Viking Magazine - October 2012 - 38

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Ide IgVchaVidg
G
rowing up in the
Midwest, Tiina Nunnally
always had a
love of books. A year spent in
Denmark after graduating high
school sparked a second love-
Scandinavian languages. Now,
Nunnally has parlayed her two
passions into a successful career
of translating Scandinavian
books to English. She and her
husband, Steven T. Murray,
translate works by authors such
as Stieg Larsson, Sigrid Undset
and Camilla Läckberg. In 1984,
Nunnally won the AmericanScandinavian
Foundation Translation
Prize. Since then, she's
translated more than 50 novels.
Viking spoke with Nunnally
about her career.
K =dl Y^Y ndj È ghi WZ\^c
igVchaVi^c\ Wdd`h4
; I wanted my American friends
to read the great Scandinavian
books I was reading. That's when
I started translating on my own.
I started in Danish because that's
what I'm most fl uent in, but I
taught myself Norwegian and
Swedish. I met Steve T. Murray
of Fjord Press at a Scandinavian
literature conference. We ended
up getting married and ran Fjord
Press in our spare time for 20
years. We published mostly Scandinavian
books in translation. It's
been a lot of fun!
38 K>@>C< D8ID7:G '%&'
6lVgY l^ccZg I^^cV CjccVaan \Zih HXVcY^cVk^Vc Wdd`h ^cid i]Z
]VcYh d[ :c\a^h] gZVYZgh# 7N 6CN6 7G>IO>JH
K =dl Yd ndj X]ddhZ Wdd`h
id igVchaViZ4
; We make our living doing
this, so we are dependent on
what the big publishers want.
They will call or email us if they
have the foreign rights to a book.
They ask if we are interested and
have the time to translate.
K L]Vi VgZ hdbZ d[ i]Z
Y^[È Xjai^Zh ndj [VXZ l]Zc
igVchaVi^c\ V Wdd`4
; To be a good literary translator,
it takes years and years of
practice. When starting out, you
tend to stay a little too close to the
original. The ideal is to make the
book sound like it was written in
English. You learn how to get far
enough away from the original
but still remain true to what the
author intended as far as tone and
style. It's like a musician playing a
piece. You have the composition
and you have to play it so that the
emotion and style and tone are
conveyed to the audience. Our
fi rst loyalty is to the book. We
want the book to come across to
the reader as close as possible the
way it was intended.
K =dl adc\
YdZh ^i iV`Z id
igVchaViZ V Wdd`4
; It varies depending on the
book and if I've translated others
by that author already. I've
done six books by one author,
and I'm so familiar with her
style that it doesn't take me as
long as some other books. It
can take between three to fi ve
months to translate a book. In
order to make a living you need
to do four to fi ve books a year.
K 9d ndj d[iZc igVkZa id
HXVcY^cVk^V VcY Wgjh] je dc
i]Z aVc\jV\Zh4
; Absolutely! We try to go
once a year to attend some of
the book fairs. It's important
because language changes all the
time. You have to keep it up and
learn the slang and how nuances
are changing.
K L]d ^h ndjg [Vkdg^iZ
Vji]dg4
; Sigrid Undset is one of my
favorites. She has such depth
of emotion, and I love what
she writes.
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id gZVY i]Z \gZVi HXVcY^cVk^Vc
Wdd`h > lVh gZVY^c\#½
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Name: I^^cV CjccVaan
Title: A^iZgVgn igVchaVidg
VcY lg^iZg
Current city:
6aWjfjZgfjZ! C#B#
Upcoming projects:
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hi¬a! ejWa^h]ZY Wn i]Z
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up close
Viking Magazine - October 2012

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