Translations

TRANSLAnONS 39' passe, et plut6t que les producteurs et diffuseurs, il favorisera les ereateurs. Au total: Ie point central des rapports Etat-theatre enfin passe au rayon x. Angele Dagenais veut aussi 'mettre en lumiere les rapports economiques et politiques qui structurent Ie milieu du theatre' dans Crise de croissance: Ie theatre au Quebec (IQRC, 71). En dehors de considerations esthetiques, son ambition vise aproposer un instantane de la situation tMatrale ou plut6t un 'diagnostic,' puisque 'crise' il y a: problemes financiers, clivage prononce entre Ie theatre 'consaere' et Ie 'jeune' tMatre, difficultes pour les artisans ceuvrant en region, obstacles bureaueratiques , saturation du marche (,autant de troupes au Quebec que dans les neuf autres provinces canadiennes'), politique a etablir, etc. L'enquete est rapide; dans Ie cadre temporel restreint de cette recherche, [,analyse ne pouvait etre poussee tres loin. Mais si son objectif de depart etait peut-etre trap ambitieux, ['etude de type journalistique n'en fournit pas moins des vues ponctuelles eclairantes sur les grandes preoccupations des intervenants de la scene. Les questions importantes sont reperees et des esquisses de propositions figurent dans Ie 'pense-bHe' servant de conclusion. Ces deux dernieres etudes sur Ie theatre cette annee, corrune les articles de Jeu et de Jeune theatre, rejoignent les preoccupations des Etats Generaux du theatre -lieu de convergence de la problematique theatrale cette annee - voulant repenser Ie fait theatral quebecois, ses structures et son r61e socio-culturel pour en arriver a elaborer un nouveau contrat entre l'Etat et les artisans de la scene. Translations JOHN J. O'CONNOR It is now ten years since the federal government inaugurated its programme of financial support for the translation and publication of Canadian books. All that is surprising about such a development is that it should have come about so late in the history of a bilingual country. This access to one half of our literary life provided by the creative work of translators is as worthy of our, and the government's, interest and support today as it was a decade ago. Regrettably, it would be rash to assume universal acceptance of this view among Canada's cultural czars, literary publishers, or citizens in general, for many Significant works in both French and English still remain unavailable to unilingual readers. Nevertheless, a few important works of Quebec literature have recently appeared in English. They include eight novels, four plays, and a collection of critical essays - the work of ten translators, six of whom are 392 LEITERS IN CANADA 1981 well known to readers of French-Canadian literature in translation. Although the French texts to which they have turned their attention were written between the end of World War n and the present, all but three have appeared in French since 1976. Thus, a survey of 1981's translations into English offers us a representative view of contemporary Quebec literature; at the same time, as we shall see, it also reveals the translators' attention to both well-known and new and experimental Quebec writers. The number of literary works translated last year is hardly cause for complacency. Moreover, the quality of the works is, at times, also cause for concern. A concurrent line-by-line reading of each pair of books reveals that many translators and publishers are still very careless about their responsibilities to provide reliable English versions of the French originals. There is, for example, the familiar case of David Lobdell's work from Oberon Press. While we applaud their energetic efforts and the quantity of their production in recent years, serious reservations must still be expressed about its quality. Lobdell has recently made three Quebec novels available in English: Claude Jasmin's Et puis tout est silence (1965), translated as The Rest Is Silence (Oberon, '52, $7.95 paper); Denys Chabot's L'Eldorado dans les glaces (1978), translated as Eldorado on Ice (Oberon, 223, $17.95, $8·95 paper); and Gilbert Choquette's Un tourment extriime (1979), translated as Wednesday's Child (Oberon, 183, $8.95 paper). In each of these texts Lobdell presents gratuitous embellishments of the original material on almost every page, and also regularly omits adverbs, adjectives, phrases, clauses, sentences, and occasionally full paragraphs...