List of language interpreters in fiction

This is a list of language interpreters in fiction. Conference interpretation is often depicted in works of fiction, be it in films or in novels. Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter and Javier Marías' A Heart So White (1992) are amongst the best known examples. Several books, symposia[1] or websites tackle the issue at hand. Below is a list of works of fiction in which interpreters appear.

The interpreter's point of view

Interpreters in films

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1956 to 1989

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  • 1956: The King and I - Directed by Walter Lang. The interpreter refuses to translate what Anna Leonowens tells the kralahome (the king's minister); it then appears[vague] that the kralahome understands English. This scene shows that an interpreter has to fear being associated with the speaker.[2]
  • 1961: Judgment at Nuremberg – Directed by Stanley Kramer. Simultaneous interpretation was used for the first time at the Nuremberg trials.[3]
  • 1963: Charade - Directed by Stanley Donen. Audrey Hepburn plays an interpreter.[4]
  • 1964: Fail-Safe – Directed by Sidney Lumet. "There would be phalanxes of interpreters listening in, to insure against even the tiniest mistranslation... Simultaneous translation is a good dramatic device, because it avoids the distraction of subtitles or the absurdity of a Russian leader speaking fluent English".[5]
  • 1965: Gendarme in New York (Le Gendarme à New York) – Directed by Jean Girault. French policemen travel to New York. The welcome speech is interpreted in several languages. Louis de Funès’ headphones don’t seem to work.[vague][6]
  • 1968: Barbarella - Directed by Roger Vadim. Barbarella lands on a foreign planet and asks the locals, "Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français?" She then activates her "tongue-box" which helps her understand what people say. From then on, everybody speaks English.[7]
  • 1970: Patton - Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.[8]
  • 1971: Bananas – Directed by Woody Allen.[9]
  • 1973: Live and Let Die – Directed by Guy Hamilton. An anonymous hand substitutes a jack plug for another on a telephone-switch type of contraption in the interpreter's booth. Following this a delegate receives a deadly shock to the head. Languages channels are not linked to particular delegations and are not located in the booths either.[10]
  • 1973: Le Magnifique – Directed by Philippe de Broca. A dying Albanian has something important[peacock prose] to reveal. Five different persons are brought in, each one of them understanding a Slavic language, the last one of them being a French speaker who understands Czech. An illustration of relay interpreting.[11]
  • 1977: Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Directed by Steven Spielberg. In the French version, the interpreter paraphrases what is said as he cannot interpret French into French.[12]
  • 1977 to 2008: Star Wars – Directed by George Lucas. The robot C-3PO speaks 6 million galactic languages fluently. "Don’t blame me! I’m an interpreter! I’m not supposed to know the difference between a power socket and a computer terminal. I'm not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories."[13] EV-9D9: "How many languages do you speak?" C-3PO: "I am fluent in over six million forms of communication and can readily—" EV-9D9: "Splendid. We have been without an interpreter since our master got angry with our last protocol droid and disintegrated him."
  • 1981: Teheran 43 - Directed by Alexander Alov and Vladimir Naumov. One of the main characters is accompanied by an interpreter called Marie Louni.
  • 1986: Children of a Lesser God - Directed by Randa Haines. Includes a sign language interpreter.

From 1990-present

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Interpreters in TV shows

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Interpreters in literature

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from 1893 to 2000

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  • 1997 : Der Versteckspieler by György Dalos. The main character is an interpreter and political opponent in Hungary in the 1970s.[36]
  • 1999 : The Devil Knew Not by Bill Newton Dunn, Member of the European Parliament. Political thriller set at the European Parliament, with all its actors, MEPs, journalists and interpreters.[37]
  • 2000 : Siberiana by Jesús Díaz. The main character, a young black Cuban, travels to Siberia to make a documentary on the building of the railroad. He is accompanied by an interpreter.[38]
  • 2000 : A Storm of Swords, the third novel in the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, features a young slave named Missandei, who initially acts as an interpreter for the slave masters of Astapor, before joining Daenerys Targaryen's entourage.

From 2001-present

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  • 2001 : Brazil Red (Rouge Brésil) by Jean-Christophe Rufin. The French take two young orphans, Just and Colombe, with them to serve as interpreters in their attempts to conquer and colonise South America in the 16th century. As the children are very young, it is assumed that they will easily learn the local language. The gift of learning language goes lost at puberty, as the author writes. A Frenchman established in Brasil for several years will be their interpreter with the indigenous population. This gives him huge power as the French are entirely dependent on him.
  • 2003 : The Interpreter by Suzanne Glass. This novel served as a basis for the film The Interpreter by Sydney Pollack.[39]
  • 2003 : The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. Collection of nine short stories. The main character in the title story works as an interpreter for a doctor and acts as a tour-guide around India when not working, inter alia for an American family of Indian descent.
  • 2003 : The Interpreter by Suki Kim.[40][41]
  • 2004 : Tongue-tied (Die verlorene Sprache) by Liselotte Marshall. Autobiographical novel about an interpreter, Rachel Bernstein, a Jewish immigrant, a Holocaust survivor, who has no home country nor native tongue.[42]
  • 2005 : Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Various characters are held hostage, amongst them an interpreter.[43]
  • 2006 : The Mission Song by John le Carré. The main character is an interpreter named Bruno Salvador who knows several African languages.
  • 2006 : The Bad Girl (Travesuras de la niña mala) by Mario Vargas Llosa. The narrator is an interpreter.[44]
  • 2008: The Interpreter: Journal of a German Resister in Occupied France by Marcelle Kellermann. Novel in the form of a diary written by an interpreter working for the Wehrmacht. The author took part in the French Résistance.[45]
  • 2009: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. In chapter 16, the main character has dinner with Stalin, Beriya, a nuclear physicist "and a little, almost invisible young man without a name and without anything to either eat or drink. He was the interpreter, and they pretended he wasn't there." A poem is then proclaimed in Swedish: '"The Russian-English (insignificant) interpreter sat in silence on his chair and was even less significant than before." Later, "the dinner was over, because the interpreter fainted." In chapter 23, the main character serves as an interpreter between Lyndon B. Johnson and Charles de Gaulle in May 1968.[46]
  • 2010 : Hauch der Hydra by Helga Murauer. Thriller. An interpreter inadvertently hears a conversation between two mafiosi during a break.[47][48]
  • 2010: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. The main character relies on an interpreter to conquer the heart of his beloved. The story takes place in Japan in the 18th century.[49]
  • 2012: Entre deux voix : Journal d'une jeune interprète de conférence by Jenny Sigot Müller. The main character, Sonia Clancy, is a young fledgling interpreter who feels that her booth is slowly turning into a glass cage.[50]

