Jose Saramago is probably the most famous Portuguese novelist, and he's considered one of the great novelists in the world. In the view of Margaret Jull Costa, the woman who translates his novels into English, he is "a late starter who just may be a late finisher as well.
"He is a remarkable man, currently a vigorous 82. I can imagine him writing into his 90s."
Costa spoke by phone from her home in Leicester, England, where she is hard at work on Saramago's next novel, "Essay on Elucidity," a title certain to be changed when it appears in English. It is, said Costa, "a companion piece to Saramago's earlier work, 'Blindness,' and has some of the same characters."
The Saramago novel she hopes everyone is reading now is "The Double," about a history teacher who accidentally discovers there is a man who bears a surprising exact resemblance to himself.
Saramago's first novel was "The Land of Sin," published in 1947, but he didn't write a second until 1977 — "Manual of Painting and Calligraphy." The reason for the long period of silence, said Saramago, was he had "nothing to say."
For a writer whose mind is filled with proverbs, most of them unfamiliar to Americans, that is hard to believe. And he has more than made up for it since, writing eight additional novels, among them, "The History of the Siege of Lisbon," "The Cave" and "All the Names," for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
Costa has read all of Saramago's books. "I go through them so many times — at least 10 times. A good writer is telling you what word to use through a strong narrative voice. But it has to pass through my imagination to have conviction behind it."
Of the many Saramago books for which Costa has been translator, her favorite is "All the Names," because, she said, "It is the most vividly imagined, it is very gripping, the central character is so touching and beautifully realized."
Costa loves translating and does it full-time. And she has her work mapped out through the end of 2006 — Spanish and Portuguese manuscripts by various authors.
She creates at least 10 drafts of each manuscript in her effort to achieve perfection. It takes her about four months to complete her work on a novel, although she tries to space the project over eight months, so she has time to "leave it aside and get some distance," then go back and put the finishing touches on it.
"I produce as good a text as I can," Costa said. "If it needed a lot of editing, I would feel I didn't do my job. If you feel involved in his novels, it is because Saramago is a beautiful novelist. He is a self-educated, humble man of great curiosity. He gets an idea and he wants to follow it up. He is very interested in politics. He is strongly against determinism. He believes we make our own lives and can't blame our character flaws on other people."
Costa feels tremendous responsibility to the author, even though it is the publisher who actually hires her. For her difficult work she is paid modestly and gets little recognition, mostly never seeing her name on the cover with that of the author. Critics, she said, rarely notice a translator is involved, and if they do, and see a flaw, they are inclined to attribute it to the translator.
The idea is to "convey the intentions of the author and the sound of his voice," Costa said. Although she considers her work very creative, "it is a different kind of creativity than that used by the novelist. He must create something out of nothing."
A native of England, Costa studied English at Leeds University, earning a Fulbright scholarship to Stanford, where she took a master's in Spanish and Portuguese. "Reading a great deal as a young person helped me, and I have always been interested in language and writing. Translation is the pleasure of writing. If you don't feel the joy of translation, you shouldn't do it."
Besides Saramago, she has translated the novels of Antonio Tabucchi, Octave Mirbeau, Eca de Queiros and Javier Marias. Costa said it was the latter who best prepared her to translate the "idiosyncratic" writing style of Saramago. Both authors have a tendency to write long sentences with very little punctuation.
In a paper she gave at King's College in London when Saramago was awarded his Nobel Prize, she asserted that Saramago uses only small amounts of punctuation because he wants to "reproduce speech rhythms on the page" — it must have "the right music."
For friends who have trouble reading his work, Saramago has advised them to "read it out loud." Costa maintains that while translating his work, she continually reads "the English text out loud."
This is essential she said because "the rhythm of the sentences often also carries the sense." The ultimate product must "reproduce that seductively seamless quality."
Costa said that what she cherishes most about Saramago's novels is "their absolute affirmation of life and love."
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com