Michele Hutchison recently quipped on Twitter that she posts annual reminders on social media about the correct spelling of her name because “no one ever gets it right.” Yet, for the talented Dutch to English translator, 2020 is already shaping up to be the year that this all changes. In recent weeks, Hutchison was awarded the prestigious Vondel Prize for her “sure-footed, propulsive” translation of Sander Kollaard’s Stage Four, and her translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s explosive debut novel, The Discomfort of Evening, was longlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize. Amsterdam-based Hutchison has translated over thirty-five books, co-written a book on the benefits of Dutch-style parenting, and is an active and generous member of the European literary translation community. Several years ago, Michele also read and thoughtfully critiqued my own translations of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s poetry. Following the announcement of the International Booker longlist, I was eager to reignite our conversation on Rijneveld’s work, and learn more about her prize-winning translation of Kollaard’s extraordinary novel.
—Sarah Timmer Harvey, March 2020
Sarah Timmer Harvey (STH): Congratulations on winning the Vondel Prize for your translation of Stage Four. What does winning the prize mean to you?
Michele Hutchison (MH): Thanks! If you look at the translators who have won in the past, it sets me in very good company and it’s a great honour. I found it very hard to believe I’d actually won the prize because I’ve always felt insecure about my translations, and I fixate on the flaws; it’s impossible to get everything right. But I suppose every translator struggles with producing an imperfect product. Mind you, I’ve noticed that the leading male translators in my field have less trouble with that, and feel they deserve prizes for all their hard work, so perhaps it’s a female thing?
I co-wrote a non-fiction book (The Happiest Kids in the World) and I actually found that less stressful. I was able to let go of some of my perfectionism because I wasn’t about to mess up someone else’s book like with a translation. What I also think about prizes is that the choice of the winner depends on the mood of the jury on the day. It’s not like the best book always wins, or that there is even objectively a “best” book or translation. To be honest, my money was on the runner-up, David Doherty. I guess my writerly touch was probably what clinched it in the end, if anything!
STH: While it is a novel about the harsh realities of terminal cancer, Stage Four is also very much a love letter to the Nordic landscape. Sweden forms the backdrop for a collection of memories accumulated by an older Dutch couple throughout their relationship, and is the place they instinctively return to after the diagnosis. In a section I found particularly beautiful, Sarie, one of the two main protagonists, accesses some of her “lost” travel memories through her dreams, recalling them “as though they’d been dusted off and polished.” What did you find most striking when you first read Stage Four in the original Dutch?
MH: I agree, I liked that section too, and the bit where Sarie is ill and feels like she is drowning and swims up to the surface of consciousness. I love visual and sensual scenes. The sense of place is very strong in the novel and that’s something that always appeals to me. My editor, Elisabeth DeNoma from Amazon Crossing, had done a Ph.D. in Swedish so she brought some useful knowledge to the editing process and the translation of the Swedish song, “Visa i vinden.” Translating a Dutch novel set in Sweden was certainly a complication, so it was good to have help. Editors can never be thanked enough. I also loved the fact that this was a novel about a couple who have been together for years, not a budding romance. The way they can communicate with only a few words or a gesture is touching. I appreciated the physics leitmotiv of motion and impact; it was pleasingly nerdy. And the poetic prose, of course—Stage Four is full of beautiful passages!
STH: You have translated many prominent Dutch-language writers, from Esther Gerritsen to Tom Lanoye and Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. In all of the translations I have read, you have done a remarkable job of bringing the author’s voice into English, yet you also have your own distinctive style. For me, what stands out is your incredibly sensitive approach to translating dialogue. Dutch is a famously direct language and in translation, Dutch dialogue can occasionally lose its nuance and seem quite blunt. Your translations always manage to eke out the subtle softness that is often present in the Dutch but not always easily replicated in English. What would you say most characterizes your style of translation?
MH: Thanks for the compliment! I can recognize translations done by my colleagues from their style, I think, but it is very hard to know what my own style is, and what my quirks are. I try to approach the work both as a translator and a writer. I love doing dialogue and making it sound as natural as possible, which is why I do plays whenever I can. I also love translating poetry, having always written it myself. Then it’s a question of tuning in to sound and rhythm. The thing I get complimented on the most is the rhythm and flow of my translations, never their accuracy!
STH: Before embarking on a career as a translator, you worked for many years in the publishing industry; would you say your years as an editor have influenced the way that you translate?
MH: I think editing translations was a great way of learning about the translation process and where it can go wrong. You learn to focus on that last stage, the revisions stage, and pick out whatever is awkward or strained. Still, in real life, I never have enough time or stamina to do all the revising I want to do.
