Translation in the space between language and image

French-American translator and multidisciplinary artist Olivia Baes speaks with Asymptote about translating Marguerite Duras, the celebrated French writer and filmmaker best known for The Lover, and her decade-long collaboration with Emma Ramadan. The conversation centers on Six Films, a collection in which Duras reworked six of her films into extended prose poems and monologues, creating a hybrid form between literature and cinema. Baes explains that rhythm is central to translating Duras and that she always reads the text aloud to preserve the movement and musical quality of the original in English. She sees Duras's writing as constantly moving between image, voice, literature, and film rather than settling into a fixed form. For Baes, translation itself is a labor of the in-between, a space where languages, artistic disciplines, meanings, and identities continue to transform. The interview also considers the recurring presence of colonialism, desire, memory, and identity in Duras's work. Baes argues that when Duras returns to the same story in another form, she does not simply repeat it but reveals a new dimension. Baes and Ramadan plan to continue their collaboration with a translation of the play Eden Cinema.

Read the full story at Asymptote Journal →