Antonia Lloyd-Jones interview: ‘People have fallen for the patter of a crazy old bird who does unspeakable things’

What was it about Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead that made you want to translate it? 

I think of it as a self-help guide: How to Get Away with Murder, and how could any translator resist that? Although Jenny Croft and Olga Tokarczuk had already won the International Booker Prize for Flights, Olga decided I should translate Plow (as we tend to call it) because she and I, exactly the same age, are rapidly evolving into full-blooded Janina Duszejkos. I fundraise for animal charities, I live alone with my cat, I have all the symptoms. The boring answer is that it’s a superbly written book that I knew I would enjoy translating. 

How did you go about translating the book? Tell us about your inspirations and your process. 

The work only took three months, partly because it’s a first-person narrative with a consistent voice throughout. Once I had finished I realised that Duszejko sounded too eccentric, so I revised the entire translation, reining her in, so that the reader would side with her and be her accomplice, rather than finding her annoying after a few pages. I had previously translated two of Olga’s novels and lots of her stories, knew the book’s remote setting well (the place where Olga lives), and had even met some of the people who inspired characters in the book.  

How have your feelings about the main protagonist, Janina, changed over the years since you finished working on the book? 

Don’t call her Janina, she hates that! In fact I haven’t evolved into her (not yet), and am rather wary of her; it fascinates me that so many people have read this book and fallen for the patter of a crazy old bird who does unspeakable things. It shows the power of manipulation, as I recently warned a huge audience of sixth-formers who were obliged to read the book at school and had apparently enjoyed it. No wonder the evil populist leaders want to destroy culture – it can be very dangerous indeed. 

The novel tackles some big subjects and themes – sanity, social injustice, animal rights, hypocrisy, religion and predestination. Did you ever feel daunted by the project? What kept you motivated while you were working on this translation? 

I’m just the monkey, not the organ-grinder. Olga is responsible for the content, I can only answer for the words. It’s the joy of translating – you don’t have to worry about the big ideas, you focus on the enjoyable word puzzle. But yes, it is an alarming and sinister book that confronts difficult questions head-on. Many people have read it as just a crime novel, letting the deeper meanings slide over them, but perhaps the messages sink into their subconscious. I hope Duszejko prompts courage in a world where there’s so much unfairness. Is she really crazy? Or is it the world around her?  

The novel has been adapted for the stage by Complicité and has toured widely across the UK and Europe. Have you seen the play and, if yes, what did you think? 

I saw it twice and was extremely impressed. Before starting, Simon McBurney [Artistic Director and Co-founder of Complicité] said rather apologetically that there wouldn’t be a script that simply quoted my text, to which I replied that, on the contrary, I expected him to go away and create his own work of art. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear my words shouted at me from the stage; the actors hadn’t worked with a script but with copies of the book. It’s a superb adaptation, brilliantly conceived so that Duszejko remains central, speaking directly to the audience. That connection is essential for the magic of the story to work. 

What are you working on at the moment? 

Only Those With Teeth Can Smile, a novel by Zyta Rudzka. It’s tremendously difficult, the monologue of an indigent former hairdresser trying to scrape together the money to bury her husband, who was a jockey. Her bittersweet speech is a form of literary slang, full of aphorisms (like the title) and wordplay, but concise. In the course of her quest we learn about her past, through encounters with former lovers, priests, undertakers and traders. I’m battling to find the right voice, on top of which it’s for US publication. Luckily I have lived in the States, but will be leaning heavily on my editor. 

Where and when do you most like to work, and what tools do you need to translate? (tools could be a laptop, coffee, peace and quiet!) 

I belong to a Facebook group named ‘Translators with CATs’. No, not computer-aided tools, but felines. No translation can be completed without my cat’s input, whether it’s offering her tail as a bookmark, switching off the laptop by sitting on it, or flopping across my open dictionaries. Or just insisting I take the occasional break. From past experience of noisy open-plan offices I’m actually very good at working anywhere, and find it easy to dip in and out of my work, even if there’s a battle going on. But I can’t really do without my many paper dictionaries. 

Is there a book from your childhood that made you fall in love with reading? 

I made my father read Alice in Wonderland to me so many times that I knew it by heart. But I had lots of childhood favourites and read widely and avidly. I think that early exposure is essential for any writer. I was lucky enough to grow up in a house full of books. Recently I re-read some of the Fairy Books in the series edited by Andrew Lang – actually collected and often translated by his wife Leonora – and they’re as powerful as ever. Children are too protected or preached at nowadays, we had much more freedom as readers. 

And could you tell us about a book that made you want to become a translator?  

The first book I translated – not knowing my future – was Who Was David Weiser?, a beautifully written novel by Paweł Huelle. It was already a hit in Poland when I met him in 1988, a time when drastic changes were imminent in Central and Eastern Europe. It was a critical period for culture from the region, and – cutting a long story short – despite thinking myself unqualified, I ended up translating it for Bloomsbury. I hadn’t been aiming for a career as a translator but I loved the experience and was determined to do more. 

Do you have a favourite book in the Booker Library? What do you love about it?  

I greatly enjoyed The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin. He’s a versatile and imaginative writer whose earlier books fascinated me too. This novel is based on the life of the German film director G.W. Pabst. In vivid, cinematic scenes it describes the disenchantment with Hollywood that prompted Pabst to return to Germany, and then the compromises he was forced to make in the Nazi era. It’s a chilling psychological portrait of a man faced with agonising moral dilemmas. The translation is flawless and it’s impossible to put the book down. Read it!