The diary was written by David Koker, a 21-year-old student from Amsterdam, who was sent to the Vught concentration camp in Holland in 1943. The entries, which include both poetry and powerful insights into the emotional life of a camp prisoner, were made on scraps of paper and children's exercise books that were smuggled out of the camp and sent to his best friend Karel van het Reve. His family collected the various parts comprising 73,000 words and had the work published in 1977 as Dagboek geschreven in Vught (Diary written in Vught). It immediately became a part of the Dutch literary canon.

Horn served as the main translator for the English edition, which was edited by Robert Jan van Pelt, professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo, who has written extensively about the history of the Holocaust and Auschwitz. Van Pelt provided the informative introduction and biographical information about Koker. John Irons was brought into the project to render Koker's Dutch poetry into English. "The project took over my life," said Horn, professor emeritus at Glendon and University Historian, who came to Canada from the Netherlands 60 years ago.

Horn became involved in the project when van Pelt found his name on a list of translators kept by the Dutch Foundation for Literature, which supports writers and translators and promotes Dutch literature abroad. "He liked the fact that I was in Toronto, a historian, and he would have access for collaboration," said Horn. Irons, who lives in Denmark, specializes in translating poetry from Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German and Dutch into English. When Horn recommended to van Pelt that they get someone to do a proper translation of Koker's poetry, they found Irons through the foundation.

What makes At the Edge of the Abyss special is the quality of Koker's writing, which "is remarkable for its combination of historical significance and penetrating eloquence," wrote the publishers.

Horn says he was drawn to Koker as a person after reading the first page of his work. "He was somebody I could relate to. He was astonishingly well read – he wasn't your average 21-year-old. He describes situations we didn't have any knowledge of."

Right: Michiel Horn

Horn said he was struck by Koker's decision to go to Vught with his family, even though he could have used an exemption he had and then could have gone into hiding. “He believed that the family was absolutely central to Jewish life.” He managed to help his mother and younger brother survive, but both he and his father became ill and died in February 1945, during transport between camps.

"David's death was a calamity for Dutch literature," said Horn. "There is every reason to believe that David would have had a distinguished career as a writer of prose and poetry."

Left: Robert Jan van Pelt

Horn said he wept when he reached the end of the postscript to the Dutch edition, written by David’s brother Max.  "You get so close to your subject when you’re translating. I don't think anyone gets closer to a text than a translator."

At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943-1944, is published by Northwestern University Press (2012), with the support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Cultures meet here in Canada, says Agnès Whitfield. Literary translation is an essential means of sharing heritages, yet it is a field too often overlooked and undervalued.

That situation is about to improve with the launch of the first volume in a new series called Vita Traductiva. A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at 91ŃÇÉ« and , a small Quebec press Whitfield and her husband, artist Daniel Gagnon, have taken over, the series will be published in French and English, and focus on literary translators and translating around the world.

Cover illustration for Vita Traductiva, by Daniel Gagnon

“One of our goals is to bring into English or French important studies on translation from other languages,” says Whitfield. “These kinds of opportunities for international exchange are sadly lacking.”

“Another issue for translation scholars is getting research circulating quickly,” says Whitfield. “Traditional presses have long wait times, library budgets are declining and scholarly books are expensive.”

For this reason, the international peer-reviewed series will be published via the Internet on Open Access sites for scholars, as well as in traditional book form.

Agnès Whitfield

These days, “if a librarian in Canada wanted to organize an exhibition on Romanian culture, she would have a difficult time,” says Whitfield. She wouldn’t know where to find Romanian works translated into English or French, or works written by Canadian writers of Romanian origin, or how the translations were done.

On a broader level, the new series is important because “literature provides a rich source of knowledge about human activity and aspirations, and literary translation plays an essential role in building understanding between communities with different languages and cultures,” argues Whitfield. “Vita Traductiva aims to make an important contribution to the creation, promotion and dissemination of such vital cultural knowledge.”

Following her 2009 study, Whitfield helped found , an international research group based at the University of Oslo, focusing on the different voices in the translation process. Those voices will be expressed in Vita Traductiva.

The name is a reference to the Latin term vita activa (active life) to reflect the active, empirical orientation of the collection and its aim to generate and share more knowledge about translation – particularly between smaller countries – and greater intercultural understanding and respect, says Whitfield.

As series editor, she plans to solicit essays on literary translation and translators from scholars all over the world. Such international reach will be guaranteed with editorial and advisory boards representing 15 countries – from Finland to New Zealand, Portugal to Turkey. Whitfield also draws on 91ŃÇÉ« expertise; English Professor Priscila Uppal and humanities and translation studies Professor Susan Ingram are on her editorial and advisory boards.

The first volume of essays will appear this summer and two more in the fall.

The summer volume will focus on the translation of Polish, Czech and Romanian literature for Canadian audiences – and vice versa – and how to find works by Canadians of Polish, Czech and Romanian heritage.

The fall volumes, edited by European colleagues, are based on proceedings of recent Voice in Translation conferences. The first highlights the challenges of capturing narrative voice when translating between Arabic, Polish, English, Finnish, German, Spanish and French.

Whitfield with Voice in Translation group in Copenhagen

The second will probe the role of authorial and editorial voices in translation. It will include a piece by Whitfield on how small Canadian English presses edit and revise translations.

As a new international peer-reviewed publication series, Vita Traductiva is a perfect fit with 91ŃÇɫ’s strategic goal to improve its participation in emerging international research networks and enhance its reputation as a research-oriented university, says Whitfield.

She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators as editor of Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), shortlisted for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize. (See YFile, April 11, 2006) She was also the editor of L’écho de nos classiques (Éditions David, 2009) on the international translations of two great Canadian novels, Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute) and Hugh McLennan’s Two Solitudes.

Whitfield is former president of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies and was bilingual joint chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University in 2009-2010.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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