Almond(46)
And lastly, thank you to my editors at the Changbi Young Adult department, Jeong Soyoung and Kim Youngseon. You are my first friends in this new, unknown world. I am sorry if I made your work difficult at any point. It was an honor to have worked with you both.
I am not the kind of person to be actively involved in social issues. I just try to dig up stories in my heart through writing. I sincerely hope that this novel has moved people to reach out to those wounded, especially the young minds who still have great potential in them. I know this is a big thing to wish for, but I wish for it nonetheless. Children long to be loved but at the same time they give the most love. We were once all like that. I have written on the first page of this book the name of the person I love the most, the person who has given me even more love.
Spring 2017
Won-pyung Sohn
A Note From the Translator
“Luck plays a huge part in all the unfairness of the world. Even more than you’d expect.”
When I translated these sentences from Almond back in 2018, I had no idea I would have experienced the power of luck myself, but in a completely opposite way. It’s a rarity for Korean literature to be published in English, let alone a debut novel. Translating it was purely out of my enjoyment and half out of pressure to turn it in for a workshop. Never would I have imagined that my translation would lead to a meeting with my now-agent, Barbara Zitwer, and Won-pyung herself! And the rest is history. As much as luck plays in Yunjae’s unfair world, translating his journey has given me a series of perfectly timed coincidences of luck by many helping hands who “discovered beauty” in this story. To that, as selfish as it sounds, I am grateful for Yunjae and Gon and all their misfortunes.
Portraying the series of horrific events in Yunjae’s uniquely detached voice was a challenge though, especially when lining up his next to those of the other characters who are full of emotion and life, including Gon. I needed to make conscious word choices that Yunjae and Gon would use so they could equally come alive in their own unique ways, based on the context and emotional distance set from the original.
My focus for Yunjae, specifically, was ensuring he consistently sounds emotionally removed but not dull, and as a bibliophile, not less articulate in expressing his limited emotions and observations. On top of that, as Yunjae’s emotional ability develops throughout the book, I wanted to show his growth through language and bridge his emotional distance. The same goes for Gon, but in the opposite way—his complex emotions needed to be in a much simpler tone due to his lack of vocabulary, not to mention his harsh language. I remember listing different swearwords for him. Surprisingly, this clash and mix of different voices are what make Almond fascinating to read, and for me, fascinating to translate.
In a similar vein, my other struggle was staying true to the original intent. As I made decisions between literal and liberal translation as I saw fit, I sometimes got carried away by certain word choices or phrases that might not necessarily point to the right intent. I remember having to tone down Yunjae’s description of his almond routine because of the word from the original, “climax.” I tried to stay vigilant not to read into the context more than what the original offers and sometimes this necessitated outside opinions. I am a reader of the book before a translator, and being a close reader, my take on the relationship between Yunjae and Gon was more than a simple friendship. There was a fine line between their love as friends and as something that transcends the conventions of friendship. As much as I valued my read of the original context, I needed to make sure as a translator my take was not overstepping the intentions of the original context. For that, I was very fortunate to have a support system of peer bilingual translators at Smoking Tigers, not to mention the thoughtful guidance from the very author, Won-pyung.
Because, to Yunjae, love is not confined in a box—he did not have any box, to begin with. I hope the English readers will feel the same rush of emotions from Yunjae’s almond as I did.