Back in 2003, a literary magazine, Wasafiri, published an essay by Harry Aveling on his translation process. And in it, Aveling showcased the translation of Aku Ingin, the famous late Sapardi’s poem.
The source text looks like this:
The resultant translation (target) in Aveling’s article appears in this magazine as this:
a: English (target) : I Want : https://www.wasafiri.org/product/wasafiri-issue-40/
It was translated this way, according to Aveling, on the basis of ‘breaks’ in the original poem when reading it aloud.
Other scholars, I believe, like Muscat-Tabakowska, based on her 2018 article, ‘The image of grammar, the grammar of image’, would differ and argue that this translation is Aveling’s mere creative endeavour, and not an accurate, representative translation of Sapardi’s whole Aku Ingin poem.
Alas, this article bound me to follow or investigate Aveling’s treasure of Malay poetry translation, just to analyze his approach.
