the atmosphere back then was different, and James broken-hearted after the failure of his drama. While Colm Tóibín wrote just one chapter about Dublin, he succeeded in reviving the whole mood of the Fin de siècle and subtly highlighted things that you couldn’t find in history books: the attitude of the English towards the Irish, their patronizing of the Irish middle class, the poverty in the streets. In short, all those significant nuances of meaning that did not escape the eye and the imagination of the author, in turn inspired by the personality of Henry James. I translated and revised parts of my translation while in Dublin, working long hours on the text. At the same time, I was given the opportunity to meet Colm Tóibín and to discuss the novel with him.   

What are your current literary projects?
Oh, there are so many! I keep thinking about my own writing, but it seems I’ll be torn between my two passions forever. I signed a contract for the translation of Sarah Waters’ novel Night Watch, which I have to finish by mid July. Also, I have been asked to translate Wilde’s stories by another publisher and I intend to do an annotated translation of them. I might also translate and put together a book with Lewis Carroll’s stories and verse. Meanwhile, I hope I can find some time for my own novel. 

Do you plan to return to Ireland and its literature in the near future?
I’d love to! I’m always ready to return to Ireland and to its literature. I hope the publishers will accept my proposals for the translation of Deirdre Madden’s and Anne Enright’s novels or other books by contemporary Irish writers. Some are extremely challenging. I’d like to say that I’m much indebted to the Director of ILE, Ms. Sinéad Mac Aodha, for her good advice and care of myself, and to Ms. Deirdre Madden who helped me discover some significant places in Dublin.