Jack Guy, CNN
A writer who was employed to translate Amanda Gorman’s poetry “The Hill We Climb” into Catalan claimed that publisher Univers had fired him.
Victor Obiols, whose prior work includes translating Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare into Catalan, told CNN Thursday that Gorman’s officials first approved the commission but then determined he wasn’t qualified for the position.
This is the second instance of this kind in Europe in the last month; in February, a Dutch writer resigned from a commission after becoming incensed that a Black writer had not been selected.
Obiols stated that Gorman’s representatives were searching for “someone matching the profile of the original writer,” despite the fact that Univers has not yet replied to CNN’s request for comment on its decision.
“I think this is a reflection of the dynamics of muting or not promoting what is politically incorrect,” he said, explaining that the Barcelona-based publisher informed him of the decision after he had delivered the translation.
CNN has also contacted Gorman’s publisher, Viking Studio, and its parent company, Penguin, for comment.
One of the main attractions of US President Joe Biden’s inauguration was Gorman, the country’s juvenile poet laureate, who read “The Hill We Climb.”
The publisher’s decision follows criticism from critics who questioned why a White writer was selected to translate a Black author’s work, and immediately after that, Dutch author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld returned a commission to translate Gorman’s work.
Obiols told CNN that he believed pressure from US social movements was the reason his commission was revoked.
“I understand the political dimension of the decision,” he said. “I feel solidarity with women and Black people.”
National youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman arrives at the inauguration of US President Joe Biden on January 20. WIN MCNAMEE/POOL/AFP/Getty Images
Obiols said authors or their agents have every right to choose a translator, but the latest move feeds into a wider conversation around creativity.
“There is a debate about whether the circumstances of a work of art is part of this work of art, or whether it should be judged by the content itself, independently of the circumstances (or) identity of the author,” he said.
“It is difficult to select translators.”
More than 9 million people in eastern and northeastern Spain, as well as parts of France and Italy, speak Catalan, which is an official language alongside Spanish in the Catalonia area.
Translation “is a way to carry across experiences that are private, intimate and products of specific histories and cultural experiences, into another sensibility,” according to Ananya Jahanara Kabir, an English professor at King’s College London, who spoke to CNN on Thursday.
Selecting translators for Gorman is difficult because of deeply ingrained historical injustices against individuals of African descent and their ongoing effects, according to Kabir.
“But decisions to drop translators because of racial and/or gender difference miss opportunities for transcultural healing and understanding,” she added in a statement. “These are opportunities for people who are neither African American nor female-identified to recognize and struggle with their historical burdens and make that struggle their own process of learning.”
“It’s a pity if in the search for redressal we forget literature’s function of opening and crossing borders, of teaching us to become porous to the others’ traumas, resistance, and joy.”
Amanda Gorman is the US’s first youth poet laureate, pictured in July 2019. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
The 2020 International Booker Prize winner Rijneveld retracted his offer to adapt Gorman’s writing into Dutch last month.
On February 23, Rijneveld, who is White and non-binary, said that they would collaborate with publisher Meulenhoff on the project.
Three days after Gorman shared Rijneveld’s tweet announcing the commission, Rijneveld claimed that the assignment had been returned.
“I am shocked by the uproar around my involvement in the spread of the Amanda Gorman’s message, and I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff’s decision to ask me,” wrote Rijneveld.
Meulenhoff said it understood Rijneveld’s decision and was looking for a new team to translate Gorman’s work.