Commissioning translations was also a very useful insight into how publishing works, especially how difficult it is to persuade colleagues to support a book they can’t read. I had a real head start when I started translating. I knew the key players already, I had a network, and I had more of a handle on what they’d be looking for. I’ve tried to share this knowledge with other translators as much as possible and I always give beginners a leg up when I can.
STH: Sam Garrett recently said that Dutch literary fiction is receiving “the kind of attention that you were seeing Scandinavian detective literature getting maybe ten years back.” Do you agree that Dutch literature in translation is having a moment?
MH: I don’t think there’s a real Dutch trend in particular, no, though there have been some successful Dutch writers over recent years—Herman Koch, Tommy Wieringa, Gerbrand Bakker, Tonke Dragt, to name the obvious ones. I think the Scandi crime wave helped establish an appetite for translation in general and normalized it for a certain readership. It also helped motivate publishers’ sales forces to back foreign books. A lot of Dutch ideas-based non-fiction is selling in English at the moment, and that’s a forthcoming trend to watch, writers like Rutger Bregman, Sanne Blauw, Jelmer Mommers.
Another thing to consider is the critical role the Dutch Literary Foundation plays in promoting Dutch works; for example, the current New Dutch Writing campaign in the UK is bringing writers into the spotlight. The Foundation also supports translators, and helps to train us, providing mentors and workshops. So, we have a professional set of translators plus a team of specialists backing the promotion of our books.
STH: Your much-anticipated, International Booker Prize-longlisted translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s debut novel, The Discomfort of Evening, will be published in the UK this month. What can readers expect?
MH: So amazing to be on the longlist! It’s a haunting and poetic novel about loss and contains some truly unforgettable imagery. It’s also deeply disturbing. Sometimes I’d be getting toward one of the more distressing scenes and I’d put it off until the next day. It was a lot easier to translate those things in broad daylight, first thing in the morning, than tired at the end of the day. Marieke Lucas has a unique voice that was wonderfully challenging to capture in English. I guess you could call it a darker companion to Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin. I grew up partly in the countryside myself—in flat, desolate Lincolnshire—so there was a lot I could relate to in the setting. Fields, molehills, cows, ditches.
STH: We have, of course, spoken at length about Rijneveld’s poetry, but I am interested in learning about your time translating Rijneveld’s prose. The Discomfort of Evening is an intense novel, exploring darker ideas around death, grief, and sexuality through the eyes of a very young narrator. How did you approach finding the right “voice” in English for Jas, the main protagonist?
MH: I messed around with it a lot at first, trying different ways to parse her style. I paid attention to what vocabulary a naïve ten-year-old in a reformist community might be able to access. What worked best was deconstructing the sentences and then putting them back together in layers. Getting the rhythm right meant playing with the punctuation; getting the stark imagery right meant carefully choosing each individual word. As always, I’m still not sure I made the right choices in some places, but I’m pleased with the overall result. In the end you get to the deadline and you just have to hand your work in.
STH: Did you work with Rijneveld on the translation?
MH: I had some questions which we talked through, and we also went through all the Faber edits on the phone together (shout out to Ella Griffiths at Faber for her editing!). Marieke Lucas isn’t very confident with English, so detailed feedback on the translation wasn’t possible, but that’s OK.
At proof stage, Daniel Cunin, who was translating the novel into French at the time, provided some very valuable commentary. Sam Garrett also kindly checked the religious references for me, making sure I hadn’t made any howlers.
STH: What are you currently working on?
Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer for FSG and 4th Estate. It’s a big fat novel of ideas on mass tourism and a kind of “state of the nation” (or continent) piece on Europe, very topical, and a real translation challenge stylistically. Today the translators into Croatian, French, and Portuguese came round to exchange notes. We’ve formed a collective of the many translators working on the novel right now—it was a massive bestseller in the Netherlands, and the rights were sold in many other countries. I’m really enjoying having these brothers in arms around, a kind of mutual support group.
Michele Hutchison was born in Solihull and studied at UEA, Lyon, and Cambridge universities. She moved to Amsterdam in 2004 and has translated more than thirty-five books of various genres, including the winner of the 2019 Vondel Prize, Stage Four by Sander Kollaard. Faber will publisher her International Booker-longlisted translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s The Discomfort of Evening in March, and in July her translation of Miek Zwamborn’s The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook will be published by Profile Books. She is currently working on the bestselling magnum opus Grand Hotel Europa by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer for 4th Estate and FSG.
Sarah Timmer Harvey is a writer and translator currently based in New York. She holds an MFA in writing and translation from Columbia University and, most recently, her work has appeared in Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, Gulf Coast Journal, and Cagibi Literary Journal.
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