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words in one language fall away, they reappear in another,
and when those folds line up perfectly, when each word aligns
with just the right counterpart, when every sentiment or
idiom has been rendered into another language but with all its
otherworldly, strange glory intact, the work has a shapeliness
to it that is deeply satisfying. In a similar fashion, what started
out for me as an obligation has transformed into something
that gives me great fulfillment. For me, translation is the perfect
union of joyful, purposeful work.
Charles Waugh is an English professor at Utah State University and a
former Fulbright Fellow, and has translated the 2010 anthology Family of
Fallen Leaves with Nguyen Lien (under the pen name of Huy Lien). He
received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2013 for a new anthology on
contemporary Vietnamese authors.
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National Endowment for the Arts