Translator Interview with Mireille Vignol

Introduction 

Due to successive waves of colonization, the Pacific region, predominantly anglophone, remains marked by linguistic barriers that tend to separate Indigenous communities, including those in the francophone Pacific. Despite shared cultural ties and experiences of colonialism, this linguistic partitioning persists, hindering unity and solidarity. Removing these barriers is essential for fostering conversations and strengthening bonds between Indigenous peoples. In literary spaces, translation serves as a vital tool for authors and creators to transcend linguistic boundaries, enabling them to reach broader audiences and forge connections with other Pacific communities. With this interview, we aim to shed light on existing translation efforts within the region and explore prospects for further enhancing literary exchange and collaboration.

Our team would like to acknowledge the current political situation in Kanaky New Caledonia, where the systemic disregard for Indigenous rights and voices, exacerbated by the grip of French colonialism, has led to conflicts, violent upheavals, and deaths. These tragedies highlight the critical need to translate work in Oceania, to foster the exchange of ideas and strengthen the unity of Te Moana Nui peoples. Translations from the French bring awareness to the struggles of French-occupied Indigenous communities in Oceania and beyond.

Our guest, Mireille Vignol, is a French-Australian literary translator and journalist. Mireille has translated books by Australian, South African, and Pacific Islander authors into French, enriching the literary landscape for Francophone readers worldwide. Noteworthy among her translated works are Witi Ihimaera’s The Whale Rider (2022) and The Uncle’s Story (2024), Epeli Hau’ofa’s Kisses in the Nederends (2012), Russell Soaba’s Maiba (2016), and Kristiana Kahakauwila’s This is Paradise (2022). See below for a list of Mireille’s translations of Pacific Islanders’ books.  

This interview was conducted by Māʻohi writer, Manuia Heinrich, in March 2024.

On Pacific Islanders' Books

What has been your experience translating books by Pacific Islanders? 

I worked with the Pacific service of Radio Australia when I lived in Melbourne and discovered the region, its diversity and complexity, its rhythm and beauty, its tragic colonial history as well. 

I was angered by the arrogant attitude of the French, who thought parts of it belonged to it, entitling them to nuclear tests and such, but also by Australia’s perception that the Pacific was its “backyard”. 

The region is nobody’s backyard, nobody’s territory, it’s an intricately related Sea of islands as Epeli Hau’ofa described so well. 

So, when I worked as a literary translator upon my return to France in the 2000s, I was keen to translate and promote Australian fiction, but also Pacific fiction, which was harder to come by. I was lucky to meet Christian Robert at the Paris Book Fair in 2005, as he was starting his Pacific literature collection for Au Vent des Iles. He wanted to start with Māori writers. He gave me 4 books to read, told me to choose one and translate it. I fell in love with the Festival of Miracles by Alice Tawhai, a wonderful collection of short stories which is still one of my favourite books. After that, we collaborated on many projects and opened the catalogue to Pacific writers, such as Russell Soaba from Papua New Guinea, Sia Figiel from Samoa or Kristiana Kahakauwila from Hawai’i.

You have translated works from various regions of Oceania, from Melanesia, Australia, and Polynesia: how do you define your work (or mission) in the ecosystem of Pacific literature?

I see myself as one of the cogs of the storytelling process. It’s a great feeling to play a part in the process that makes it possible, for instance, for a French speaking Oceanian reader to discover the wonderful world of Witi Ihimaera, recognizing so much of his reality, feeling part of a great Pacific family.

Are there any books that you would like to see translated, and why? 

I’d love to see more Pacific Islanders translated, but the process starts with the publication of their books and there aren’t enough publishers in many parts of Oceania to nurture and encourage writers. And it would be great to see more French speaking Pacific literature in translation.

Translation Process

What is your approach to translating books by Pacific Islanders? 

Same as with all others. I hear a voice, their voice, then try to find a voice in French to make their words sing. The tune will be slightly different, but hopefully just as melodic.

How do you deal with manuscripts that are bilingual or multilingual? 

