I expected my next post to be about ATA 54 from a freelancer’s perspective, but a recent Intralingo post spotlighting literary translator Peter McCambridge sent me in another direction.
Mr. McCambridge, a Canadian translator, mentions a specific moment with a specific book—Bestiaire by Eric Dupont—where “as soon as I put it down, all I wanted to do with my life was translate it.”
Reading that, I felt such a jolt of recognition. Yes, that’s what the world looks like through Translator Goggles! You may not even realize you’ve put on the goggles, but from that moment on, an almost visceral urge to translate certain works you’ve experienced is inevitable. You see a work of art through those goggles, and you realize you’re seeing what you need to be doing. It’s happened to me a few times over the last 15 or so years, but perhaps the very first life dream the goggles gave me was a dream I knew deep down could never come true.
…Until it sort of did.