When Filipino-American writer Noelle de Jesus first read Ricky Lee’s Para Kay B, she knew it needed to reach English readers. An exploration of five distinct love stories and, as the novel’s alternative title so aptly puts it, “kung paano dinevastate ng pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa atin,” Lee’s debut novel marks the moment when the National Artist’s literary voice began to shape the new landscape of Filipino storytelling. Out of sheer love for the story, de Jesus got to work translating the novel’s first chapter into English, sent it off to Lee’s team, and waited.
It took some time for Lee to agree to a translation. Up until Para Kay B, none of his literary projects had been translated into any language, as Lee was determined to preserve the Tagalog he’d written them in. However, after some convincing on de Jesus’ part, Lee became extremely attached to the translation process. “He was looking over my shoulder all the time!” De Jesus shared jokingly with Rolling Stone Philippines. “The act of translation is very personal. Ricky was very involved, so the translation was like a collaboration.”
While translating the novel was easy work for the most part — de Jesus has fifteen years of experience translating Filipino literature — the problem came when she had to decide how to translate gay Filipino lingo. “A lot of bakla speak depends on knowing things,” said de Jesus. “Pop culture references, Tagalog vocabulary, codes.” Because part of Para Kay B explores queer Filipino culture and romances, de Jesus struggled with making local gay speak accessible to non-Filipino readers.
“I can’t remember specific ones from the book off the top of my head, but there were a lot of puns,” continued de Jesus. “Like, okay, how do you translate something like ‘mahalia jones?’ It means expensive, but it needs cultural context to be funny. I think the closest thing to it in English is ‘too rich for my blood’: Not exactly the same thing, but it connotes the same feeling. Is it a good translation? Probably not. But for so long as it approximates the funniness of the original, that’s what you stick to. You have to take into account the limits of the language you’re working with.”
Lost in Translation
Lately, Filipino novels have seen a rise in translation as readers worldwide increasingly seek out literature from beyond their own countries’ borders. The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic, both Filipino classics written in English by the late National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, were recently translated into Hangul, becoming accessible to Korean readers. Filipino writer John Bengan’s collection of short stories, Armor: Stories, was translated into Albanian. Kites in the Night, a queer coming-of-age novel by Blaise Campo Gacoscos, has now been translated into German.
At the Leipziger Buchmesse this month, more German translations of Filipino books will be launched, including Jessica Zafra’s coming-of-age novel, The Age of Umbrage, Daryll Delgado’s Supertyphoon Yolanda-set Remains, and Renen Galeno’s horror comics Sa Wala.
“There’s really a global market for Filipino novels now,” Ateneo de Manila University Press Marketing Head Camille Abaya told Rolling Stone Philippines. This is particularly evident with the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair, where the Philippines has been chosen as the Guest of Honor. The world’s largest book fair will feature approximately 700 Filipino titles from over 70 Filipino authors.
As global audiences grow increasingly eager to explore Filipino literature through translations, there is a higher demand for quality translation work. However, to translate any novel into another language requires more than simple linguistic skills.
“I have to find a perspective and a voice that sounds believable to the readers of the translation,” Professor Emeritus Soledad S. Reyes, a highly regarded critic, author, and translator, told Rolling Stone Philippines. In 2016, Reyes was awarded the prestigious A.L. Becker Southeast Asian Literature in Translation Prize for her translation of Rosario de Guzman Lingat’s political drama, Ano Ngayon, Ricky?
“Of course, a lot of things are lost in translation,” said Reyes. “For example, I can never capture the nuances of Tagalog sayings or archaic terms because, as we all know, words have specific cultural contexts. A novel written in 1907 uses a lot of words from the 19th century that are no longer found in dictionaries. I was often left trying to understand the context in which the word was used.”
Additionally, the structure of the Filipino language can often pose challenges in achieving a faithful translation. “Filipino is structured in the passive voice, where the action comes before the subject,” said de Jesus. “I’ve learned that when translating a Tagalog piece word for word, that just doesn’t work. It becomes repetitive to have a whole English thing in a passive voice. It’s a very tiresome reading experience.”
Despite the complexities of translation, it is essential to preserve Filipino literature to share its cultural heritage with global audiences. “A lot more needs to be done in a country which does not appreciate its own culture and the artifacts that generations of writers have produced to reflect or refract their complex experiences,” said Reyes. “Because some potential readers profess not to understand the kind of Tagalog used in the novels, I decided to translate them to make the texts accessible to readers. Only time will tell if this task will eventually bear fruit.”
