Women of Translation

Brisou Buis is an unusual woman to be among the honored women of translation in the month of August. She was born and raised in a rural village in southern France. Better known for its sunflowers, poppies and lavender than a community of writers. Her father was a potter. Her mother brought up Brisou and her four sisters.

 Before Brisou became the translator of my historical novel, Katherine Mansfield, she was my landlady. I rented the back apartment in her hameau where long ago the goats had slept. We'd become close friends. Neither one of us was particularly adept in each other's language but if she spoke in broken English and I spoke in broken French and somehow we understood each other.

 One memorable afternoon, I suggested to Brisou that I read Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu in French and she read the translation Remembrance of Things Past and that way we could study both languages together by reading passages outloud.

 She was simply put­—horrified. There was no way she was going to read Proust who was forced upon her in school. Instead she volunteered to translate Katherine Mansfield into French and I could then practice French by reading her translation.

 Brisou is an avid reader but not in English. How could she possiby translate my book into French without any experience and barely knowing the language? She replied by buying Larousse's massive French-English, English-French dictionary and started with Chapter One's first sentence.

 I was returning to the States and wished her bon chance, not thinking she would ever get beyond the first paragraph.  But I was wrong. After I left, her circumstances took a shocking turn and suddenly a job as translator seemed the best way to get through the rough times that had been thrown at her.

 She had been separated from her husband for a few years when he suddenly reappeared on her doorstep saying he had been diagnosed with Lew Gehrig's disease. He had no one to turn to but Brisou. The woman he had run off with wasn't willing to give up her own life to take care of him. Was Brisou willing to sacrifice hers?!

 Brisou didn't turn him away. They had raised a daughter who now had three boys, their grandchildren. Her husband was family. She said it was the right thing to do.

 As his full time caregiver, hours were spent in a dim room feeding him, rolling him over, and adminstering pain medication until his death. Brisou said translating Katherine Mansfield kept her sane.

 I tell you this not to pull any heartstrings but to describe how Brisou became a woman of translation. With too much time on her hands to sit and watch her husband slowly die, she translated Katherine Mansfield word by word, sentence by sentence until it made sense to her in French. Brisou said Mansfield, who continued to write when she herself was dying of tuberculosis, inspired Brisou in her own work.

 But there were 330 pages to translate.  Brisou knew she couldn't do it all on her own and enlisted a community of women in her village, who had some understanding of the English language. Chapters would be slowly translated and returned to Brisou who then passed them on to her American friend who spoke fluent French. Her friend compared the translation to the English version and made final corrections.

 It was a very slow process and the translation took more than a year. When it was finished Brisou took it upon herself to publish Katherine Mansfield on Amazon where it is still available today.