Proyecto 34ºS’s Theatre in Translation/Teatro en Traducción project, an artistic exchange between African and Latin American theatre, has recently released its first book: Theatre in Translation Vol 1, collecting five plays from South Africa and five from Argentina. The plays selected for the anthology – along with others not in the collection – can be downloaded for free from Proyecto 34ºS’s website in both English and Spanish. The book, according to the Argentina Independent, is available upon request.
South African literature blog Books LIVE, reporting on the book’s release, describes the process involved in translating the plays as challenging but rewarding:
At one point we thought about how to translate the name of a town that had a lot of meaning in Afrikaans, but that might lose its subtlety and humour when translated to Spanish for example,” [Proyecto 34ºS founder and director Nikki] Froneman told Books LIVE. “We had many discussions like that, where we were very careful to try not to lose the nuances of each language. With some plays we were translating from the Afrikaans, to English. And then from English to Spanish. It was quite a task, but we made it through and are so happy with the results.We imagine readers of the plays are likely to be happy with the results, as well. - KA
