Translator Tiffany Tsao reflects on the experience of translating Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Happy Stories, Mostly, and the collective effort of bringing Indonesian literature to readers around the world
It’s three years now since Happy Stories, Mostly was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Has the nomination had an impact on the wider perception of the book, internationally? And has it affected your career in any way?
I do think that the nomination affected the reception of the book. When it first came out, I remember feeling like no one had noticed it, that it would simply come and go without much of a sound.
I remember how pleased we were when we got our first formal review – by the author Rónán Hession for The Irish Times. Then the book won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses and got longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and got more notice! The power of prizes! It’s a bit scary when you think about it.
At the time I felt it would affect my career, but I’m not sure whether it did. I remember someone commenting, shortly after the longlisting, ‘You must be getting inundated with requests and offers from publishers to translate work,’ and I had to reply, ‘No, not really!’
Did its nomination open the door for other Indonesian works of fiction to find a global audience?
To be honest, I’m not sure if Happy Stories, Mostly did that paving. I feel that the attention that Eka Kurniawan’s works – Beauty is a Wound (translated by Annie Tucker) and Man Tiger (translated by Labodalih Sembiring) – were the ones to ‘open the door’, so to speak.
But it’s not just about ‘opening the door’, it’s about the path that is laid afterwards from the door – and I feel every Indonesian-language work in translation that finds its way to readers outside Indonesia is a paving stone on the path. It’s a collective effort.
You and Norman Erikson Pasaribu are close friends, and he’s talked about your ‘intimate linguistic connection’. Did your friendship shape the translation? Are you collaborating on any new projects?
I think our friendship at the time did have a very positive impact on the translation of Happy Stories, Mostly. I cherish that time very much.
We’re not collaborating on any new projects at the moment, but Norman published a very beautiful and powerful poetry collection, written in English, last year. It’s called My Dream Job and was published by Tilted Axis Press. It’s an astounding work.
Happy Stories, Mostly is a collection of short stories. Which story was your favourite to translate and why? Which one proved most tricky and why?
My favourite story to translate was ‘The True Story of the Story of the Giant’. I found it very affecting. There’s a frame narrative, told from the point of view of a spoiled and self-absorbed straight college student, a history major, who strikes up a friendship with a brilliant gay classmate. And via this story, we get glimpses of a true story that has survived only in fragments, snatches, through memory, lost due to the colonial subjugation and murder of the Batak peoples. The utter devastation that colonial violence has wrought parallels the utter devastation that heteronormative mainstream culture, represented by the narrator, wreaks on queer individuals.
Titles are important, of course, and this book has an especially potent one. And as a short story collection it also contains many others! Are titles something you translate first or last? Do they require anything different from you as a translator?
Sometimes, the translation of a title is immediately apparent. But if not, then I’ll spend the whole translation process low-key cogitating about it. I think translating a title does require a slightly different skill: you need to have a sense of what impression the title is making on someone who is coming to the work completely cold, with no knowledge of its contents. And, ideally, if the opportunity presents itself, the title should take on new meaning, new depth, once someone has read the work.
What are the differences between translating novels, short stories and poetry?
Poetry and prose definitely require different skills to translate. Tragically, I am apparently a very prosaic person. Before I translated Happy Stories, Mostly, I translated Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s poetry collection Sergius Seeks Bacchus. I found it incredibly challenging and had to work very closely with Norman in order to get it right. With Happy Stories, Mostly, I was able to work more independently.
I’ve found translating novels and short stories very similar – especially if one is talking about short story collections. As with a novel, there will be recurring themes and tropes that will affect how you translate any given line, scene – you have to think of the bigger picture across the stories of a collection as you do for a novel, across chapters.
Norman Erikson Pasaribu
I find rhythm very important. It doesn’t need to be the same as in the original language, but it has to sound right on its own terms. Like a cover of a song, I suppose
— Tiffany Tsao
What are some of the hardest decisions you’ve had to make as a translator?
Having to say no to projects. Sometimes it has to do with timing. Sometimes it has to do with whether or not I feel I’m a good fit for a certain book, a certain voice. Sometimes it has to do with the working conditions offered. Saying yes or no: hands down, it’s the hardest decision I have to make as a translator.
Who do you hold closest in mind when you’re translating – the author or the future reader? Is there a balance to strike between what the author and the audience need?
For Happy Stories, Mostly, it was definitely the author. I wanted to bring Norman’s voice, or at least its essence, as best I could, to an anglophone readership. I didn’t want to conform or twist it in any way – it seemed wrong to do that given the amount of suppression and violence queer individuals already face in the Indonesian context. I wanted to steer clear of that at all costs, even if it came at the cost of so-called “aesthetics”.
But, of course, all translation requires taking a reader into account. That’s why translation exists – to communicate. And to communicate, to some extent you have to be somewhat open to accommodating, even if it’s just adjusting small things. But I also like to create a translation that invites readers themselves to accommodate and adjust to what is being conveyed.
Deepa Bhasthi has talked recently about translating with an accent, about preserving colloquial details and keeping the cadence of the spoken word in its original language. Is this something that resonates with you?
I find rhythm very important. I spent about 30 per cent of my translating time reading sentences over, sometimes under my breath, to see if I’ve managed to achieve a good rhythm. It doesn’t need to be the same as in the original language, but it has to sound right on its own terms. Like a cover of a song, I suppose.
When we last spoke to you, you said the book you hadn’t finished was the one you were writing! How’s that going?
I am happy to report that I’ve finished it! It’s called But Won’t I Miss Me, and will be coming out with HarperVia in May 2026. It takes place in a world where women, when they give birth to children, also birth a new version of themselves who eats their old self and takes their place. The mother-to-be protagonist is fearful, but everyone around her is like, what’s your problem?
How does your translation work shape your own writing, and vice versa?
It’s made me more intentional with my own prose. I think it’s because translating different authors requires you to develop a certain stylistic versatility. When I choose words now, or string sentences together, or select which tense to use, even, I’m much more aware of the mechanics and rhythm of it all.
Where’s your favourite place to read? And your favourite place to write?
I love reading on public transport. There are no distractions, no errands, no task at hand apart from getting from point A to point B. I’m not sure if I have a ‘favourite’ place to write, but I have a place where I write most efficiently: the State Library of New South Wales. During the final throes of completing of my most recent novel and translation project, I would head down to its bottom levels and type and type, breaking only for lunch.
What are you reading right now?
Sailing through Byzantium by Maureen Freely. It does such a brilliant job of capturing how freighted with wonder and danger the world is, as experienced by a child. And an advance review copy of Annah, Infinite by Khairani Barokka, which is just astonishing so far – the way it salvages hope and escape from the historical fact of subjugation and pain!
Do you have a favourite book in the Booker Library, and, if so, what do you love about it?
Let me choose three! From newest to oldest: Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur, for giving my brain the chills, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro for its stark elegance, and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry for its devastating mathematics of tragedy and joy.
Tiffany Tsao
