Quotessence
Home / Authors / Deborah Smith Biography
Deborah Smith

Deborah Smith Biography

Author

Related Quotes

“I did my BA in English lit, and hated the restriction - I'd always read more in translation than not; coming from a working-class background, what I knew of as British literature - the writers who made big prize lists and/or were stocked in WH Smith, Doncaster's only bookshop until I was 17 - seemed incredibly, alienatingly middle-class. Then in 2009, just after the financial crash, I graduated with no more specific skill than 'can analyse a bit of poetry'.”

MadeBigsLiteratureBitsClassMiddleSkillsFinancialBritishListsBackgroundsHatedMiddle ClassPrizeCrashWorking ClassLitTranslationsRestrictionBookshops
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“I suspected learning a language would be both useful and enjoyable (I love memorising lists of things), and would get rid of the embarrassment of being monolingual at 21. I'd been obsessed with reading for as long as I could remember, the only thing I'd ever thought I might want to be was a writer, but I was much better at crafting sentences than at stringing plots together.”

WantLongMightWould BeTogetherRememberReadingLanguageSentencesListsObsessedPlotEnjoyableEmbarrassmentLearning Language
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Actually, I'm frequently described as the UK's only translator of Korean literature, but even that isn't accurate - Agnita Tennant is UK-based, Janet Poole is British though lives in Toronto, Brother Anthony was born here though is now a naturalised Korean citizen. There's also Chi-young Kim and Sora Kim-Russell, who are younger and do fiction for commercial houses.”

YoungLiteratureHouseBornFictionBrotherCitizensBritishAccurateKoreanTorontoKimTranslators
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Possibly the best thing about the whole experience is that Kang and I are now really good friends. It's as much of a pleasure and privilege to know her as a person as it is to translate her work. She's been over for two UK publicity tours, which means lots of time to chat on trains etc., and she was hear all last summer for a writer's residency in Norwich, where I got to meet her son too.”

KnowsMeanPersonsTwoWholeLastsPleasureSonSummerTrainPrivilegeBest ThingsEtcTranslateGood FriendPublicityLast SummerReally Good FriendsResidencyNorwich
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Whenever I visit Korea she [Kang] buys me lunch and takes me to a gallery. As if all this wasn't enough, she has incredible respect for translation as a creative, artistic practice - she insists that each English version is 'our book', offered to share her fees with me when she found out I wasn't getting paid for translating her publicity stuff, always asks the editor to credit me, and does so herself whenever she's interviewed. Too good to be true.”

IfsDoeBookEnoughAsksFoundStuffPracticeCreativeSharePaidIncrediblesCreditVersionsBeing TrueArtisticEditorsTake MeLunchTranslateTranslationsKoreaPublicityGalleryFeesCreative ArtToo Good To Be True
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“There's no linear narrative - the structure is more like a series of variations on a theme (how identity is shaped by language), with the past constantly bleeding into the present, dreams into reality. And the language, while incredibly lyrical in places, also has this underlying dissonance, the sense of it having itself been translated.”

DreamRealityPastLanguageIdentityStructureSeriesNarrativeThemeVariationBleedingLinearLyricalDissonanceDream Reality
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“I was in the second year of my PhD when I first had the idea - I'd recently started working as a translator, which meant firstly that I was hearing about amazing-sounding books from other translators, and also that I was getting enough of an insider's view of the publishing industry to be aware of all the implicit biases that made it so difficult for these books to ever get published, especially if they weren't from European languages (harder to discover, editors can't read the original, lack of funding programmes, authors who don't speak English).”

IfsYearsFirstsMadeBookIdeasEnoughSpeakLanguageDifficultViewsIndustryHarderOriginalsHearingMade ItEditorsPublishingFundingProgrammesImplicitTranslatorsSpeak EnglishInsidersPhdsPublishing Industry
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“This and the small sample size inevitably leads to stereotypes - sweeping family sagas from India, 'lush' colonial romances from South-East Asia. Mother and daughter reconciling generational differences through preparing a 'traditional' meal together. Geishas. And even if something more exciting does manage to sneak through, it gets the same insultingly clichéd cover slapped on it anyway, so no one will ever know.”

IfsKnowsDoeTogetherRomanceMotherDifferencesDaughterIndiaExcitingSouthSizeEastTraditionalManageMealsPreparingStereotypeAsiaSneakSweepingSampleMother And DaughterSagaLushGeishaEast AsiaSample Size
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“So the aim for the press was a mixture of things: to publish under-represented writing, which is an intersection of original language, style, content, and often its author's gender. To publish it properly, in a way that makes it clear that this is art, not anthropology. To spotlight the importance of translation in making cultures less dully homogenous.”

WayWritingArtCultureLanguageClearStyleImportanceOriginalsAimPressesGenderPublishMixturesTranslationsAnthropologySpotlightIntersections
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay is a stylistically daring writer in love with surrealism, credited with being 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality to Bengali literature'. But though the (male) establishment used this label of erotica to dismiss her work, the sex scenes have exactly the same transgressive function as her use of chronology and narrative voice.”

UseUsedLiteratureSexVoiceSceneFunctionMalesSexualityLabelsNarrativeEstablishmentDaringSurrealismHardcoreBengaliChronologyNarrative Voice
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Hwang Jung-eun is one of the brightest stars of the new South Korean generation - she's Han Kang's favourite, and the novel we're publishing scooped the prestigious Bookseller's Award, for critically-acclaimed fiction that also has a wide popular appeal. She stands out for her focus on social minorities - her protagonists are slum inhabitants, trans women, orphans - and for the way she melds this hard-edged social critique with obliquely fantastical elements and offbeat dialogue.”

WayHardSocialStarsFictionNovelFocusGenerationsElementsSouthWideDialogueAppealsMinoritiesAwardsFavouritePublishingStanding OutCritiqueTransKoreanOrphanProtagonistsSlumsJungPrestigiousBooksellersOffbeatBrightest Star
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that?”

ArtistCultureStrongStudyIssuesRightsWrittenExamplePoetFeministGenderActivismNarrativeVisualsNativePerformersDisabilityVeinsPublishTranslationsArtworkEnvironmentalistSpoken WordVisual ArtPhdsTactileReproductive RightsVisual ArtistBraille
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image

“There’s something very freeing about losing the anchors that have always defined you. Frightening, sad, but exhilarating in a poignant way, as well. You’re free to float to the moon and evaporate or sink to the bottom of the deepest ocean. But you’re free to explore. Some people confuse that with drifting, I suppose. I like to think of it as growing.”

PeopleThinkingWayInspirationalWellsGrowingMoonOceanLosingBottomDefinedFrighteningFloatsAnchorsInsperationalDriftingExhilaratingPoignant
Author:Deborah Smith
Create image