András Imreh, Hungarian translator of Seamus Heaney's poetry
I spent 4 weeks in Ireland in September 2009 on a translation bursary awarded by Ireland Literature Exchange (ILE), working on the translation of Seamus Heaney's poetry. A broad selection of Seamus Heaney's poems in Hungarian was to be published by Kalligramm by the end of the year.
Kalligramm is a Slovakian-based publisher dealing with both Hungarian and Slovakian books. The project includes several translators but the bulk of the work was going to be done by three of us.
I was to translate 72 poems, with a total of 1,743 lines. I was ready with about half of it by the end of August.
As all translations should have been finished by mid-October, my aims with the bursary were:
1. to finish off translating the poems
2. to check all the problems and doubts coming up during translation
During my stay in Ireland I was mainly based in Dublin, spending about 15 days in the city and making one-day trips to counties Limerick and Offaly. I also visited Belfast for three days. At the end of my stay I spent 10 days in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annamaghkerrig, Co. Monaghan.
As it turned out, I arrived with lots of work to do. The deadline had been moved forward from November to October and on the plane over I had calculated that even given the opportunity to work 12-hour days, for a whole month, it would be on the verge of the impossible to finish the work. So, upon arrival, I immediately started translating.
Apart from translating I visited several museums and exhibitions, most of which were free admission. I think I spent several days altogether in the magnificent buildings of the National Museum, both on Kildare Street and in Collins Barracks, further down the river. It not only helped me get involved in the broad Irish context of which Heaney himself is a part of and to which he certainly often refers (e.g., the exhilarating exhibition on the Easter 1916 uprising didn't really have to do with any of his poems in particular, it just gave me an insight into the history that shaped his Ireland) - but in certain cases gave me the clue of some specific translation problems. I didn't know for example how to imagine a ‘woodkerne's hair', mentioned in one of the poems, until I almost ran into a 16th-century full-size woodkerne at the Medieval Ireland exhibition. In the same way, imagining a bog, which very often appears in Heaney's poems, was much easier after I walked through the rooms dedicated to Irish bogs in the National Museum.
And it was even more so when I visited one of the bogs in Co. Offaly. I was later asked if I took any photos, and I said yes, though a bog cannot really be captured by a photo - the wind, the smells, the texture of the soil, the sound of the birds all elude it.
The same type of field work was carried out in Co. Limerick where I arrived (after several desperate attempts to figure out the poem "Thatcher"), on the invitation of James, the thatcher (a meeting which was made possible by a member of the ILE board). I soon found myself on a roof listening to James's explanations and asking about the durability of hazels and willows. At the end of the long day's instruction I even persuaded James to stop at a country pump, to see how it looks and works. The reason for my interest came from another poem of Heaney's in which he talks about a pump, having the impression that this type of pump probably does not exist in Hungary.
In Belfast I got some insight into the actual political context of Northern Ireland. It was breathtaking to drive through the city, listening to the comments of the taxi-driver. The most amazing moment came when, at a certain street corner, he remarked his brother-in-law had been kidnapped there. Also striking was the impression of being home in an Eastern European town, caused by the famous murals.
As in Dublin, during my stay in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, I was granted all the opportunities for creative work, with the additional field studies and this was combined with being able to meet fellow artists. Not only could I discuss any problems I was having with the text with the Irish writers, but the whole atmosphere contributed to productive work. The countryside was a tremendous inspiration for translating a poet of rural background. (Mind you: if you have the chance to stay in Annamaghkerrig, don't forget to take your boots: there are plenty of chances to go for a walk.)
I left Ireland having accomplished what had seemed quite impossible upon my arrival: finishing the translation of all the poems. In fact I finished the last one on the plane back, it's called Postscript.