INTERVIEWED BY ANINDITA MUKHERJEE
I encountered the term ‘rybka’ for the first time from my friend and colleague Dr. Małgorzata Szajbel-Keck, who teaches at European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder). In one of our conversations on Translation, she shared how the Polish poet and translator Wisława Szymborska sometimes translated poems from languages she didn’t know. She would ask someone who knew the language to do a literal/philological translation, and then she would turn it into a poem in Polish. Małgorzata added that Polish translators have a special name for such a word-for-word translation, which serves as the basis for the poetic translation. It’s called “rybka.” She asked me if we have a name for it in English. I must admit that I was faced with a double snare. Firstly, I don’t read Polish and secondly, I did not know if the English wordbook had a term for it, except that the term for word-to-word translation is called metaphrase, or interlineal translation. The term comes from the Greek “metaphrázō”, i.e. “I express within,” or “I explain toward,” which as John Dryden himself has called a word “seldom used.”[1] I was consumed not so much by my nescience as much by the ‘sound’ and ‘sense’ of a word that I had never heard. I could hardly let it escape my active memory. She guided me to Michał Rusinek, a literary scholar and writer who also became the secretary to Wisława Szymborska, shortly after she received the Nobel Prize in 1996. Our paths crossed briefly in 2023 at the international conference on the reception of Wisława Szymborska’s work in Germany. The following interview with Michał Rusinek is an attempt to listen to ‘rybka’, a word I encountered in serendipitous randomness, and could not abandon thereafter.
— Anindita Mukherjee, 2024
Anindita Mukherjee: When I heard the term ‘rybka’ as the basis of a poetic translation, I was amazed. What was your first introduction to ‘rybka’ like? Is it a common technique in Polish poetry?
Michał Rusinek: I do not know if it is a common technique in Polish poetry. I thought it is simply common when two translators (or a translator and a poet) work on a translation. The first one knows the language, and the second one specializes in writing/translating poetry. Sometimes the first one does what we call a philological translation, a literal one. The second one makes it poetic: it adds rhymes, rhythm, and changes style into a literary one. “Rybka” is just a popular name for the philological translation.
AM: Do you know of other poetic traditions that use similar techniques?
MR: I guess it is common among translators from rare/exotic languages. For example, my book for children about Chopin was translated in such a way into Hindi via English translation and with a help of a Polish native speaker who had done some sort of “rybka”.
AM: Do you remember your first encounter with the tradition of ‘rybka’? Do you remember a potential event or interaction with Wislawa Szymborska on it?
MR: Not really. She told me once that she did translations from Bulgarian. She translated poems by Blaga Dimitrova who knew Polish and she made “rybkas” of her own poems, which Szymborska did a literary translation of. I do not know who made “rybkas” of Jewish (Yiddish and Hebrew) poems. But someone had to, because she did not know these languages. I guess in the old times it was common not to put the name of “rybka-makers” as co-translators (which would be fair).
AM: I wonder that as translators we have taken word-to-word translation as a stepping stone to learning and doing translation. Do you think ‘rybka’ can be understood as a metaphor in Translation Studies?
MR: Sure. It is the first step. However, I think proper “rybkas” should not concentrate only on the meaning of a poem. It should also point to its formal features like rhymes, rhythm, alliterations, and context (intertextuality).
AM: Since ‘rybka’ is a word-to-word translation from a language not known to the author, how do you navigate the politics of ethics and authenticity in translation?
MR: It’s a question of trust. And responsibility. That is why I think the name of the “rybka-maker” should be put as a co-translator.
AM: Could you talk a little bit about if you as a writer and translator rely on ‘rybka’?
MR: I used “rybkas” twice: when I translated a rhymed book from French (Vanessa Simon Catelin, “Comme deux gouttes d’eau”) and Hebrew (Etgar Keret, Shira Geffen “A Moonless Night”). Keret’s prose is translated into Polish by Agnieszka Maciejowska, who does not rhyme. So, she made a “rybka” for me and I turned it into a rhyming book. I also consulted it with the author directly.
AM: Can the word ‘rybka’ be translated into English?
MR: “Rybka” literally means “a little fish” (“ryba” is “fish”). However, “robić coś na rybkę” (“to make something rybka-style”) means “to do something on trial”, or “not quite seriously”, or rather “to see how people react to it”. I think that is why it became a synonym for literal/philological translation.
AM: I am interested to know if the word ‘rybka’ produces an image in your head when you say it? Does it have any aesthetic or cultural resonances?
MR: It has nothing to do with “fish”. Rather “trial” or semi-finished product.
AM: Do you consider ‘rybka’ as a literary phenomenon? If not, why?
MR: I think it is a part/tool of the translator’s workshop. Especially of the one who works with rhymed poetry, e.g. for children.
AM: Do you know of contemporary writers who rely on the technique of ‘rybka’? What can ‘rybka’ add to the poetics of literary translation in the world?
MR: I think modern translators (not writers) would put the name of “rybka-makers” as co-translators. Because they actually are ones!
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[1] Dryden, John. Preface to Ovid’s Epistles, Translated by Several Hands, 1680, p. 68-72.
Also, read The House Where I was Born by Ammu Deepa, translated from the Malayalam by Ammu Ashok, and published in The Antonym
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