Ferdig, ja, men ikke ferdig

Oversettelse av Lars Myttings Hekne-trilogi som operasjon på en levende organisme

Abstract

The so-called Sister Bells Trilogy, consisting of Søsterklokkene [The Bell in the Lake], Hekneveven [The Reindeer Hunters] and Skråpånatta [The Night of the Scourge] (published in 2018, 2020 and 2023 in Norway) became a large commercial success and has, at the time of writing, been translated into 17 languages. But how do you translate a trilogy under construction, and what happens when a large group of translators collaborates with an author who is notorious for his efforts to guide the translation process with comments, suggestions, and explanations? This article aims to examine the translation of the trilogy from an empirical, autoethnographic perspective (since I myself am a literary translator from Norwegian to Polish and have translated the Sister Bells Trilogy as well as collaborated with Mytting in the process of translating his previous novel, Svøm med dem som drukner [The Sixteen Trees of the Somme] (2014)), while also reflecting on the translation process in light of the collaboration between the author and a group of translators. Some of the main questions addressed here include: How are power and agency distributed between the author and the translators in this process? And can we speak of a distinct, emerging, translator habitus?