The shipper translates books | SAIGON GIAI PHONG NEWSPAPER

SGGP 09/06/2023 07:58

Many people say that Huynh Huu Phuoc (25 years old) was “lucky” when he suddenly became famous after an exchange program with writer Marc Levy. But with the recently released translation of Con gai (Vietnamese Women Publishing House), which Phuoc was the translator, it shows that he had to make a lot of effort.

Golden opportunity

Last November, French writer Marc Levy had an exchange program with readers at Ho Chi Minh City Book Street. At that time, Huynh Huu Phuoc was working as a shipper, and because he loved Marc Levy, when he heard the news, he turned off the app and attended. During the exchange, Phuoc asked the writer questions in French, and unexpectedly, the video of this exchange went viral on social media.

Along with being “famous”, Phuoc’s situation is also known to many people: not long after passing the French Language Department at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, his parents divorced, the house was gone, and Phuoc had to rent a house. Due to financial burden, Phuoc had to put aside his dream of studying and switch to working as a shipper.

After the French-speaking video was shared on social media, thanks to the kindness from all over, Huynh Huu Phuoc returned to university to complete the program he always dreamed of. Currently, Phuoc is in his third year, studying French and Geography at the Ho Chi Minh City University of Education. In addition to French, he also knows English, Chinese and is in the process of self-studying Japanese. Phuoc's wish after finishing school is to have the opportunity to go to France to study French Literature.

Huynh Huu Phuoc and the translation "Daughter" has just been released by Vietnam Women's Publishing House.

“My love for literature, especially French literature, started when I was in elementary school. My aunt was a librarian and often brought home books, so I developed a habit of reading and found joy in books. I read and loved French literature. My two favorite contemporary French writers are Marc Levy and Guillaume Musso,” Phuoc said.

According to Huynh Huu Phuoc, the opportunity to translate the work of writer Camille Laurens came to him at the end of 2021, before the exchange program of writer Marc Levy at Ho Chi Minh City Book Street. At that time, Phuoc had just returned from the field hospital due to Covid-19, he faced difficulties both mentally and physically.

One day, a friend from Da Nang texted Phuoc: “There is a work that needs someone to translate, do you want to try?” At first, Phuoc was a bit self-conscious so he didn’t dare accept the offer. “With my French at that time, I could read and understand the work, but translating it was difficult because the author used a lot of writing techniques as well as knowledge of linguistics. But my friend continued to encourage me: Just give it a try, I will edit anything that is not reasonable. You put your heart into the work. Thanks to this encouragement, I decided to accept the offer,” Phuoc shared.

Working as a shipper and translating books

The day he held the translation of Daughter in his hands, Huynh Huu Phuoc was happy and moved. He expressed: “I had thought about a translation under my name, but I didn’t think the joy would be this great. When I held the work Daughter in my hands, I felt like a child who had just received a gift.”

Phuoc had access to the original work since December 2021, but it took him 8 months to complete the translation. The reason it took so long was because during that time, he was driving and translating books at the same time. Phuoc said that during the day, he carried a notebook with a printed copy of the original work, and during his lunch break, or when there were no customers, he would pull over to a residential area or under a tree and roughly translate it, then go home at night and re-translate it to make it smoother.

Asked about the challenges of translating a book for the first time, Phuoc said: “The most difficult part of translating Daughter is the wordplay or French idioms that the author often uses. There are idioms that can be found in Vietnamese, but there are idioms that do not, so I have to annotate them.”

An editor of the Vietnamese Women's Publishing House said that Camille Laurens' Daughter is thin but not easy to translate. In the book, the author uses French homonyms and some words about genitals. This requires the translator to be good at French and have a good Vietnamese vocabulary to translate sentences that are both pure Vietnamese and ensure that the author's message is conveyed correctly.

“When we received the translation and throughout the editing process, we realized that Huynh Huu Phuoc (the main translator) made every effort to ensure the above elements, helping the translation to be smooth and fluent,” said the editor.

“Translation is my passion, so I will definitely pursue it. However, it is not easy to make a living as a translator, so I will try to stabilize my finances so that I can pursue my passion for translation. Only when translating with passion, will the translator have the effort to find good and satisfying words while still maintaining the author's style, making the work better,” Huynh Huu Phuoc shared.

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