Le goulag des mots The Word Gulag

Le goulag des mots

            Un nouveau goulag s'est ouvert. C'est le goulag des mots.
 
           Je m'y rends chaque semaine avec mon sac à provisions où je mets
quelques fruits de saison, une savonnette et deux boîtes de lait concentré. J'appelle un détenu au hasard et je vais attendre au parloir avec la foule gesticulante des visiteurs. Les mots sortent en file indienne d'une petite porte et se mettent devant nous de l'autre côté des grilles. Pâles. Tremblants. Hagards. Brisés.
 
            – Parlez maintenant, ordonne le gardien qui circule dans le couloir qui nous sépare, en tapant sur les grilles avec de grosses clés.
 
            Mais personne n'obéit. Les mots, parce qu'on leur a visiblement cassé la mâchoire. Les visiteurs, car ils découvrent subitement – ils auraient dû s'en douter plus tôt – que le goulag leur a pris leurs meilleurs mots.
 
            – La visite est terminée, crie le gardien en tirant un rideau que nous n'avions pas vu auparavant.
 
            Quelques mots à peine audibles fusent à ce moment-là, on ne sait de quel côté des grilles. Probablement des formules d'adieu.
 

The Word Gulag

            They've opened a new gulag. The word gulag.
 
            I go there every week, taking with me a shopping bag containing some
fresh fruit, a bar of soap and a couple of tins of condensed milk. I call to a prisoner at random, then wait in the visitors' room with the gesturing crowd. The words file one by one out of a little door and stand in front of us on the other side of the wire. Pale. Trembling. Haggard. Shattered.
 
            Talk! barks the guard as he patrols the corridor that divides us, banging the grill with his keys.
 
            No one responds. Not the words because their jaws are visibly broken. Nor the visitors because, as they suddenly realise - they really should have got this earlier - the gulag has taken away their best words.
 
           Visit's over, the guard shouts, drawing a curtain we hadn't noticed before.
 
           Some barely audible words burst out, from which side of the grill no one could tell. Probably words of goodbye.
 
           
 

The Word Gulag

            A new gulag has opened. It's the word gulag.
            I go there every week with a satchel full of provisions, inside which I place some seasonal fruits, a bar of soap and two tins of condensed milk. I call up a prisoner randomly and go wait in the visiting room along with the gesticulating crowd of visitors. The words come out single file out of a little door and come stand in front of us on the other side of the wire grill. Pale. Trembling. Distraught. Shattered.
 
            – Speak now, the guard orders us, pacing up and down the corridor that separates us, tapping on the grill with his large keys.
 
            But nobody obeyed. The words didn't because their jaws had been visibly broken. The visitors because as they immediately discovered – they should have figured it out sooner – had had their best words taken away from them by the gulag.
 
            – The visit is over, the guard shouted, pulling a curtain that nobody had seen before.
 
            Some barely audible words came out at that moment, no one could tell from which side of the grill. They were probably words of goodbye/parting formulas.
 

Abdellatif Laâbi spent many years in prison so this powerful, small prose poem is written from personal experience.

Translating a prose poem is a very different process from translating a poem. The key thing is getting the syntax right – not that syntax doesn’t matter in a poem, but in a prose poem syntax is what structures the poem.

In French, this poem sounds very colloquial; its bare understatement is what gives the poem its force, so trying to make the synatax sound as ‘natural’ as possible in our version, is what took up most of our time.

We also – as always – spent a lot of time discussing the title. The literal translation of the French title is ‘the gulag of words’ but, of course, that sounds very awkward in English. So we went with ‘The Word Gulag’ because of its ambiguity: it can mean ‘the gulag of words’, ‘the word-gulag’ and ‘the word “gulag”‘.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator

Original Poem by

Abdellatif Laâbi

Translated by

André Naffis-Sahely with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

French

Country

Morocco