A Decision We Should Make in the Translation Process: The Cover of the Book

 Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Clothing of Books and watching Chip Kidd’s The Hilarious Art of Book Design Ted Talk, introduced another type of trnalsation which can either attract or push away the target readers. Jhumpa Lahiri describes the right cover of a book as a beautiful coat. ‘’The right cover is like a beautiful coat, elegant and warm, wrapping my words as they travel through the world, on their way to keep an appointment with my readers. The wrong cover is cumbersome, suffocating. Or it is like a too-light sweater: inadequate. A good cover is flattering. I feel myself listened to, understood. A bad cover is like an enemy; I find it hateful.’’ Learning more about how a cover can influence the way a book looks was really interesting. Engaging with the cover and finding the right one is as important as stressing over the quality of the translation. A cover of a book is a part of a translation and it plays a key role for the success or failure of the book or translation. Seeing the examples of Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha and Augusten Burroughs’ Dry supports this idea. Lahiri’s example, ‘’During the period in which I was writing this essay, I found myself in a bookstore in Holland. The books all around me were in Dutch, a language in which I can’t read a word. It made no sense to open any of the books and glance at the first page. As I looked at the books, I could take in only their visual impact.’’  proves the power a cover may hold. The cover should be related to the context of the book and still attracts the readers and make them curious about what’s in it. 

Additionally, David Bellos mentions the concept of foreign-soundingness in his article, which I find increasingly significant nowadays. It makes me think of this question: should we, as translators, keep the foreignness or adapt it into the target culture? For now, for me, it depends on the context. I sometimes try to keep the strangeness of the source text and convey it as it is. But sometimes I feel the urge to adapt it to make sense for the target readers who may not be familiar with the source language and its culture. 

Ece Celikkol