10 Questions for Paul Curtis Daw
- By Edward Clifford
A coal-colored bird, perhaps a blackbird. The frenzied fluttering of his wings contrasts with the amiability of his fellow creatures’ warbling. You’d think he was flailing. This has been going on so long that I want to shout to make him fly away and escape whatever is causing his struggle. Is there a predator nearby, a cat or a marten? No, they don’t climb that high
—from "Merlin" by Caroline Lamarche, Translated by Paul Curtis Daw, Volume 62, Issue 1 (Spring 2021)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
The very first was Evelyne Trouillot’s “In the Shade of the Almond Tree,” which I discovered in a 2006 issue of La Nouvelle Revue Française devoted to Haitian literature. Narrated by a downtrodden beggarwoman, the story impressed me with its empathy and originality. Although I didn’t know it then, the piece exemplified Evelyne’s commitment to portraying Haitians from social classes that are largely overlooked in standard works of history and literature. The translation led to a continuing collaboration between us.
What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
Insofar as the question presupposes that I write wholly original creative works, I don’t do that. My literary inventiveness is expressed through translation. Although the source text obviously serves as the template, my role is much more than a paint-by-number exercise. Rather, it involves a re-creation of the original work, replicating as closely as possible its style, voices, registers, and emotional charge, but in words chosen by me.
I’ve read literature since childhood, and of course I have favorite authors. But except in that general sense, I can’t say that they’ve influenced the way I translate. On the other hand, I’ve tried (and keep trying) to learn from the work of other translators. A massively underinclusive list of “influencers” would have to include Jordan Stump, Ros Schwartz, Danny Hahn, Mark Polizzotti, Penny Heuston, Jessica Cohen, Alison Anderson, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, and Margaret Jull Costa. What I admire about their work is their resourcefulness, their sensitivity to distinctive voices, and their readiness to translate rather freely when strict literalness would produce an awkward or obscure rendering.
What other professions have you worked in?
The word “profession” is open to interpretation. Pushing it to its limits, I began my working life in a series of undervalued seasonal and part-time jobs (newspaper carrier, December postal worker, window washer, busboy, dishwasher, fry cook, multilith operator, office boy, landscaping grunt, etc.). Every job taught me something. Fresh from college, I joined VISTA (now AmeriCorps) and was posted to a public housing project on Chicago’s South Side. A formative experience writ large! After graduating from law school, I worked ten years for a federal agency enforcing antitrust and consumer protection laws, rising to the Senior Executive Service. A quarter century of private law practice rounded out my legal career.
What did you want to be when you were young?
Firefighter comes to mind.
What drew you to write a translation of this piece in particular?
“Merlin” is an elegiac lament for a suffering environment. In general, I like translating texts related to causes that move me, including environmental preservation, human rights, and social justice. Within that framework, I prefer stories that show rather than harangue and leave it to readers to draw their own lessons. “Merlin” is that kind of a story.
Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?
I like to translate works imparting a strong sense of place, especially urban milieus. When translating a work set in a locale that’s familiar to me, I feel more assured of faithfully reflecting its geography and atmosphere, but some of my favorite projects have featured evocative settings that the author has invented or fashioned from a dreamlike composite of real places.
Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?
Ritual and routine don’t loom large for me. I tend to approach a translation project the way I consume an ear of corn—not proceeding methodically along the rows of kernels, but instead attacking haphazardly and biting off chunks until, magically, everything is finished. That said, there’s no substitute for multiple rounds of revision and editing.
Who typically gets the first read of your work?
My wife Carol, who always poses insightful questions and has rescued me from many an ungainly turn of phrase.
What are you working on currently?
A sample translation of Evelyne Trouillot’s novel, Le Rond-Point.
What are you reading right now?
Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. Just before that, or upcoming, are John Lanchester’s The Wall; Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; Emmelie Prophète’s Un ailleurs à soi; and Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon, translated by Aaron Robertson. I also have an ongoing penchant for Didier Daeninckx’s addictive crime novels.
PAUL CURTIS DAW is a lawyer-turned-translator. His translation of Evelyne Trouillot’s novel Memory at Bay is published by the University of Virginia Press. His translation of Olivier Targowla’s novel Narcisse on a Tightrope is forthcoming from Deep Vellum’s Dalkey Archive imprint, and Akashic Books will soon publish several of his story translations in Paris Noir: The Suburbs. His renditions of stories and other texts from France, Haiti, Belgium, Quebec, Reunion, and Swiss Romandy appear in Words Without Borders, Subtropics, Asymptote Blog, Indiana Review, Cimarron Review, and carte blanche, among other publications, and in four annual editions of Best European Fiction. He is a former officer and director of the American Literary Translators Association.
