Victor Morozov: I translated “Playboy” and the horror book “The Exorcist” before Harry Potter

Ukrainian musician Viktor Morozov about how he went abroad, why he turned into translators and why he never reads the books that he translates beforehand. ForumDaily met with the author of many translations of JK Rowling, children's writers Jeremy Strong, Roaldo Dahl and Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho in Washington, where Morozov recently moved with his family.

I understand that you are already preparing to translate the eighth book of Harry Potter?

This is not exactly the eighth book, but a separate work - a play that JK Rowling wrote, it seems, with two more screenwriters. And there the main characters are already older, that is, as if “20 years later”. There will be a premiere of the play and at the same time a book will be released - “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”.

And when to wait for the Ukrainian translation?

And the translation will come when the text is given - JK Rowling never gives the text in advance. This problem also existed with previous Harry Potter books - all translators had to wait until the original was released, and only after that they got access to the text. All writers and their agents always give texts to translators in advance, except for JK Rowling - she stubbornly resisted for some reason. Maybe her agents think this will somehow affect sales of the original - I don't know.

That is, you will begin work on the book, only when the original text appears on the shelves?

The publishers are now negotiating with Rowling's agents and hope that this time she will have mercy and give the text earlier. But so far there are no results.

Is it hard to work with her?

It is not known how to work with her, because she does not want to work with anyone. She is such a loner, unlike, for example, Coelho: he is a party animal. She doesn’t communicate with anyone - she sits and writes, and there is no access to her. We have an online group of Harry Potter translators, and many complained that when during the translation process they tried to reach her, for example, to clarify some detail in the book, it was all to no avail.

But did you receive “instructions” how and what to translate?

Yes, when I started working on the first book, JK Rowling's agents sent us a huge list - 20 or 25 pages - which was very clear about what we could do and what we couldn't do. For example: Harry Potter's name should have remained the same. Therefore, I could no longer translate it as “Nazar Gonchar”. It’s the same story with all the main characters - I left all the proper names as they were in the original. The only thing I could do was change the name where it sounded very complicated in English. For example, Hermione’s cat’s name is “Crookshence” and it would be very difficult to persuade him. That’s why the cat in our translation became “Crookedfoot”.

“I never read a book in advance, I translate sentence by sentence”

You have translated the last, seventh book first in the world ...

Yes, even the Financial Times wrote about it: that the Ukrainians were the first to make their transfer. That is, we have overtaken not only the Russian version, but also all the others, in principle.

And how much did you work on it?

The translation itself (and the book is thick!) Took six weeks. I calculated how many pages there were, and determined for myself that every day I have to translate 15 pages. But for this I had to get up at 6 in the morning and go to bed from three in the morning. And so a half month.

Did the publisher give you these deadlines?

No, we decided this together. You see, how “Harry Potter” began: I translated “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, I liked it, and I began to think about what to take on next. We consulted with Motrey’s wife, and she said: how about you translate something for teenagers? It was the late 90s - early 2000s, and then there was little literature for this audience, both original and translated. We even thought about translating Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and then “Harry Potter” caught my eye—so I took it up. I started translating, and then the first film based on the book was about to be released, and there was no Russian translation yet. I thought: yeah, the film will come out, children will start looking for the book everywhere, there is no Russian translation, and if we have time and make a Ukrainian one, they will start reading it. And now there will be such a Ukrainization through “Harry Potter” - I had such a fixed idea.

But it was not so easy?

Yes, because I was looking for a publisher for a year. At that time, the Internet was not yet so developed, and no one in Ukraine knew about this book. I first turned to Lviv’s “Classic” publishing house, which previously published my translation of “The Alchemist”. But they replied that they are not engaged in children's literature. Then I remembered Ivan Malkovich (director of the publishing house “Ababagalamaga”, which published all the books about Harry Potter in Ukraine - ForumDaily), he is an old friend of mine, and suggested it to him. He hadn't heard anything about the book either. He kept asking me what the book was about. I answered that this is a story about a boy wizard. What, magic? - he reacted. “No,” he says, “I don’t want to publish something like that, I’m a Christian.” It took me a year to convince him.

How did you convince?

Yes, this: talked, talked. I did not just read the book, my entire translation was ready.

That is, you translated without any order for yourself?

Yes, for myself, as a hobby. And only then did he start looking for a publisher. Now say that someone has been looking for a publisher for a year to publish “Harry Potter” - they will decide that this is, in principle, impossible. When I finally convinced Malkovich, long negotiations began with JK Rowling's agents. As a result, we missed two years, and during this time several books have already been published in Russian. We had to catch up - and only from the fifth book did we finally do it. We have set ourselves the goal of translating as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Did your publisher have a lot of comments on your first translation?

