A few weeks ago, there was a major scandal surrounding the Dutch translation of Amanda Gorman's poems.
International Booker Prize winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld was supposed to translate Amanda Gorman's poems into Dutch, but the "white-skinned" writer caused so much indignation that she was finally forced to cancel the invitation. Now another similar case has happened, a Catalan translator was also fired because he is not black and not a woman.
Amanda Gorman became famous for the fact that she recited her poem Hill We Climb at the inauguration ceremony of the new US President Joe Biden. With this, the 22-year-old African-American woman immediately became the savior of the Democrats and rationalists who profess liberal principles. For those gender magicians who believe that there is no mother and father, but only parent number 1 and number 2, for those who promote the equality of transgender families to raise children calmly, for those who view it with infinite patience and even support it with all their might the migrants who are violent with women, Christians and Jews, with the intention that there will be no Europeans among the whites! Those who fight against discrimination based on gender and skin color, except when it comes to white men. For those who consider urinals in men's toilets to be exclusionary and illegal!
This time, The Gardien , what happened was that Victor Obiols would have translated the poet's poem into Catalan, but now he was told that he was not suitable for the job. Neither is she, nor is the Dutchman, who is at least a woman, but unfortunately white. The translator stated that his abilities were not questioned, but that they were looking for a creator with a different profile, one who is young, female, activist and, if possible, black. Three weeks ago, Victor Obiols - who has already translated the works of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde - was asked by the Barcelona publishing house Univers to translate the poem The Hill We Climb, which will be published with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey. After completing the work, he received a message from the publisher saying that he was "not the right person".
The Catalan translator does not know whether he had to withdraw because of the publisher or Amanda Gorman's agency. He stated that this is a very complex topic that should not be treated lightly. At the same time, if you can't translate a poet because she's female, young, black, and American, you can't translate Homer because he's not Greek from the eighth century BC, or Shakespeare because he's not English from the 16th century.
Quoting the lines of Amanda Gorman, when will "this never-ending darkness" disappear?
