Vincent O. Carter’s “Amerigo Jones”: a multi-layered contemporary document
Published: Tuesday, May 21st 2024, 11:20
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Vincent O. Carter's posthumously published novel "Such Sweet Thunder" has been translated into German by Pociao and Roberto de Hollanda. It is being published under the title "Amerigo Jones" to mark the author's 100th birthday. A conversation about the challenges of translating it into German.
Actually, said Roberto de Hollanda, a book like "Amerigo Jones" is untranslatable. Nevertheless, together with his wife Pociao, he set about the seemingly impossible. The novel by Vincent O. Carter (1924-1983) is now being published in German for the first time.
Vincent O. Carter grew up in the black ghetto of Kansas City, Missouri, as the son of young parents. He was drafted into the US army in 1944 and was stationed in France. He studied in the USA, but then returned to Europe and spent long periods in Paris, Munich and Amsterdam before settling in Bern in the early 1950s. In Switzerland, he wrote, hosted radio programs, taught English, painted and meditated.
Carter completed the manuscript of "Such Sweet Thunder" in 1963 and the novel was first published posthumously in 2003. In it, he describes a childhood in Kansas City during the 1920s and 1930s, an era characterized by racial segregation and everyday injustice.
Three versions of a text
The translator couple Pociao and Roberto de Hollanda took nine months to work on "Amerigo Jones". De Hollanda wrote a pre-translation, his wife edited this text and changed what she wanted to change, as he told the Keystone-SDA news agency. In the end, the two worked together on a third version.
Amerigo Jones is an autobiographical character. He loves his parents Rutherford and Viola, who were still teenagers themselves when he was born. And Jones is a big dreamer. However, many of his dreams will remain unfulfilled for the rest of his life, not only, but above all, because of the color of his skin.
For the translators, in addition to empathizing with a historical setting, the challenge was that the text was written in Vernacular, a unique dialect. "So we had to create a suitable, unpretentious, unobtrusive language," explained Roberto de Hollanda. An artificial language.
The two tried to "invent something that reflects the emotionality". They combined words, omitted words and sometimes played with grammar. The couple read passages of text to each other to hear what worked and what didn't.
One example:
"The nine o'clock siren wailed.
'Mom told me to come back up at nine.
'Then you'd better go now,' she said, smiling sadly. She
wanted to kiss him, but he quickly bent down for the leaf, on
that he had drawn the man on the tree, and ran to the
out the door without looking back."
"Interesting contemporary document"
The Kansas City of "Amerigo Jones" was also the center of jazz. There are various allusions to the jazz greats of the time. The book is dedicated to Duke Ellington, for example. Or: in the passage quoted above, Carter refers to the bitter image that Billy Holiday sang about in 1939 in the song "Strange Fruit" - and whose title has become synonymous with the lynching of American blacks.
With this in mind, Roberto de Hollanda said: "The novel is an incredibly interesting contemporary document." He was also referring to formal aspects. "We find different styles in it, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism." For example, the dreams of Amerigo Jones, with which he "shifts space and time". That was "quite modern for the time". Or that dead people, for example his uncle, speak like normal characters. That also interested her as a translator.
In addition, family and community play an important role in "Amerigo Jones", often on several levels. "Sometimes it's difficult to get into it," said de Hollanda. He is aware of parallels with another famous emigrant of the time: "Carter is sometimes reminiscent of James Joyce!"
The Bern Book
A less demanding read for readers is Vincent O. Carter's "The Bern Book", with the German title "Meine weisse Stadt und ich. The Bern Book" (2021) . In it, the writer describes his early days in Bern, which were both irritating and fascinating for him. As one of the few black people in Bern at the time, Carter not only felt uncomfortable in the "foreign country with the marshmallow language". He is astonished and provides an extraordinarily complex portrait of urban Switzerland in the 1950s.
Pociao and Roberto de Hollanda have also translated this book. They traveled to Bern, walked the streets and alleyways and spoke to Liselotte Haas, who is now 90 years old. She was Carter's partner and is the executor of his estate. Just a few days ago, also on the occasion of Vincent O. Carter's 100th birthday on June 23, she and literary agent Katharina Atlas handed over Carter's entire estate to the Swiss Literary Archives (SLA) in Bern.
What Carter says about Switzerland in his Bern book is also a highly exciting contemporary document, said de Hollanda. "He captured the atmosphere beautifully," he said, "and we grew to like him more and more."
And "Amerigo Jones"? It was translatable in the end. The novel and first-hand account will be published on May 23.
*This text by Nina Kobelt, Keystone-SDA, was realized with the help of the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation
©Keystone/SDA
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