2017 National Youth Poets Award, Amanda Gorman reads her poem “The Hill We Climb” during President Biden’s inauguration, on the Western Front of the United States Congress on January 20, 2021, in Washington, DC
Alex Wong / Getty Images
hide captions
switch captions
Alex Wong / Getty Images
2017 National Youth Poets Award, Amanda Gorman reads her poem “The Hill We Climb” during President Biden’s inauguration, on the Western Front of the United States Congress on January 20, 2021, in Washington, DC
Alex Wong / Getty Images
BUDAPEST, Hungary – Rozalia Galambica first discovered Amanda Gorman on YouTube, not long after the poet shone at President Biden’s inauguration with “The hill we climb.”
“The way she presents her poem,” says Galambica, a 20-year-old Roma from Hungary, “you are listening to her, and everything makes sense.”
The Roma are one of Europe’s largest, and most marginalized, ethnic minorities. Surname migrated from India to Europe many centuries ago and yet are still treated like outsiders. Until recently, the Romans were also known as gypsies.
“When you experience hate every single day of your life,” said Galambica, “you just feel every word of the poem. You feel seen. You feel hopeful that you can do more. in life versus what society tells you.”
This view is one reason why Galambica now belongs to a group of young Romanian writers who are translating Gorman’s new best-selling book, Call us what we carry, into Hungarian. The translation will be available this summer. Their choice came after a heated debate in Europe last year about who should translate the work of a young black American poet.
Rozi Galambica in her home in Ozd, Hungary. Galambica attended university in the Netherlands.
Akos Stiller
hide captions
switch captions
Akos Stiller
Rozi Galambica in her home in Ozd, Hungary. Galambica attended university in the Netherlands.
Akos Stiller
For some, the lack of diversity among literary translators has become an issue
The controversy began in the Netherlands early last year. Marieke International Book Award-winning writer Lucas Rijneveld – white, non-binary and uses the pronoun surname / last name – revealed on Twitter that they were chosen to translate “The Hill We Climb” into Dutch.
Janice Deul, a black activist in the Netherlands, answered by calling Rijneveld “an incomprehensible choice” and saying the work should go to a prolific artist who is “young, female, and negligent black”.
Rijneveld gave up. “I’m not considered capable,” they told a Dutch TV presenter in November. “People say: ‘You’re not of color, you’re not in the same situation.” “
Then Gorman’s Catalan interpreter, Victor Obiol, a white man, was told he was “not suitable. “
Criticism, Criticism share publicly important world of literary translation. One side argues that Europe is importing the politics of American identity. Another argues that the lack of diversity in literary translation is a very real problem.
“It’s about the opportunity, the space for visibility created by the act of translating, and who can occupy that space,” Written Haidee Kotze, professor of translation studies at Utrecht University.
Like other parts of Europe, the team of translators in Hungary is “predominantly white and middle-aged,” said Andras Buchler of Open Books, the Budapest publisher that is handling the Gorman translation.
“When publishers anywhere in the world get access to foreign-language titles, they look for translators who have a deep understanding of the original work,” he said. “When it comes to poetry, it’s a million times more complicated. In this case, there are issues of accessibility and relativity.”
Writer and documentary filmmaker Kriszta Bodis saw an opportunity.
“I told the publisher, ‘we have great young writers who are Roma,'” she said. “”Why not them?” “
The interpreters grew up in Ozd, a town in the northern hills of Hungary with a large Roma population. The neighborhood of Roma there is very poor.
Mate Halmos for NPR
hide captions
switch captions
Mate Halmos for NPR
The Roma of Europe are trying to climb a hill of their own
Bodis runs Van Helyed (“You Belong”), an educational nonprofit first founded in Ozd, a town in the northern hills of Hungary with a sizable Roma community. The four translators on the Gorman project grew up in Ozd and go to school in Budapest through a partnership with a non-profit organization.
Bodis says Roma are too disadvantaged in Hungarian society most of them do not finish high school or find a good job. Teen pregnancy is the norm.
“Politicians use Rome to win elections [with promises of support] then ignore or abuse them the rest of the time,” she says.
More than 12 million Roma live in Europe today, most in the eastern half of the continent. At least 750,000 VND live in Hungary. Growing up here, Rozalia Galambica said she worked hard to fit in a society that always told her, as she explains, “you’re not enough”.
“You’re not going to have a career because you’re going to have a baby at 16 or Galambica says she tried so hard to fit into a society that always told her, One 15,” she said. My brother, his teacher told him that it doesn’t matter if he studies because he won’t be able to get a good job and he won’t be anyone in life. “
Her brother, Peter, is 18 and says he grew up viewing portrayals of Roma as “scammers, gangsters or performers playing music to amuse white people.”
“I feel like the hill we’re trying to climb,” he said, “is to prevent Romanian people from being seen as criminals and as jokes and clowns.”
Noemi Kala, another young person translator, says her classmates in Budapest don’t realize that stereotyping hurts.
“They don’t know what that means to me, to the people of Romania. They just do it,” she said. “And when they read poems like [Gorman’s]I really hope that they will see what they have done. “
Kriszta Bodis, who runs the Van Helyed (You Belong) non-profit in Budapest, shows a video by Nina Simone to young Roma writers translating Amanda Gorman’s new poetry collection, Call us what we carry.
Joanna Kakissis for NPR
hide captions
switch captions
Joanna Kakissis for NPR
Young translators hope to preserve the “chills” of Gorman’s poems
The group meets regularly, often online, to discuss translations of their poems in Call us what we carry. They discussed every word, every verse. A professional translator, Daniel Danyi, works with them.
Bodis also delivered readings and movies, including a video of Nina Simone’s song “Brown Baby,” so the group could learn about the black American experience.
Buchler, the publisher that handles the translation, says he’s trying to help the team with seminars and coaching.
“We’d love to publish their work tomorrow, but we’re trying our best not to put pressure on them,” he said. “We really wanted to give them time to make each piece perfect.”
Rozalia Galambica attended a Zoom session from Leiden University in the Netherlands, where she is studying international relations and sociology. After graduation, she wants to pursue a master’s degree.
“Perhaps I would be a diplomat,” she said. “I wanted to do something to change the way society perceives Roma.”
She struggles with that perception herself. She says that sometimes she doesn’t speak up when her classmates assume she’s Spanish or Greek.
“I’m scared to say ‘yes, I’m a Hungarian Roma’,” she said, because I wasn’t sure how they would handle it.
At such moments, she wondered what Amanda Gorman would do. She flipped to the final lines of “The Hill We Climb”:
When the day comes, we step out of the shadow of the fire and are not afraid.
New dawn balloons as we release it.
Since there is always light, we just need to be brave enough to see it.
If only we were brave enough to be it.
She says those words always give her chills – and wants to make sure their power isn’t lost in translation.
Mate Halmos contributed to this report from Budapest and Rosanne Kropman from Amsterdam.
