Good writing is art.
The act of translation is also an art, and its recognition as one is something that award-winning translator Jennifer Croft has been “pretty outspoken” about, including posting an open letter on the topic with author Mark Haddon that drew a great deal of attention.
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Along with the words themselves, translators grapple with communicating context, culture and the literary tools authors use to create certain effects. Sometimes, the challenge might extend to trying to understand the author – their identity, strengths, flaws and motivations — to make the translated work more faithful to the original. The intricacies of the relationship between author and translator inspire much of the tension of Croft’s debut novel, “The Extinction of Irena Rey,” out March 5 from Bloomsbury Publishing.
In the novel, acclaimed Polish author Irena Rey has worked with a handpicked group of translators for years, usually within the isolated confines of her home in the Białowieża Forest on the border of Belarus and Poland. These translators, among them Emilia from Argentina, understand the rules they must follow to work with Irena: In short, they must, and do, idolize her without question.
As the group gathers for their next work retreat in the forest – which, it turns out, is at risk from logging – Irena suddenly disappears, throwing the established dynamic into chaos. Emilia chronicles the events surrounding the disappearance, and her account, originally written in Spanish, has been translated for the reader into English by her hated rival Alexis, who adds her own perspectives via footnotes.
Croft, who moved with her family from Los Angeles to Oklahoma where she is Presidential Professor of English & Creative Writing at the University of Tulsa, is herself known for translating works from Polish, Spanish, Ukrainian and more; among the numerous books she’s worked on, her translation of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s “Flights” won the International Booker Prize in 2017 and her translation of Tokarczuk’s “The Books of Jacob” was longlisted for the award in 2022.
In “The Extinction of Irena Rey,” Croft explores the rivalries and power dynamics of languages, and how translation and identity are irrevocably intertwined. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q. Where did the idea for this book come from?
There were a few different ideas! I really wanted to write about the Białowieża forest, which is Europe’s last original forest. I happened to be over there in 2017 when the Polish government started logging. I wanted to tackle that in some way.
And then, of course, I am a translator. I’ve met so many and they’re such wonderful, fascinating people, and I have a lot in common with them. But for the past few years, I’ve been thinking about the relationships between translators. What would happen if you took away the author, if you turned them loose in a forest, if you started to really investigate some of the power dynamics within translation itself, such as which languages have more power?
I wanted to look at that, and how gender identities and other kinds of identities impact translation as a process, but also how that translation is received and understood. So yeah, I just wanted to write a book about translators, because I feel like people don’t pay enough attention to them.
Q. Can you talk about the work of translating and how it’s impacted you?
When I started out as a translator in my late teens, I was really committed to bringing contemporary women’s voices into English. For example, Polish is a language that not that many people study, and it’s spoken by a relatively low number of people. So translating does feel like a good thing to do for the literary community.
It’s also allowed me to find my own voice, because I think translation is the best possible apprenticeship in literature – there’s no closer form of reading. As a template, I always analyze what tools the writer is using to achieve the effect that I also need to achieve in my translation. Not exactly reproducing, but rebuilding the structure that they have given me at the onset, has taught me so much about writing and also about who I am and how I express that.
For me, it’s so much more than just work. I’ve chosen books that I really love, and I love being immersed in them. It’s such a pleasure to be able to inhabit those worlds.
Q. In what ways has the author-translator relationship you’ve experienced in your work had an influence on the book?
I’ve always had really nice relationships with my authors, and each relationship is different. Sometimes I ask more questions as I’m working. Sometimes I don’t really ask questions; I’m more in touch with the author on a personal level, depending on their personality, and how busy they are, and so forth.
In “The Extinction of Irena Rey,” I was interested in exploring the extremes of that relationship. I mean, everything that happens in the book is a kind of exaggerated satire. In general, too, I’m interested in parasocial relationships where one person feels as if another person plays an active, important role in their life; take Beyoncé, for example – she has no idea that her fan Jane Smith actually exists.
The translator is almost certainly thinking about the author a lot more than the author’s thinking about the translator, and that imbalance is kind of creepy. Translators sometimes talk about channeling their authors or inhabiting the authors’ minds. I find that I do become a little bit obsessed with my writers as I’m working on them, because their world kind of takes over my world. It’s just sort of funny to step back and think, They probably haven’t thought of me once.
Q. Can you talk about your forest setting? How did you choose it?
I first went to the Białowieża Forest in 2004. It’s not that easy to access as opposed to a lot of areas in Poland that are very well served by trains and buses. I know a lot of Polish people who have never been there, so I was really lucky to get to go then. I’ve always loved forests. I grew up in Oklahoma, and I always spent quite a bit of time outside. When I went to this primeval forest, it was like all of those treasured childhood experiences times a million.
Part of what makes Białowieża Forest feel so powerful is its biodiversity, because it’s the only remaining habitat of a lot of plants and animals and fungi. The natural outcome is this intensity of coexistence, which I just found magical and overwhelming and kind of frightening after dark. It was not like any place I had ever been before. And so it would have been hard to resist as a setting.
A few years ago, the forest was under threat from logging. It’s stopped at present, but I still think it’s worth pointing out since we don’t know what’s going to happen next.
Q. Speaking of fungi, mushrooms were kind of a theme in the book.
I think that fungi are a great metaphor for translation, and for translators. I read Merlin Sheldrake’s amazing book about fungi, “Entangled Life,” and one thing I took away was how mycelium (a network of fungal threads) allows the rest of the forest to be in communication. That was such a fascinating idea to me.
Translation is often not seen…and then if it is seen, it’s as a kind of dirty or contaminated thing, which strikes me as similar to how fungi are perceived by a lot of people. But actually, it’s what allows all aspects of the world to continue.
One thing that Sheldrake talks about in a really interesting way is, how do we define an individual? How do we define a community or collective? I wanted to celebrate and explore translators’ identities in this book, but then also think about the ways in which all of our identities are dependent on other people’s identities.
Q. Can you talk about the relationship between Emilia and Alexis?
I wanted my main narrator to not be the English language translator – to get out of that perspective. It felt really right to have my narrator be an Argentine woman around my age; I lived in Argentina for many years and have a lot of friends who are Argentine translators. Emilia is not based on any of them, but she grew out of a lot of those relationships and experiences.
I also thought that it would be more logical to have my main narrator be the person who supports literal translation or faithful translation, and then have Alexis, the person who is critiquing her narrative, be the person who is more inclined to translate freely. It’s a way of emphasizing the power of translation for better or for worse, and making the reader wonder what it is they’re reading at any given moment.
Q. What do you hope readers think about or feel after reading “The Extinction of Irena Rey?”
I’ve been pretty outspoken about the need for increased recognition of translation as artistic collaboration. I want people to acknowledge how interconnected we all are, and that no matter how independent we think our projects are, we are always relying on other people to accomplish them. I think that shift in mentality would be really great for the world.