First, no one believed that I translated. The same Malkovich knew that I was a musician. And when I brought the translation, he was very skeptical of him. He also selected editors and offered to write that this is a translation of a whole team of editors. That is, at first it was difficult.

But you knew the whole plot in advance - this is probably one of the positive aspects of being a translator?

Not certainly in that way. My translation technique, which I would not advise anyone to use, is that I never read anything in advance, otherwise I will simply be bored. If I read a book in its entirety, then sitting down and translating what you already know is very difficult.

That is, translate into sections?

No, this is how I read and how I translate. By the proposal. And then I get involved and wonder, what will happen next? And there is an incentive to work. Of course, then I had to correct something when I knew the entire context. But on the other hand, all the translators of “Harry Potter” were in a similar position - after all, there are only seven books, and when translating the first, no one knew what would happen in the second; while translating the second, no one knew what would happen in the third. And there were often mistakes, for example, “professor so-and-so.” But it is not written whether it is he or she. And you translate intuitively, and then after a couple of books it turns out that the professor is a woman after all.

The same goes for the name. Here is the last part in English: Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows, where hallows is a very polysemantic word, and if you don’t know what it’s about, it’s very difficult to guess the correct meaning. And she (Joanne Rowling - ForumDaily) did not give anyone the text! Publishers of all countries required the translation of the title - in order to begin advertising. And then there were a lot of errors in the translations.

Did you just guess?

Yes, I called it “Deadly Relics” - and it turned out that it was correct. On intuition.

As a result, did Ukrainization succeed through Potter?

Yes, we received many letters from Eastern and Southern Ukraine, in which Russian-speaking parents wrote that, behold, the child read a book in Ukrainian, and he liked it so much! He now wants only Ukrainian books to read! And in general, he came up and asked: Mom and Dad, why do not we speak Ukrainian? That is, the result was.

I started translating “The Alchemist” by Coelho just for myself.”

With Paulo Coelho, as I understand it, the story was similar: did you also first translate a book and then only looked for a publisher?

Yes, one of my friends gave me “The Alchemist” to read in English, and I liked it. I started asking Ukrainian writers if they knew anything about the author - but no one heard anything. Again, the Internet was not yet very developed, information arrived slowly. And I started translating for myself, out of curiosity.

How did the book get to the publisher?

A funny story happened - I was living in Canada at the time, and on one of my visits to Lviv I was interviewed, during which I briefly remembered that I was now translating Coelho’s novel. And that’s it - I went to Toronto again and forgot about this interview, but it fell into the hands of the director of the Classics publishing house. By that time, he had already learned about the book from somewhere and even ordered the Ukrainian version from another translator. He contacted me to find out what stage I was at. I knew that he already had a translator, and I decided—may heaven forgive me—that I needed to bluff. By that time I had translated 10 or 15 pages, but I replied that I was almost finishing the book. Moreover, I assured him that I was translating from Portuguese, which I knew well. Although I didn’t know him at all and read the English translation.

Did the publisher believe you right away?

Yes, and gave the order to me. Therefore, I began to work quickly and took the original in Portuguese to verify the text. Fortunately, Coelho writes easily, and Portuguese is also a Romance language. But through my pseudo-knowledge of Portuguese, I got into difficult situations a couple more times.

Have you been exposed in the end?

Almost. I was at a publishers’ forum in Lviv when some scientist approached me with a request to translate a book on the history of Portugal. I had to quickly refuse, citing workload. And the second situation is that every year at Christmas Coelho wrote little Christmas stories and sent them to all the countries where his books were published. I also sent it to the Lvov publishing house. So, they call me and say that I urgently need to translate a short story for tomorrow. I answer, okay, send it, but I thought it was in English! And then - oops! – Portuguese. That's when I had to puff.

Did you meet Coelho personally?

Yes, and more than once. First, in Moscow, at a book fair, there was some kind of meeting with him. My wife and I didn’t even know how to approach him, and decided to convey through his agent who I was and that we wanted to meet him. And then the following story happens: the agent tells Coelho about us, he suddenly turns in our direction - and so loudly: Victor, Victor! And then he starts hugging me, as if we were old friends and had met again after many years of separation. This is such a broad Brazilian soul. The Moscow crowd was in shock: who is this? Why does Coelho treat him this way?