See also

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Sources

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  • Wortklauber, Sinnverdreher, Brückenbauer, DolmetscherInnen und ÜbersetzerInnen als literarische Geschöpfe (Pedants, traducers or bridge builders. Interpreters and translators as literary creations). Ingrid Kurz, Klaus Kaindl (editeurs), Im Spiegel der Literatur Band 1, LIT Verlag Vienna 2005 - ISBN 3-8258-8495-3
  • Translation Goes To the Movies by Michael Cronin, London, Routledge, 2008, ISBN 0415422868
  • Daniel Pageon on Voiceoverworld
  • Article by Phil Smith on aiic’s website
  • (De-)Constructing translingual identity. Interpreters as literary characters in Simultan by Ingeborg Bachmann and Between by Christine Brooke-Rose by Eva Schopohl.

This article incorporates information from the French-language Wikipedia

References

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  1. ^ First International Conference on Fictional Translators in Literature and Film, Vienna, September 2011
  2. ^ The King and I on IMDb
  3. ^ Excerpt from Judgment at Nuremberg on youtube
  4. ^ Excerpt from Charade on youtube
  5. ^ Fail-Safe on IMDb
  6. ^ Excerpt from Gendarme in New York on youtube
  7. ^ Excerpt from Barbarella on youtube
  8. ^ Excerpt from Patton on youtube
  9. ^ Bananas on IMDb. The fake interpreter is played by Eulogio Peraza
  10. ^ Live and Let Die on IMDb
  11. ^ Excerpt from Le Magnifique on youtube
  12. ^ Close Encounters of the Third Kind on IMDb
  13. ^ Quotes by C-3PO on IMDb
  14. ^ Excerpt from La vita è bella on youtube
  15. ^ Exterpt from Lost in Translation on youtube
  16. ^ Article by Danielle Grée on the aiic website(in French)
  17. ^ Everything Is Illuminated on IMDb
  18. ^ La traductrice on IMDb
  19. ^ the Icelandic boss (Viking-like film-maker Thor Fridrik Fridriksson) fulminates via an interpreter about those accursed Danes The Independent, March 2, 2008
  20. ^ Je l'aimais on IMDb
  21. ^ Desert Flower on IMDb
  22. ^ Mad Men, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword on IMDb
  23. ^ The Tourist on IMDb. The interpreter is played by Giovanni Esposito
  24. ^ The Arrival of Wang on subtitledonline Archived 2012-09-12 at the Wayback Machine
  25. ^ "Zero Dark Thirty" on IMDb.
  26. ^ "Finally a movie that shows interpreters doing what they really do"-Blog entry
  27. ^ "Emperor" on IMDb.
  28. ^ The Greek Interpreter on wikisource
  29. ^ Rhetoric, the interpreter in Asterix and the Goths, on asterix.com
  30. ^ Obituary of the author in The Independent, March 27, 2012
  31. ^ Toutes les chances plus on amazon
  32. ^ Doris Lessing’s website
  33. ^ Article on Simultan by Katya Krylova
  34. ^ The Greek Interpreter on amazon. Out of print
  35. ^ A Heart So White on Javier Marías’s website
  36. ^ Der Versteckspieler on Sokrates Digital
  37. ^ "Bill Newton Dunn's website". Archived from the original on 2013-01-30. Retrieved 2012-09-21.
  38. ^ Siberiana on Le Mundo’s website (non translated) (in Spanish)
  39. ^ by Ken Colgan on aiic’s website
  40. ^ Interview with the author on Asia Society's website
  41. ^ Article by T. Hyvärinen on aiic's website (in french)
  42. ^ Tongue-tied on google books
  43. ^ Review of Bel Canto, The Guardian, July 14, 2001
  44. ^ Article by Danielle Gree on The Bad Girl
  45. ^ The Interpreter on the Website of The Belsize Village Association Archived 2013-02-18 at the Wayback Machine
  46. ^ The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, 2012 for the English translation. Hesperus Press Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84391-372-6
  47. ^ Website of the editor of Hauch der Hydra. Not translated
  48. ^ Article by T. Hyvärinen on aiic's website(in French)
  49. ^ The novel’s website
  50. ^ The author’s website. Not translated