Multiple Versions Ten Years Later: Advances and Challenges as We Begin a New Decade

13/02/2024

And we started by reminiscing about that vigorous pre-pandemic springtime when Kathleen McNerney, co-founder of the Project with Sílvia Aymerich-Lemos, was awarded the translation prize by the North American Catalan Society in Chicago, and when we were included in the Institut Ramon Llull's "Books and Roses" program to present our cultural project with the one co-organized by the University of Cork and the Cork World Book Fest. In the fall of that year, just as combative, Menna Elfyn, president of the Pen Club of Wales and leading poet of the Project, taking advantage of the recent publication of her bilingual offering, in Welsh and Catalan, Murmur/Murmuri, organized an act of solidarity in September to the Parliament of Wales on behalf the Catalan political prisoners. The event, presented exclusively in Welsh and Catalan, included an especially emotional speech by the President of the Parliament of Wales, describing her visit to her Catalan counterpart in jail. Following a reading of poems in two voices, author and translator, we told the story of Carme Forcadell's lilac pen and offered them to presenters, including Eluned Morgan, Baroness of Ely and minister of International Relations as well as distinguished member of the Labor Party. At the time, we didn't imagine the impact the story would have on her. It wasn't until a year later when we were all confined that she began her intervention at "Her Gyfieithu 2020/Translation Challenge" by showing Carme Forcadell's lilac pen, offered to her a year earlier at the Parliament of Wales. It was Professor Elin Haf Jones, in her impeccable Catalan, who gave us that news and send the link to the video, and who had introduced the event at the Welsh Parliament in September 2019.

We ended the retrospective by reproducing the last moments of the December 2019 event, organized by Assumpció Cantalozella in Girona. Mireia Mata, director of equality for the Catalan Government at the time, participated in the reading of the poem "Syringa vulgaris," by Menna Elfyn, inspired by the story of the lilac pen, illustrated by Montse Lahoz. Technical difficulties prevented us from listening to the Japanese version by Josep Centelles and Yosie Hirabayash. Nonetheless, with the collaboration of students of translation at the UAB, we listened to the last stanza in seven other languages. After Sílvia Aymerich-Lemos's Catalan version read by the translator herself came Lutxo Egia's Basque version in the voice of Pau Joan Hernàndez; and Philippe Pujas's French in the voice of Adrià Martínez. Pau Joan Hernàndez took the floor again to read the Galician version by Marica Campo, Júlia Pardillo recited the Greek of Gilabèrt Narioo, Ester Palau, the Italian version of Gilberto Isella, and finally Justyna Kubiak read the Polish version of Sabine Asmus and Liza Walther. And we aren't forgetting to mention—a very special poetic justice—that as the article explained the Project's act of solidarity, a beam of hope lit up for the prisoners.

Celebrating a decade of the Project continued, addressing the challenges of the future for the profession at large as well. Ricard Ripoll, Professor of French Philology, poet and translator, joined us, as he had for the five-year celebration in this same faculty. He first recalled his experience of participating in the Project, and what would merge into the umbrella-webpage Versos Múltiples/Multiple Verses. He then turned to the future to deal with the challenges to translators from Artificial Intelligence. With examples of others as well as his own—such as the versions in Catalan and Castilian of Georges Perec's La disparition and his work on Lautréamont—he demonstrated that it's precisely in the world of literary translation that "machines" cannot take the place of human beings.

Once technical difficulties were overcome, we could listen to contributions via TEAMS from various places in the Catalan areas, which allowed us to hear, to paraphrase Salvador Espriu, "how our Catalan speech is alive, rooted, and so very clear" in the different locations.

In this way, Alfons Navarret, professor and poet, could offer us the fifth convocation of the Project "School and Poetry," together now with "Multiple Versions." He traces this difficult but stimulating path thanks to the inspired and inspiring participation of students and poets in reverse order—students inspiring poets with their verse—now that a new epoch begins with writers from all around the Catalan-speaking regions, with the inauguration of the "invited poet" space headed by the poet Menna Elfyn, within the volume published annually with the works resulting from the interaction of students and poets.

These works have had a special impact in Alguer, in the words of distinguished poet Anna Vittoria Perotto. She continued along these lines in the difficult journey towards Catalan confronted with a double minoritization within the island where the majority language—Sardinian—is not official either. Even so, she has given us an example of successful perseverance, in presenting with out apology to the world, and in winning several international prizes in recognition of her work in her own language.

At that point, the most emotional part of the act began, enabled by TEAMS as well, with Professor and poet Maria Tarragó from Mallorca speaking of the visual artist Joan Maria Alemany, recently deceased, whose work graces the cover of issue 50 of the journal L'Aiguadolç, where the above-mentioned article appears. She comments on the vital personality of this "glutton for life" as she has called him, and those of us who knew him nodded our heads in agreement with misty eyes. With his memory in mind, the homages began in multiple voices. The sad carousel started with the works of Pius Morera, Catalan poet, in "Nocturn Místic," translated into English by Ron Puppo and into Galician by Marica Campo; we listened to the Spanish version of Pau Joan Hernàndez. "Clars de Febrier" followed, a poem by Claudio Salvagno, poet from the Occitan Valleys in the Italian Peninsula, first in the original then in Catalan translation by Sílvia Aymerich-Lemos; a poem which has also been rendered into French by Hélène Beaulieu, with a forthcoming translation into Bulgarian.

Homage to Maria-Antònia Oliver came next, winner of the Premi d'Honor de les Lletres Catalanes. "Somni," a poetic excerpt from her novel El sol que fa l'ànec, has several published translations, including that of Katheen McNerney in English, the unpublished of Elija Lutze in German, of Coleta Planas in French, of Joan Frederic Brun in Occitan, of Vittoria Anna Perotto in Italian. This latter was read during the act, followed by the original offered by Maria Tarragó. We later received an emotional thanks from Oliver's niece, Margalida Llull, who learned of our multilingual readings in tribute to her beloved aunt /godmother from Kathleen McNerney.

The homages ended with an excerpt of the poem "Oiseau" by André Legault of Quebec, which has been translated into Breton by Patrig Drean and into Picard by Jean-Luc Vigneux; it was recited in the original French by Ricard Ripoll.

Finally, out of time, we closed the activities with requests for the web link to participate in the Project and the lovely proposal of a group of students to take some photographs for Instagram in the Japanese garden, such a charming place, especially since we were joined by the plastic artist Maria Teresa López Playa, whose paintings illustrated immersion into the space of memory of the authors of the project who are no longer with us. 

Outside the classroom and off the record, we proposed to Olga Torres Hostench, dean of the translation department at UAB, who so generously had sponsored our activities and offered to include them in the conference "En paral·lel," two items we were unable to explain from the dais. First of all, the creation of "Borsa jove solidària VM-UAB," a virtual space that would allow young translators to have a first experience with mentors, professionals from the Project, who would oversee their work. Secondly (but not less important) "Biblioespai;" a physical space in the faculty library where Multiple Versions publications could be accessed freely in one single place. With her usual active decisive style, the faculty dean offered in situ solutions and addressed us to those in charge. Our dedicated spirit foresees that all this will come to light in 2024.

This information is related to the following SDG

• Gender equality
• Quality education