And then he came to Lvov - to the Publishers Forum. There was such a pretentious, grand opening, he sat and was bored. I asked Malkovich to find me and organize something more interesting. I recommended the kolyba and said that after the performance I would join them. And so at the forum they announce “our special guest Paulo Coelho,” but he is not there, he is already in the cradle. There, by the way, I taught him to express himself in our own way. He asked me some words - so I told him “whore-mother”, so he repeated this constantly afterwards.

The first translations were Playboy magazine and the horror book The Exorcist.

“The Alchemist” - was this your first translation? Did Coelho retrain you from a musician to a translator?

My first translation attempts were much earlier. Probably in the early 80s. Then there was the Soviet Union, where sex, of course, did not exist, and erotic literature did not exist either. And then one day they brought Playboy from abroad - well, all the young guys looked at the pictures first. And then - there are a lot of articles there, but in English, and what is written about is interesting. So I translated for them.

Then there was this situation: we went on tour to India, and at that time the bestseller “The Exorcist” was published - about how the devil is driven out of a girl. Of course, there was no book in the Union, but in India I went and bought this book in English. In the evening after the tour I started reading, and there were such terrible things that I didn’t even turn off the light in the room. Therefore, I decided to translate the book and give it to the guys from the troupe to read, so that they wouldn’t be the only ones afraid. So then this book, or rather an excerpt, was even published in the Literary Journal, and this was the first publication of a horror novel in the entire USSR.

You have a wide geography - you lived in Lvov, Kyiv, Toronto. Now in Washington. How did you end up here?

My wife was transferred to work here. She works in an international financial corporation from the World Bank. At first 10 worked in Kiev for years, and now it has been transferred.

Your wife is from the Canadian diaspora. How did you find a friend?

We went to Canada with a theater-studio “Don't Zuris”. The hall was huge, more than two thousand people. After the concert, familiar Ukrainian Canadians approached me and introduced their daughter, Motru. And I immediately say: so it was you who were sitting in the second row! She was amazed that from the whole hall I noticed her. And that's how it all began.

Did you leave the Soviet Union so easily on tour to Canada?

Of course not. It was the end of the 80s, and our repertoire was sharp political satire. And in principle, then it was possible to go on tour only under the supervision of the “Ukraine” organization, and a journalist was always assigned to the group - that is, an undercover KGB officer. And we decided to go on our own. Visas were opened through the Canadian embassy in Moscow. Quietly so that no one knows. Then there was such a situation that everyone had several foreign passports, but it’s true that we had 5-6 of them. We knew that if we left the country immediately with a visa to Canada, they wouldn’t let us through. Therefore, we entered Poland using one passport, and boarded the plane from Warsaw using a different one. We were stopped at passport control and asked how we got to Poland in the first place. Because we showed a passport with a Canadian visa, and the Polish one was not there. But a beautiful young Ukrainian woman was traveling with us - she spoke to the officer in such a way that he let us through.

So the romance with your wife began at a distance?

She visited Ukraine, we also met in Germany - she came there secretly from her parents, and we also corresponded. Fortunately, at that time there was a company called “Most”, which transferred mail from Lvov to Toronto, and vice versa. We wrote letters to each other every day and communicated everything once a week. So, we have a whole mountain of them - we met in 1989, and got married in 1997.

And all the letters saved?

Yes, we will sometime reread.

What language do you read books to your daughters?

I’m now reading “Harry Potter” to them in Ukrainian. In the evening, before bed, chapter by chapter. We're only on the third book now. Until they were five years old (Viktor Morozov has twin girls), we lived in Kyiv, and they did not speak English at all. We didn't teach specifically. Just like my wife - although she was born in Toronto, she did not speak English until she was 5 years old. Her parents specifically spoke to her only in Ukrainian in order to lay the foundation of the language. That's why she now speaks the language. We also decided to speak Ukrainian with our daughters first. Therefore, when they arrived in Washington, they did not speak a single word of English. But now, of course, they have rebuilt, and we have the same problem as everyone else here - now it’s difficult to preserve Ukrainian.

And what do you tell daughters about who they are - American or Ukrainian?

This is a difficult question - they are American-Canadian-Ukrainian. They were born in America, their parents are Canadians (I also have a Canadian passport), and Ukrainian women are by birth.

What are you working on now?

I have a lot of translations, but these are adult books. But I prefer translating children's books. Adults have complex sentences, abstruse words, but strength lies in simplicity.

Eighth "Potter" will also try to translate before anyone else?

Have to. Wish she (Joanne Rowling - ForumDaily) It doesn’t give the text in advance - I would have already started translating. And so - in the summer, instead of relaxing in the sun, I will work again. I hoped she wouldn't write any more books (laughs)