In a recent essay for WLT, Hungarian writer Zsolt Láng muses on writing—and playing—together: “Writing together has neither an official nor a nickname. For want of a better term, they call it writing for four hands, writing for two hands (after all, only one plus one hand is engaged in it), or simultaneous writing. . . . The one to compose the most for four hands was Robert Schumann, and it is his exhortation that is echoed by teachers encouraging their students to engage in four-handed play: ‘Do not miss any opportunity to play music with others. Only so will your playing become fluent and vigorous’” (“Ping-Pong; or, Writing Together,” trans. Erika Mihálycsa, Jan. 2015).

By analogy, translating together provides a wonderful opportunity for developing a “fluent and vigorous” style. In recent years, the most successful example of “four-handed” translation comes from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose prizewinning translations of Russian classics have inspired a new generation of readers. But do too many hands spoil the proverbial stew? Fourteen advanced French students from the Norman Public Schools recently put that adage to the test.[1]

During a day-long translation workshop with poet, playwright, and translator Zack Rogow, the students spent the morning discussing various translations of Arthur Rimbaud’s “Ma Bohème,” and in the afternoon he challenged them to translate Armand Robin’s “Quarante Vies” (1940), which has never before appeared in English. More.

See: World Literature Today

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