Well, if the original version contains words or whole sentences in Māori for instance, I keep them in Māori in the French. It gives a flavour to the text, an authenticity. Usually, the meaning is explained or contextualised, so I do the same. If the meaning of a word is obvious for the target audience (let’s say the term Pākehā in a text designed for NZ readers) I will either add a footnote or add to the text the first time the word is introduced:  ‘Mark was a Pākehā from Auckland’ will become ‘Mark was a Pākehā, a New Zealander of European ancestry, from Auckland’. The third possibility is to leave it as such and let the reader deal with it, but if it wasn’t the author’s intention i.e. if s/he assumes the term is understood, I don’t want to shut out the reader.

There was in the past a tendency to include a lot of language without translation, the logic being that through colonialism, the writers had felt ostracized in their own country, and it was the reader’s turn. I understand the reasoning, but I feel that if readers are curious enough to want to discover Pacific literature, I don’t want to rebuke them or make it hard for them, on the contrary. 

Are there any aspects of the translation process that you particularly enjoy or find challenging? Were there any books that were particularly difficult to translate? 

I think it’s a very personal process. The personality of the translator comes across in the text in an uncanny way. My favourite part is the puzzle solving, the playful part of translating and the experimenting. If the authors are taking risks with their language, we must do the same, we must be game, recognize when we go too far,or not enough… It’s a balancing act.

For the translation of Kristiana Kahakauwila’s This is Paradise into French (“39 bonnes raisons de transformer des obsèques hawaïennes en beuverie”) you collaborated with Mā‘ohi author Chantal Spitz on translating the Hawaiian pidgin.

Could you share with us what prompted you to pursue this collaboration, how it has shaped your work, and the ways in which it can enrich and inspire translators of Pacific Islander literature?

The pidgin was a challenge. It was unthinkable not to mark the difference between standard English and pidgin English. French has a variety of creoles, unfortunately they are from the West Indies, America or the Indian Ocean. There’s only one creole in the Pacific (in New Caledonia) and it is very marginal. I couldn’t imagine the Polynesian characters using these creoles, especially as the pidgin also includes Hawaiian words. As you know, Hawai’i and French Polynesia are very close, culturally and linguistically. So I decided to call on Chantal and asked her to work with me on creating a French Tahitian equivalent of the pidgin. I translated the pidgin into French, and we worked together on rewriting, on finding a believable alternative French steeped in Polynesia. Chantal was careful not to go too “cute” on the language, and it transpired that French Tahitian is very concise and goes straight to the point.

The strange thing is that I encountered pidgin in another Hawaiian novel since (For a Song, by Rodney Morales). But while pidgin is like a character in Kristiana’s stories, Rodney’s use of it was different, serving the plot. So I translated it by creating a twisted sort of slangish French, but didn’t worry about the Polynesian aspect. 

And there’s a lesson here: every challenge has its own solution. Which is the beauty of the exercise.

Acquisition & Rights

Do you actively pitch translations to publishers as a translator? 

Yes, I do. If I’m convinced that I have a great book, I try to pitch it. It’s very strange, some books don’t get translated immediately, then a few years later, they appear. 

I have sometimes been successful (the trick here is to translate a few pages of the book you want to pitch, research which publisher may be interested, and send the text and the translation excerpt) in particular with Australian author Kenneth Cook. 

I have failed with Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, I’ve been trying for more than 20 years to find a French publisher for him… without success. Everybody loves his work, but nobody wants to publish it.  

It’s strange… But regarding Au vent des iles, we work very much as a collective in terms of the choice of books.

Future of Translated Works in the Pacific

What do you foresee as the future of translated literature in the Pacific?

Last year, with Lire en Polynésie, the yearly book festival of Tahiti, I ran a workshop on literary translation of Pacific English. It was intense and wonderful. There are so many linguistically talented people in the region. And the idea is to train literary translators from the region, who will have an Oceanian ear and style of writing. One of the participants is already translating a Māori novel and more will follow. Ideally, I’d like to work with the universities in New Caledonia and Tahiti, but so far there hasn’t been much interest.