Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translater sacked for being ‘white and non-binary’

The link above was Marieke LR's poem about how 'they' would not translate AG's poetry and would allow someone else to take the job.

This has been more publicity for Marieke Lucan Rijneveld than anyone else.

Though 'gander' is as binary as 'goose', come to think of it.

So, it is not just 'OK, I won't do it 'cos it would make me look bad and I'd lose me USP street cred.

It is more 'By not doing this work which I would be red hot at, I am being a bl**din' saint and deserve to be recognised as such. That is why I wrote this poem so my sainthood could live in posterity. You know I'd be better than anyone else at it'.

I think I'll take up poetry.

Here we go, the poem 'they' wrote about it all. "Alles Bewoonbaar' or 'Everything Inhabitable'. In English in the Guardian.

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/06/everything-inhabitable-a-poem-by-marieke-lucas-rijneveld

Jeepers, 'they' has got great publicity in the Anglophone sphere. I imagine this discussion has benefitted MLR much more than anyone who will take over the translation job.

TL;DR They could do the poem, they totally get AG and what she means. However, they are taking the knee because they know the visuals would be better and the are just stepping away from it to fight inequality.

Kenan Malik has a brilliant article about this bolloxology in the Guardian. Basically ID politics makes the elites feel good about themselves. But doesn't cost them anything. They can then ignore the elephant : social class.

They do say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Never heard of Marieke before (philistine me), but I now think 'their' book 'The Discomfort of Evening' looks interesting. Will be having a gander at the poem too.

Would never have heard of 'them' if all this hadn't happened.

Marieke Lucas is going to write a poem about what has happened. It will appear in the newspaper next Saturday. Don't know which newspaper. There is a newspaper literally called the newspaper 'De Krant'.

twitter.com/MLRijneveld/status/1366491929760907266

This debate is also going on in audiobooks. How do you have a narrator bringing the book to life by making the voices in the book sufficiently different that they are easily identifiable when listening to a book whilst driving etc, without caricaturing the characters in terms of race, sex etc. Will we end up with the reader giving all characters the same voice? If they are voicing children I won't mind that as most readers have a very irritating squeaky "small child" voice.

This reminds me so much of an argument that went on in my field (linguistics) where woke activists were calling on a certain (so-called terf) linguist to be removed from syllabuses and replaced with trans linguists instead. Now the removed linguist had decades of publications, experience and knowledge. The trans linguists were all at the beginning of their careers and had in some cases, no publications at all. That didn't matter. All that mattered was identity. It is so infuriating, counterproductive and yes, daft. Are we going to suggest that all books are translated by someone of the same sex, age, and race now?

Woah!

Black female author chooses ground breaking non binary translator and that's an issue because the translator isn't also black?

Can we stop popping people into boxes now?

If the protests did come from black people can we stop putting ourselves into boxes now?

I don't think persistently 'Othering' ourselves and everyone else is going to be helpful, whatever the end game is!

Interesting observations theleafandnotthetree. My English Methodist/ atheist ex likes the Angelus because it's ' the only thing on RTE not about money '. I suspect there is a a large dollop of post colonial cringe ' what will the neighbours think ' in our attitude to Catholicism now

I found this hilarious initially, the current identity fixation is reaching the point where it’s collapsing under the weight of its own ridiculousness.
Then it made me sad, as all this deeply individualistic navel gazing crap is distracting people from far more important issues such as climate change, which doesn’t give two shits about your skin colour or pronouns.

To be utterly superficial and flippant - it's a book about a mad woman in an attic written by a mad woman in a damp bungalow in Devon.

(Disclaimer I'm a huge fan of Jean Rhys and I don't actually mean that)

Exactly Maud. Translation isn't easy. It's not just about knowing the equivalent words. It's about crafting the language and translating poetry isn't something just anyone can do.

Puts me in mind of arguments in the nineties amongst (male) critics about whether Jean Rhys's white creole female character, Antoinette, in Wide Sargasso Sea could possibly have anything to say about the position and treatment of women in the Caribbean more generally. Jean Rhys shared the character's white creole heritage and was a Caribbean-born woman. For some of the men, the character's race seemed the only thing that could possibly contribute to her experience of life. Personally, I think her sex had an enormous, defining influence too. As someone noted, these arguments get shaped by the cultural location and politics of the critic.

For my money, the ideal translator of a poem would be a poet themselves and also have an affinity for the work they're translating. It's not just about the nuance of words and rhythm.

I don’t understand this one at all. It’s meaningless performative social justice at barely a high school level. It’s embarrassing.

Excellent thread though especially Terryleather and Herself. Middle class liberals maintain their relevance and social position by giving away rights that they don’t need and backing illogical identities that mainly benefit their mates.

This seems crazy. Why can't Amanda Gorman choose who she wants? I'm going to presume the decision was made on the basis of this Dutch person's talent and resume. Seems like the opposite of empowering to tell Amanda she can't make her own decisions.

It’s also very odd how you have to write from only your own authentic voice and live experience blah de blah, yet it’s fine for a man to suddenly know exactly what it’s like to be a woman and thenceforth speak as one and be given women’s officer jobs.

Oops my eyeballs just rolled right out my head

Has a white male author ever been patronised like this and told he can't choose his translator?

Lucas not Lucan.

Some people in these tweets were having a go at Amanda Gorman for having Marieke Lucan Rijneveld do the translation.

Plus these culture wars, identity politics etc are so much more fun than the boring work of bringing about real social change and progress around the key issues that actually matter most like jobs, housing, training, childcare. To have the luxury of focusing on these very niche issues in the lofty worlds of poetry and the like is a sure sign that people don't have, and never have had to worry about having their basic needs met. They like things just how they are thanks, just with more diverse cultural products and signifiers like food, music, books etc

Absolutely, theleaf

All happened quite quickly. Rijneveld tweeted excitedly on 23rd February. The poem was going to be published on 30th March and the collection in August.

You can see some of the discussion in English tweets at the end. However, it is twitter, so not really a discussion as such.

twitter.com/MLRijneveld/status/1364128900620685312