Farewell to translator André Gabastou by Enrique Vila-Matas – Libération

2023-11-14 19:11:26

The Béarnais, one of the best and finest in his profession, died on November 11, translated great contemporary Spanish-language authors, notably Enrique Vila-Matas. This pays homage to him by making him a character in his world.

I can only speak of André, an exceptional man and translator, in very complimentary terms. So many years of close collaboration (he translated twelve of my books) had given him a very detailed knowledge of my style and he acted as a creator who was infinitely superior to me. He easily resolved what disturbed so many others: for example the proliferation, in my texts, of true or false quotes. Better still, he had a method as mysterious as it was infallible for obtaining, for each translation problem, an automatic improvement of the original. I discovered it one day when, absently leafing through a cultural supplement, I came across an isolated sentence, called out, which caught my attention. I mentioned this anecdote again at the House of Poetry, a month ago, in the presence of Tiphaine Samoyault, Manuela Corigliano and André Gabastou himself. Perhaps because it touched on a theme that was particularly dear to me, I said, this sentence seemed to me written with a rhythm elegant enough to arouse envy, and I went so far as to think that I would have loved being the author of a composition where the words were so well chosen, and the order of the subordinate clauses, so incredibly harmonious.

They were words from another world, although they seemed to come from mine. I had barely said this when I discovered that the sentence was signed by me and taken from one of my novels, in Gabastou’s brilliant translation. That day, I understood why I had such good readers in France and why France had given me such a warm welcome.

The day after the evening at the House of Poetry, I met André again. It was in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and that was the last time we saw each other. A slow and peaceful conversation, at Les Deux Magots, about our mutual admiration for the novels of Bernardo Atxaga, the great Basque writer whom he so often translated, and also about Béarn, Gabastou’s native land and land of his ancestors by the Argentinian Bioy Casares whose book written in collaboration with Silvina Ocampo, Those who love, hate, was his first translation from Spanish: “The novel seemed so pleasant to me that I offered to translate it to the legendary Christian Bourgois, who immediately accepted.” Bioy Casares was, like Jules Supervielle, originally from Oloron-Sainte-Marie, which, in a certain way, kept Gabastou in the great brotherhood of the Béarnais (a brotherhood less real than fantasy).

And I remember that twice he deflected the question of what illness had led him to literally disappear for so long. He turned her away, or he didn’t hear her, but I rather believe he evaded her. Mentally, he was in good shape. Without me asking him, he immediately informed me – and I believe very deliberately – that he spent his free time reading Balzac or Proust. It didn’t seem like goodbye, but today it feels like one. “Sacred Gabastou!”

Enrique Vila-Matas wrote, at Actes Sud, Montevideo, translated by André Gabastou (Actes Sud). Read Release of September 15, 2023.